THE BLUE ANGEL

[charliechaplinfan]

I've seen the English Version of The Blue Angel twice over the last 5 years. It's one of the very best of the early talkies and a film in which we see Marlene Dietrich starting on a her way to stardom. I didn't even know the German version existed until I watched the Marlene documentary that Maxmilliam Schell produced. The first thing that makes it stand out is it's length, it's about 20 minutes longer than the English version, into this 20 minutes are packed more of the subtilties of the story, particularly the Professors emergance of suitor for Lola Lola's hand and his descent to despair.

For anyone not fimiliar with the story, Emil Jannings plays Professor Immanuel Rath, a lecturer at the local college, he has little rapport with the people around him, particularly the boys in his class, they tease him mercilessly and when he finds postcards in his favorite pupils books he decided to go to the night club The Blue Angel to confront Lola Lola, the object of the boys affections. The scenes in the Blue Angel where Marlene sings are iconic, Falling in Love Again and Blonde Women are sung bawdily and lustfully in German. Once in the nightclub Professor Rath has no idea how to behave, finds some of his boys but ends up staying out of curiosity and attraction whilst Lola Lola makes up. He comes back the next night and gets in an altercation with a sailor who has come back with champagne for Lola Lola, he defends her honour, something that doesn't happen in the nightclub world and the police are called, hiding beneath the floor Rath discovers some of his pupils. Once the police have left, Rath drinks champagne and a potent cocktail of drink and is led to the best seat in the house whilst Lola Loa sings to him. The next morning he is not in his lodgings but wakes up in Lola's bed. At breakfast she teases him, he's not the calibre of man she is used to, he amuses her although we never think she is very serious about him. He is dismissed from his job for his behaviour at the Blue Angel and promptly goes and proposes to Lola Lola, very sweetly after already telling the school principle she's his future wife.

[charliechaplinfan]

The wedding is more like a lunch after a funeral. The touring company is glad to have the gravitas of a professor among them. Things soon deteriorate, Rath no longer cares about his appearance, his pride has gone and Rath's job is selling photos of his wife, he's not very good at it either. We fast forward 4 years and he is a dishevelled clown, existing in an stifling life, he's tried to get away from the life but cannot break free. The company go back to the Blue Angel and quite cruelly he receives top billing, the Blue Angel is full of people who've come to see their Professor Rath. Unwilling to go on stage but unable to leave he's forced on stage and stands paralysed unable to move as the conjurers act gets more and more humiliating. When he gets strength to leave he goes mad trying to strangle Lola. He's put in a straight jacket and when released goes back to the college and dies clutching his desk.

The full humiliation os not in the English version, I can't remember the conjurer's act or the strangling of Lola. Neither can I remember the return visit Rath pays to Lola before their marriage or the sailor.

This is Jannings starring vehicle yet we all know Marlene stole it from him, partly because of the strength of her own screen presence and partly because of the character of Lola Lola. You can't hate Lola, she's from a different world, perhaps she thought she might be happier with Rath because he was different and did treat her with respect. The happiness in the marriage didn't last long and neither did the money Rath had because he's soon selling postcards. Which leads me to believe that in the German version he wasn't fired from his job straight away, there was an investigation but we don't see him fired. The outcome is the same in both films, he ends up helping with the troop, not earning very much and being accused off living off his wife. His humiliation is utterly complete when the troop return to the Blue Angel.

Jannings is very good as Rath, his professor is an odditiy, ill at ease in most situations who married for the right reasons and was destroyed becuase he lost more than his sense of pride, he never really had the woman he married and didn't fit at all with the troop. He liked them when they were proud of him, a professor but that soon becomes 'teach' and is used as a humiliation.

Does anyone else love this film like I do.

[MichiganJ]

I much prefer the German version. There are some subtle differences in dialogue as well as a bit more sexuality and I think both Jannings and Dietrich are visibly more comfortable speaking German and therefore give better performances.

[Ann Harding]

I didn't even know there was an English version of Der blaue Engel! Over here on TV, they always show the German version.

[JackFavell]

I haven't seen it in years.... and I was far too young to appreciate anything but the striking presence of Dietrich.

Thank you, thank you for your post, you have made me want to go back and watch with an adult eye.

[charliechaplinfan]

There are far more subtleties in the German, even though Jannings had spent time in America I don't think he was comfortable speaking in English. There is more sexuality and Lola Lola's role is more defined in the German version, in the English version she is a musical hall star and we use our imagination for what else she may be. In the German version the fact that she may share a bottle of champagne and perhaps something else with a punter is approached directly. This seems to be obvious to everyone apart from Rath, who although he sees the ship's captains motives are not pure ones doesn't seem to realise that Lola is anything but a artist or maybe is he does but sees himself as her salvation and once they are married and his brand of salvation is rejected he becomes disillusioned with the life and the wife he has chosen.

His humiliation is be far the greater in the German version, it's more prolonged, in the English version he wanders off to the school after being taunted by Lola who has a suitor, in the German he is humiliated both by Lola and on stage as he is foil for the conjuror.

When he crows at his wedding, playing it up for the surrounding audience and behaving so differently from the Rath we have known, it's disturbing to watch because we can see the decay of his pride starting. Only after we see his slide and how the magic trick and crowing in front of the Blue Angel audience do we realise how complete his humiliation.

Was it false pride that made him not doubt for one moment his good intentions towards Lola Lola or was niaviety the source of his downfall? At no point do I ever feel that he gets any satisfaction or security from his union with Lola Lola.