Blonde Venus

views updated

Blonde Venus ★★★½ 1932

A German cafe singer marries an Englishman, but their marriage hits the skids when he contracts radiation poisoning and she gets a nightclub job to pay the bills. Sternberg's and Dietrich's fourth film together, and characteristically beautiful, though terribly strange. Dietrich's cabaret number “Hot Voodoo,” in a gorilla suit and blonde afro, attains new heights in early Hollywood surrealism. 94m/B VHS, DVD . Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant, Dickie Moore, Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Toler; D: Josef von Sternberg.