Blonde Venus
Short description
Helen, a German cabaret performer, gives up the stage to marry Ned Faraday, an American chemist. When Ned falls ill from radium exposure during his research, the couple cannot cover the cost of the treatment he needs in Europe. Helen returns to performing as "Blonde Venus," drawing large audiences and the attention of Nick Townsend, a wealthy politician who becomes her patron and more. Ned's eventual return, and what he learns about her life during his absence, sets the marriage on a collision course.
Marlene Dietrich plays Helen, with Herbert Marshall as Ned and Cary Grant as Nick. Josef von Sternberg directs and produces, working from a screenplay he wrote with Jules Furthman and S.K. Lauren. The film follows Shanghai Express in Sternberg's filmography and is the fifth of the features he directed in the early 1930s, most of them starring Dietrich.
Paramount released the drama in September 1932, and it runs 93 minutes. Ratings place it in solid regard without ranking among the director's most celebrated titles: it holds a 7.1 rating on IMDb from around 6,300 votes, a 7.1 from critics across roughly 60 reviews, and a 6.8 on TMDB from about 150 votes. The critics' score and the IMDb figure align closely, while the smaller TMDB sample is slightly lower.
What's left behind the scenes
- According to Cary Grant (who played Nick Townsend), the director, screenwriter, and producer Josef von Sternberg didn't pester him too much with instructions during filming, but he did teach him an important lesson. On the very first day on set, von Sternberg looked at Grant and remarked that he needed a part in his hair on the other side. Grant combed his hair as instructed, and from then on, he always parted his hair on the side von Sternberg had suggested.
- Josef von Sternberg is mentioned among the screenwriters, but the script was actually written by Marlene Dietrich, who played Helene. Dietrich agreed that her name would not appear in the credits in this capacity because she feared trouble regarding the "Hays Code." Her fears were justified: when the film's plot was presented to the censors, Dietrich and von Sternberg did indeed run into trouble. However, the film was successfully "edited" to satisfy the censors. By the start of filming, both Dietrich and von Sternberg had lost interest in the project and showed little enthusiasm.
- On April 26, 1935, Paramount announced that it was suspending the filming of all movies featuring Marlene Dietrich because the actress had breached her contractual obligations (she refused to finish filming one of the movies because the ending had been changed). Instead of Dietrich, roles began to be given to Tallulah Bankhead.
- Following the scandal with the studio over the film's ending, Josef von Sternberg left the project. Paramount threatened to sue him for $1,000,000. According to Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich's daughter, von Sternberg remarked that he would only find it offensive if it were $100,000 (of that total sum).
- When the liner from Paris with Marlene Dietrich's character on board docks in New York, the Empire State Building can be seen under construction in the background.
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