Oscar Profile #40: Marlene Dietrich

Born Maria Magdalene Dietrich on December 27, 1901, the actress/singer who would re-invent herself many times in the course of her 90 year lifespan was only 11 when she changed her name, combining her first and middle names to form the then novel name of “Marlene”.

She began in German films in bit parts in the early 1920s, married production manager Rudolf Sieber in 1923 with whom she lived with for only five years, but remained officially married to, until his death in 1976. Her only child, actress Maria Riva, was born in 1924.

It was as the seductive cabaret singer Lola-Lola in Josef von Sternberg’s 1930 classic, The Blue Angel, that the world discovered her. Brought to Hollywood, she received her first and only Oscar nomination for her first Hollywood film, 1930’s Morocco, also directed by von Sternberg. Major successes such as Dishonored; Shanghai Express and Blonde Venus would soon follow, but by the mid-thirties Dietrich’s style of acting had lost its allure and she was labeled box office poison.

With nothing to lose she accepted the part of a saloon singer, in many ways the film’s comedy relief, opposite the then extremely popular James Stewart in the western, Destry Rides Again. It wasn’t just Destry who rode again. Dietrich was back on top in one of the most successful comebacks of all time. A number of similar roles followed in which she appeared more down to earth than in the exotic films of the previous decade. At the same time the actress who had become an American citizen in 1937, became one of the hardest working entertainers of U.S. troops fighting against the Nazis, who had taken over her homeland.

By the late 1940s, Dietrich had seemed to be older, wiser, perhaps a little tired, and was no longer playing the lead female roles in her films. It didn’t matter, she was still the most glamorous thing about them, mopping the floor with plain Jane characters played by Jean Arthur in Billy Wilder’s A Foreign Affair and Jane Wyman in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright.

Once again given lead roles in films as diverse as No Highway in the Sky and Rancho Notorious, she was back on top yet again. Her main source of income from the 1950s to the 1970s, however, was as a cabaret star where she specialized in singing the many songs she had made famous in her films from The Blue Angel’s “Falling in Love Again” to Destry’s “See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have” to Stage Fright’s “The Laziest Gal in Town”. “It’s not ‘cause I shouldn’t, it’s not ‘cause I wouldn’t, and you know it’s not ‘cause I couldn’t, it’s simply because I’m the laziest gal in town” she warbled well into her 70s, and they still ate it up.

She did take time out to make several films in the latter stages of her career, the most notable being Billy Wilder’s 1957 film of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution; Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil the following year and Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961.

After breaking a leg in an on-stage fall in 1979, Dietrich decided it was time to call it quits and became a recluse, retreating to her apartment in Paris. When Maximilian Schell made his 1984 Oscar nominated documentary about her called simply Marlene, she allowed herself to be interviewed, but not seen. She was still fascinating as always.

Marlene Dietrich died on May 6, 1992 a little more than four months into her 91st year.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE BLUE ANGEL (1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg

Europe got to see the original German masterpiece early in 1930. U.S. audiences, which didn’t get to see it until December (New York) or the following year (L.A. and the rest of the country) got a watered down English language version with the same stars – Emil Jannings and the hypnotic Marlene Dietrich. The original German version wasn’t shown in the U.S. until the 1970s. Oscar voters given a choice between the toned down Dietrich of The Blue Angel and the unadulterated Dietrich of Morocco chose the latter, but had the original German version of the former been available to them, one suspects the outcome would have been different.

DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939), directed by George Marshall

Coming off a disappointing few years, Dietrich reinvented herself and resurrected her career with her sardonic portrayal of Frenchy, the saloon singer, opposite James Stewart in one of his signature roles as the sheriff who refuses to wear a gun. This was actually the second of five filmed versions so far of the Max Brand novel, which also became a Broadway musical in 1959 with Andy Griffith and Dolores Gay. It had been filmed earlier with Tom Mix, later with Audie Murphy, then as a TV series and even a German film.

A FOREIGN AFFAIR (1948), directed by Billy Wilder

Jean Arthur as an uptight congresswoman only partially thawed by Army Lt. John Lund is no match for the scintillating Dietrich as an ex-Nazi café singer with prior dibs on Lund. As she would again be two years later in support of Jane Wyman in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, Dietrich may not have been top billed but she was definitely top dog. She sings six songs including the Rodgers & Hart perennial “Isn’t It Romantic” and one of her signature tunes, “Black Market” written expressly for her by Friedrich Hollaender.

WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957), directed by Billy Wilder

Tyrone Power received top billing and Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester received Oscar nominations, but the standout performance in the film belonged to Dietrich as the title character, a German war bride whose husband (Power) is accused of killing an old lady for her money. The film has multiple surprises at the end, most of them centered around Dietrich who is completely riveting and very touching. It’s long been rumored that Dietrich failed to receive an Oscar nomination because no one could believed she wasn’t dubbed in a key scene. She wasn’t.

JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG (1961), directed by Stanley Kramer

Maximilian Schell won an Oscar for his brilliant portrayal of the German defense attorney at the 1948 tribunal of Germany’s Nazi era judges. Spencer Tracy bringing his moral authority to the fore as the presiding American judge and Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland in touching cameos as victims of Nazi atrocities were all nominated but the always underrated Dietrich was once again overlooked for a performance that is right up there with them. Playing a German aristocrat, the widow of a German soldier at whose home Tracy is billeted, she lends tremendous presence to her scenes with Tracy, which are basically the only non-harrowing scenes in the film.