Blonde Venus (1932)
When von Sternberg began working on Blonde Venus, Paramount finances were in jeopardy. Profits had plummeted due to decline in theatre attendance among working class moviegoers. Fearing bankruptcy, the executives tightened the level of control over their films.
Dietrich’s forthright portrayals of demi-mondes (Dishonored, Shanghai Express) were discarded in favor of more American (read domestic) heroines.
Producer B. P. Schulberg was hoping to cash in on the success of previous Sternberg-Dietrich collaborations to help the studio’s finances.
Von Sternberg’s story for Blonde Venus and the screenplay by Furthman and S.K.Lauren center on a fallen woman, who’s ultimately forgiven by her long-suffering husband.
The narrative exhibited the element of “sordid self-sacrifice,” which marked the roles of other prominent female performers at the time.
When Von Sternberg declined to alter the ending, Paramount put the project on hold and threatened him with a lawsuit. Dietrich joined Sternberg in defying the New York executives, but to no avail.
Minor adjustments were made in order to satisfy the studio’s demands, but, ultimately, von Sternberg’s compromises did not translate into critical acclaim or box-office success.
Paramount tolerated the duo’s defiance due to the profits generated by Shanghai Express, over $3 million.
Blonde Venus opens with the idealized courtship and marriage of Dietrich and mild-mannered chemist Herbert Marshall. Quickly ensconced as a Brooklyn housewife and burdened with an impish son (Dickie Moore), she becomes a mistress to politico and nightclub gangster Cary Grant when her husband requires expensive medical treatment for radiation.
The plot grows increasingly improbable as Dietrich resurrects her theatrical career that takes her to exotic locations around the world, accompanied by her little boy.
Nominally, the movie is about the devotion of a mother to her child, a subject close to Sternberg due to his own traumatic childhood and harsh experiences as a transient laborer in his youth.
With Blonde Venus, Von Sternberg reached his apogee stylistically, making a film of great visual beauty achieved through multiple layers of evocative décor where style both displaces and transcends characterization.
The episodic narrative, disparate locales and unimpressive supporting cast are major faults for mainstream critics.
Blonde Venus’s “camp” derives from the outrageous, extremely stylized “Hot Voodoo” nightclub sequence, when Dietrich assumes the role of the beast, emerging at one point from the costume of an ape.
Though moderately profitable, the movie’s mixed critical reaction lessened the studio’s commitment to the eccentricities of the Sternberg-Dietrich collaboration.
At odds with Paramount and their individual contracts expired, Sternberg and Dietrich conceived of forming an independent company in Germany.
Von Sternberg had no objections when Dietrich was scheduled to star in Rouben Mamoulian’s The Song of Songs (1933). When Dietrich balked at the assignment, Paramount quickly sued her for losses. She was preparing to abscond to Berlin to pursue work with Sternberg. However, Paramount prevailed in court, and Dietrich was required to complete the film.
