Cornell Cinema screens six films of Marlene Dietrich

The pairing of actress Marlene Dietrich and director Josef Von Sternberg was one of the greatest collaborations in cinema history, and Cornell Cinema presents six of the films that established Dietrich as an icon and Von Sternberg as one of Hollywood's most visually inventive filmmakers.

Cornell Cinema hosts the musical ensemble The BQE Project at a screening of a restored print of "The Blue Angel," the film that made Marlene Dietrich's career. The event kicks off a month of classic films featuring Dietrich and directed by Josef von Sternberg. The BQE Project will accompany "The Blue Angel" on Saturday, Feb. 2, at 7:15 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre.

Most of the titles will be shown as part of the Monday Night Classic Cinema series, but the series will begin with a special screening of "The Blue Angel," accompanied by musical ensemble The BQE Project. The group will perform with a restored print of the film Saturday, Feb. 2, at 7:15 p.m.; tickets are $15 general/$10 students and seniors. Tickets to other screenings are $5 general/$4 students and seniors; matinee admission is $3.50. All screenings are in Willard Straight Theatre.

The BQE Project, an eight-piece music ensemble, will make the Berlin cabaret of Marlene Dietrich's breakthrough 1930 hit come to life when they perform a new score to complement the film's dialogue and original musical scenes. You'll still hear Marlene singing "Falling in Love Again" as the heartless nightclub star Lola Lola, who destroys an upright schoolteacher with her sadistic charms. Von Sternberg had been making movies in Hollywood for more than 15 years when he went to Germany to direct "Der Blaue Engel," and it turned the smoldering Dietrich into a worldwide star. She's never looked better than in this stunning new print, struck from von Sternberg's original German director's cut. "The Blue Angel" will also be shown, without accompaniment, Sunday, Feb. 3, at 4:30 p.m.

Von Sternberg and Dietrich made their American film debut together with "Morocco" (1930). Now it's the woman, a cafe singer with a dark past, who is humbled by her love for a military man (Gary Cooper). In one of her most vulnerable and complicated roles in the Sternberg films, Dietrich also gives a seductive musical performance as she croons her way through a cafe in black-tie drag, stealing kisses from women and taunting men. Von Sternberg's "Morocco," created in the California desert, is a fantasy world of light and shadow. The film will be shown Monday, Feb. 4, at 7 p.m., and Tuesday, Feb. 5, at 9:45 p.m.

"It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily," Dietrich drawls in "Shanghai Express" (1932), the fourth and final collaboration between cinematographer Lee Garmes and director von Sternberg. Garmes won an Academy Award for his camerawork in this rich evocation of a Far East that never was, an exotic fantasy of intrigue and illusion against which von Sternberg sets the story of a fallen woman and the stoic British officer who loves her. "Shanghai Express" will be shown Monday, Feb. 11, at 7 p.m., and Tuesday, Feb. 12, at 9:30 p.m.

Under studio pressure to make a fifth film with the sublime Dietrich, von Sternberg shot "Blonde Venus" (1932), a campy but moving modern fairytale about beauty and virtue -- and in the proceess helped to launch the career of the young Cary Grant. Dietrich plays a devoted wife and mother who returns to her career as a nightclub singer when her man falls ill, and Grant is the slick playboy who entices her into an affair by giving her the money to save her husband's life. Dietrich's performance of "Hot Voodoo" (sung as she emerges from a gorilla suit) is one of the most over-the-top moments in their collaboration. "Blonde Venus" will be shown Monday, Feb. 18, at 7 p.m., and Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 9:45 p.m.

Von Sternberg himself called "The Scarlet Empress" (1934) "a relentless excursion into style," and it remains one of the most visually breathtaking (and bizarre) films ever made, a precursor of Fellini's spectacles and a reconception of the medium that is still startling. As Russian empress Catherine the Great, Dietrich inhabits an opulent universe of drapery, dwarves and degeneracy until she finally kills off her mad husband Peter (played by Sam Jaffe in a terrifying wig), puts on a military uniform and leads Russia boldly forward into the modern world. "The Scarlett Empress" will be shown Monday, Feb. 25, at 7 p.m., and Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 9:30 p.m.

The series concludes with "The Devil Is a Woman" (1935), which will be shown Thursday, Feb. 28, at 7:15 p.m., and Saturday, March 2, time TBA. The last of the von Sternberg-Dietrich sagas is a glorious, painful farewell from the director to the woman and the legend he had helped to create. The treacherous Concha Perez (Dietrich) lures a Spanish officer into a series of masochistic humiliations in which he loses his money, his dignity and his peace of mind.

The series is co-sponsored with the Cornell Council for the Arts, the Department of German Studies, the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance, the Cornell Concert Series and the Institute for German Cultural Studies.