Perception_de_Ambiguity Sternberg here doesn't even bother to hide his "not giving a flying f... about story and characters" attitude, it's almost admirable, really. There are plot gaps throughout the film that the viewer is just supposed to accept. Characters have no past and not more than one goal + one desire. For most characters the desire comes in the shape of Marlene's character and indulging in that desire certainly never benefits their reaching of the goal. What's stronger, their desire or their discipline when it comes to reaching their goal? Well, this changes from scene to scene and from character to character.Sternberg fails miserably in making an unengaging film, he engages through style. His films shouldn't be exciting but I find them to be just that. The sets here are a lot less imposing than they are in 'Shanghai Express' and in 'The Scarlet Empress' and the light and shadow play isn't nearly as prevalent. But just as in those movies the frame is pretty narrow and he instead crams those frames with a lot of detail. Somehow he can show a person standing in front of just a few meters of wall for the entirety of the scene and make the viewer visualize the rest of the location which no doubt does exist and surely is magnificent if only the cinematographer would choose to zoom out, just that he never does.Marlene has a scene in which the glamorous Austrian hooker transforms into a simple-minded Russian lower class cleaning woman in which not only her appearance but also her whole being changes drastically, it's quite impressive. And has any filmmaker ever used this many superimpositions? He knew how to use them, too, superimpositions being an essential part of his storytelling.

netwallah Marlene Dietrich plays Marie, the widow of a decorated Austrian WW I soldier down on her luck, recruited for the secret service by a dour secret service chief (Gustav von Seyffertitz) to become spy X-27. Her first assignment is to trap a mole for the Russians (Warner Oland, playing the first non-pseudo-oriental role I've seen him in), which she does with ease. Her next adversary is the wily Russian spy Colonel Kranau (Victor McLaglen), and the two of them keep stalemating each other. Ultimately, her gesture acknowledging love though she doesn't say it aloud, she allows him to escape the Austrians who have captured him, and she is tried and executed for treason. In this movie, von Sternberg makes the most of Dietrich's enigmatic bearing—she's not much interested in living, and not much afraid of dying, so she might as well die for her country. No reproach for her country's neglect of the widow of a hero. Von Sternberg also gives plenty of examples of his famous eponymous lighting, making Dietrich look even more alluring, jaded, insouciant, and enigmatic than ever. McLaglen is an odd choice for a romantic hero. Most of his parts emphasize bluff, even cynical good humour or vicious toughness. Here he smiles knowingly and moves with ease in uniform. Perhaps he grins too much, but the balance of his joviality with Dietrich's pallor is intriguing.

mc-86 Dishonoured is an under-appreciated masterpiece. Frequently omitted from lists of collaborations between Dietrich and Von Sternberg, the film is absolutely essential to an understanding of the director's artistic technique and the actor's evolution into her status as an icon for every subsequent femme fatale. Von Sternberg applies a rich sequence of layers of style and character that embellish Dietrich's icily stunning allure as an intelligent woman engaged in a deadly quest for more temporal power in the form of top secret military intelligence and empowerment over the men she manipulates. Along the way, his penetrating interpretation of social conventions depicts a chiaroscuro of surrealistic fantasy in contrast with the gritty reality of doom that engulfs his heroine who is ultimately transformed into a martyr to her own - and universal - femininity.

ceichler Never saw this Dietrich film before. It is wonderful, considering that it was made 41 years ago. Two sequences stand out--- the party sequence (catch the costume in all the splendor black and white can provide) and the hilarious Dietrich/peasant scene. I couldn't believe it was Marlene at first. This film is a small gem!