The Blue Angel (German: Der blaue Engel) is a 1930 film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich and Kurt Gerron. Written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller and Robert Liebmann – with uncredited contributions by von Sternberg – based on Heinrich Mann's 1905 novel Professor Unrat ("Professor Garbage"), and set in Weimar Germany, The Blue Angel presents the tragic transformation of a man from a respectable professor to a cabaret clown, and his descent into madness. The film is considered to be the first major German sound film, and brought Dietrich international fame. In addition, it introduced her signature song, Friedrich Hollaender and Robert Liebmann's "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)".
The film was shot simultaneously in German and English language versions, but the German version is much better known. The English language version was considered a lost film for many years until a print was discovered in a German film archive and restored. This restored print of the English version had its U.S. premiere at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on 19 January 2009 as part of the "Berlin and Beyond" film festival. Both the German and English versions are widely considered classics.
Read more about The Blue Angel: Plot, Cast, Music, Production, Parodies and Adaptations
Famous quotes containing the words blue and/or angel:
“There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.
There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“And the angel in the gate, the flowering plum,
Dances like Italy, imagining red.”
—Louis Simpson (b. 1923)