The Song Of Songs was Marlene Dietrich's first American film without her German Svengali, Josef Von Sternberg. Maybe the German Von Sternberg might have been able to do something more with German author Hermann Sudermann's melodramatic plot. Something was terribly missing in the translation.
When we first meet Dietrich she's an innocent country lass just lost both her parents come to live with her big city aunt, Alison Skipworth. Skipworth hasn't any great maternal feelings for her niece, but she does give her room and board and her job assisting at Skipworth's bookstore requires no great strain. In fact Marlene is a bright young woman and takes to the job.
She gets a different job soon enough when sculptor Brian Aherne hires her as a model for a nude statue. Some of the nude sketches and the statue itself would not have made it in the film two years later when The Code was in place. She gets silly romantic notions about Aherne, but the guy whose mojo she gets going is Baron Lionel Atwill who's willing to marry her and does on the rebound.
Of course that doesn't work out, for crying out loud it's Lionel Atwill she's marrying and who catches her with riding instructor Hardie Albright during a fire when both flee the scene. After that she becomes the Marlene whom we met in Shanghai Express, Shanghai Lily. Curiously enough Dietrich's character is Lily Czepanek.
The film is carried by Dietrich on the strength of her performance, she transforms herself into several different characters, the country innocent, the degraded baroness, to the jaded woman of the world. It took more than one man to turn her into German Lily.
One thing I was very much looking forward to is hearing her sing Jonny after having Dietrich's recording of it on one of my record albums. The song is by Frederick Hollander who wrote Falling In Love Again for her. The record I have is in the original German, Dietrich sings it in English in the film. I'm hear to tell you that the German comes across far better than the English. That come hither voice loses a lot in translation.
Rouben Mamoulian does his best with the film, but it's a let down after such work as Love Me Tonight. Anyway Dietrich was back with Von Sternberg after this film didn't light the world on fire.
When we first meet Dietrich she's an innocent country lass just lost both her parents come to live with her big city aunt, Alison Skipworth. Skipworth hasn't any great maternal feelings for her niece, but she does give her room and board and her job assisting at Skipworth's bookstore requires no great strain. In fact Marlene is a bright young woman and takes to the job.
She gets a different job soon enough when sculptor Brian Aherne hires her as a model for a nude statue. Some of the nude sketches and the statue itself would not have made it in the film two years later when The Code was in place. She gets silly romantic notions about Aherne, but the guy whose mojo she gets going is Baron Lionel Atwill who's willing to marry her and does on the rebound.
Of course that doesn't work out, for crying out loud it's Lionel Atwill she's marrying and who catches her with riding instructor Hardie Albright during a fire when both flee the scene. After that she becomes the Marlene whom we met in Shanghai Express, Shanghai Lily. Curiously enough Dietrich's character is Lily Czepanek.
The film is carried by Dietrich on the strength of her performance, she transforms herself into several different characters, the country innocent, the degraded baroness, to the jaded woman of the world. It took more than one man to turn her into German Lily.
One thing I was very much looking forward to is hearing her sing Jonny after having Dietrich's recording of it on one of my record albums. The song is by Frederick Hollander who wrote Falling In Love Again for her. The record I have is in the original German, Dietrich sings it in English in the film. I'm hear to tell you that the German comes across far better than the English. That come hither voice loses a lot in translation.
Rouben Mamoulian does his best with the film, but it's a let down after such work as Love Me Tonight. Anyway Dietrich was back with Von Sternberg after this film didn't light the world on fire.