Ep. 6 / The End:
The Blue Angel and the
Twilight of the Weimar Republic

The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel)

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Nazi, Dissident, Victim…

Josef von Sternberg’s cabaret classic The Blue Angel had three stars: Emil Jannings, Kurt Gerron, and Marlene Dietrich. As the Weimar Era ended and the Third Reich began, fate brought them—and all of Germany—to a crossroads. What would they choose, and what choices would be taken from them?

The Blue Angel is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

Images

Podcasts have their limits, especially podcasts about a medium as visual as film. Below are some images that may enrich your experience with this episode.

Director Josef von Sternberg and actress Marlene Dietrich on the set of The Blue Angel.

The stars of The Blue Angel, from left to right, Kurt Gerron, Dietrich, and Emil Jannings.

A still from F.W. Murnau’s first American film, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. At the 1st Academy Awards in 1929, Sunrise won three Oscars, including Best Unique and Artistic Picture, one of two awards that were the equivalent of Best Picture.

Also at the 1st Academy Awards, German actor Emil Jannings won the inaugural Best Actor Oscar, in part for his performance in Sternberg’s The Last Command. (At the first ceremony, acting awards were given for a performer’s whole body of work over the course of the year rather than for one specific film.) Jannings would become a dedicated Nazi, acting in propaganda films and campaigning for the Party.

In her onscreen persona, Dietrich embraced her androgyny and bisexuality. In this famous moment from 1930’s Morocco, she performs in drag and kisses a woman in the audience.

Over the course of 1943 and 1944, Dietrich gave more than 500 performances for American soldiers on the frontlines of World War II. She hated the shit out of Nazis.

After being imprisoned in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, Kurt Gerron was forced by the Nazis to direct a propaganda film intended to convince neutral countries and humanitarian organizations that Jews like him were well-treated by the Reich. He was murdered in Auschwitz in October 1944.

The German Jewish writer, critic, and philosopher Walter Benjamin fled to Paris to escape fascism. After France was occupied, he attempted to cross into Spain in hopes of sailing to America. After he was denied entry at the Spanish border in September 1940, Benjamin killed himself rather than be returned to the Nazis. Written shortly before his death, his essay “Theses on the Philosophy of History” is an urgent, apocalyptic meditation on the relationship between past and present in a moment of crisis.

Music & Clips

The theme for The Haunted Screen is “Nostromo” by The Great Pacific Garbage Vortex. Additional music:

In accordance with the principles of fair use, this episode uses clips from The Savages, Marlene Dietrich in Denmark, The Blue Angel, The Simpsons, the Disney Corporation, British Pathé, Lotte Eisner in Germany, Cabaret, The Old and the Young King, Inglourious Basterds, Morocco, Army-Navy Screen Magazine, and Prisoner of Paradise.