The Blue Angel

One of the most famous images in cinema is to be found in The Blue Angel: Dietrich, in revealing black suspenders, sits on a beer-barrel clasping an upraised knee with both hands while she leans slightly back. Though not Germany’s first sound film, it was at the time the most prestigious and expensive by far. Director von Sternberg had been lured back from Hollywood and, together with star Jannings and producer Erich Pommer, he set about making an adaptation of Heinrich Mann’s novel Professor Unrat. The technically dazzling result is a subtly claustrophobic study of a man’s downfall which is a milestone in European cinema.