Tag: Marlene Dietrich
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DeaconsDen Classic Reaction – Shanghai Express
I enjoyed Shanghai Express even more than I did Morocco and Dishonored. Josef von Sternberg crafts a film with a couple elements that I always enjoyed. It has very few settings, mostly taking place on the train traveling from Peking to Shanghai. We have a small cast of principle characters. Lastly, the film plays with…
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DeaconsDen Classic Reaction – Dishonored
Dishonored is another home run starring Marlene Dietrich and directed by Josef von Sternberg. For their second American collaboration, Dishonored sees Dietrich in the role of a prostitute who’s recruited to into spy work for Austria to seduce her targets and gather information. Frau (Marie) Kolverer, later known by her code name of X-27, easily…
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DeaconsDen Classic Reaction – Morocco
Directed by Josef von Sternberg, Morocco feels to me like a proto-Casablanca. Same location, different war. Unlike the 1942 Best Picture winner which felt very realistic, Morocco has an abstract and otherworldly aura to it. We feel the hazy humidity of the setting, but it also appears this isn’t a familiar place. That these travelers…
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