Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood - Criterion - July 3, 2018 (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Budgell]

Tasked by studio executives with finding the next great screen siren, visionary Hollywood director Josef von Sternberg joined forces with rising German actor Marlene Dietrich, kicking off what would become one of the most legendary partnerships in cinema history. Over the course of six films produced by Paramount in the 1930s, the pair refined their shared fantasy of pleasure, beauty, and excess. Dietrich’s coolly transgressive mystique was a perfect match for the provocative roles von Sternberg cast her in—including a sultry chanteuse, a cunning spy, and the hedonistic Catherine the Great—and the filmmaker captured her allure with chiaroscuro lighting and opulent design, conjuring fever-dream visions of exotic settings from Morocco to Shanghai. Suffused with frank sexuality and worldly irony, these deliriously entertaining masterpieces are landmarks of cinematic artifice.

Collector’s Set Includes

MOROCCO
Josef von Sternberg 1930

With this romantic reverie, Marlene Dietrich made her triumphant debut before American audiences and unveiled the enthralling, insouciant persona that would define her Hollywood collaboration with director Josef von Sternberg.


DISHONORED
Josef von Sternberg 1931

Reimagining his native Vienna with customary extravagance, von Sternberg stages this story of spycraft as a captivating masquerade in which no one is who they seem and death is only a wrong note away.


SHANGHAI EXPRESS
Josef von Sternberg 1932

An intoxicating mix of adventure, romance, and pre-Code salaciousness, Shanghai Express is a triumph of studio filmmaking and a testament to the mythic power of Hollywood glamour.


BLONDE VENUS
Josef von Sternberg 1932

Josef von Sternberg returned Marlene Dietrich to the stage in Blonde Venus,both a glittering spectacle and a sweeping melodrama about motherly devotion.


THE SCARLET EMPRESS
Josef von Sternberg 1934

Marlene Dietrich stars in Josef von Sternberg’s feverishly debauched biopic as the spoiled princess Sophia Frederica, who grows up being groomed for greatness and yearning for a handsome husband.


THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN
Josef von Sternberg 1935

Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich went out with a bang in their final film together, The Devil Is a Woman, a surreal tale of erotic passion and danger set amid the tumult of carnival in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Spain.

Disc Features

• New 2K or 4K digital restorations of all six films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks on the Blu-rays
• New interviews with film scholars Janet Bergstrom and Homay King; director Josef von Sternberg’s son, Nicholas; Deutsche Kinemathek curator Silke Ronneburg; and costume designer and historian Deborah Nadoolman Landis
• New documentary about actor Marlene Dietrich’s German origins, featuring film scholars Gerd Gemünden and Noah Isenberg
• New documentary on Dietrich’s status as a feminist icon, featuring film scholars Mary Desjardins, Amy Lawrence, and Patricia White
• The Legionnaire and the Lady, a 1936 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Morocco, featuring Dietrich and actor Clark Gable
• New video essay by critics Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López
• The Fashion Side of Hollywood, a 1935 publicity short featuring Dietrich and costume designer Travis Banton
• Television interview with Dietrich from 1971
• PLUS: A book featuring essays by critics Imogen Sara Smith, Gary Giddins, and Farran Smith Nehme

 

[Robert Harris]

Some of the greatest films of the era. An extraordinary collection.

 

[Jim*Tod]

I own the dvds of these except for THE SCARLET EMPRESS. I always thought they could do a lot better on the transfers and I know restoration was done recently on SHANGHAI EXPRESS, so this should be incredible. Wonder if the individual films will be available or only as part of this set?

 

[Bert Greene]

I saw a big-screen viewing of "The Devil is a Woman" (1935) with Cesar Romero in attendance. He spoke after the screening, and laughingly berated the film, calling it some expletive, and wondering how the audience could sit through the whole thing. Then he pretty much cursed out von Sternburg for making him do about 15 takes of him walking up some stairs. Gosh, I miss those old-time film vets being around, and attending festivals.

 

[Danny Burk]

This is, without question, my all-time favorite group of films (the actual films, that is), and it has the potential to be my all-time favorite DVD/blu-ray set of films as well.

Are these sourced from the beautiful UCLA restorations? It would be a crime if SCARLET EMPRESS, in particular, once again came from the overly grainy preprint supplied by Universal that's been the source of all previous releases. It was also the source for 16mm MCA prints, one of which I used to have back in the day.

 

[revgen]

Great news!

 

[david hare]

DIsc set of the decade in my view. I only wish Crit was at the 4K UHD/HDR disc stage of evolution so we could get these new transfers in as close to original 35mm nitrate as possible. As it is I've been playing back the French BD of Blonde Venus and a very good 1080p streaming file of Empress through a new 4K DLP projector with Oppo 203 doing the uprezzing. They bring tears to the eyes.

 

[Danny Burk]

David, I gather that EMPRESS must therefore be a great improvement over the old grainy versions?

 

[marcco00]

OMG! How wonderful!

 

[haineshisway]

Greatest release announcement in the history of Blu-ray.

 

[Danny Burk]

Greatest release announcement in the history of Blu-ray.

Agreed 100% !

 

[Mike2001]

Wow!

 

[david hare]

Second third and fourth. The 1080p Empress on streaming looks very much like it was from something very close to the French source for the older DVD although it's 23.976 fps not 25. It's not nearly as cropped on left and top, and has the same very nice contrast, black level and detail. I am amazed at how good it looks being subjected to full bore 2160 uprez given the amount of compression that must have gone into making a matroska file. I think Issa Clubb is the Criterion disc producer for this set. HE and Lee Kline on technical QC know exactly what they're doing. These will be unbelievable.