Lot Essay
The Blue Angel was the first film in which Marlene Dietrich starred, and the first in which she met her Svengali, Josef von Sternberg. Von Sternberg had been searching for an actress who could exude the sexulity of the film's seductive vamp, Lola Lola, and having seen Dietrich on stage, he made his decision. The film was shot simultaneously in German and English, and it almost instantly made Dietrich an international star. Together, Dietrich and Von Sternberg produced their best work resulting in classics such as Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931), Blonde Venus (1932), Shanghai Express, (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934) and The Devil Is A Woman (1935).