Blond Venus (1932)

What would you be willing to sacrifice to save your beloved other’s life?

Would they be able to live with it?

That is the dilemma faced by our heroine Helen Faraday (Marlene Dietrich).

The sacrifice involves an adulterous relationship with a handsome millionaire, (Cary Grant,) so it can’t be that painful, but her problem is that she still truly loves her husband (Herbert Marshall).

Dietrich does an amazing, chameleonic job going from carefree water nymph; to soft, loving mother and wife; to sacrificing single mother on the run; to hopeless, destitute prostitute; to hard, ice cold but successful misanthrope; to warm ex-lover (the caring way she lays her hand on Grant’s arm speaks volumes); and back again (she was never truly gone to begin with!)

Pre-Code elements start immediately with the title credits as we catch glimpse of a group of nude starlets swimming and frolicking in the water. A jump takes us to a few years later when she is already married with a kid (The Little Rascals' Dickie Moore) but her adulterous descent into prostitution, while not made explicit is made quite clear. She hits bottom only to bounce back and become more successful than ever but having given up hope of ever having a relationship with any other human being, until she meets again with Grant, who she becomes engaged with despite not even being divorced yet.

Produced and directed by Josef von Sternberg, with Gene Morgan, Rita La Roy, Robert Emmett O'Connor, Sidney Toler (as a dick/john who ‘ambiguously’ solicits without realizing who she is,) Sterling Holloway, and Hattie McDaniel.

Charlie Gemora is uncredited but sets up a performing gorilla which, when unmasked, reveals Dietrich underneath.

The conclusion might be excessively sentimental for some, but it nevertheless remains quite effective.

A Cult Film par excellence.