Blonde Venus
| Blonde Venus | |
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French film poster for contemporary "classics" series
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| Directed by | Josef von Sternberg |
| Produced by | Josef von Sternberg |
| Written by |
Jules Furthman S. K. Lauren |
| Starring |
Marlene Dietrich Herbert Marshall Cary Grant Dickie Moore |
| Music by |
W. Franke Harling John Leipold Paul Marquardt Richard A. Whiting Sam Coslow Ralph Rainger Leo Robin Oscar Potoker |
| Cinematography | Bert Glennon |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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93 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English, German |
Blonde Venus is a 1932 American Pre-Code drama film starring Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, and Cary Grant. The movie was produced and directed for Paramount Pictures by Josef von Sternberg from a screenplay by Jules Furthman and S. K. Lauren adapted from a story by Furthman and von Sternberg. The original story "Mother Love" was written by Dietrich herself. The musical score was by W. Franke Harling, John Leipold, Paul Marquardt and Oscar Potoker, with cinematography by Bert Glennon.
Dietrich performs three musical numbers in this film, including the now-obscure "You Little So-and-So" (music and lyrics by Sam Coslow and Leo Robin) and "I Couldn't Be Annoyed" (music and lyrics by Leo Robin and Richard A. Whiting). The highlight is the infamous "Hot Voodoo" (music by Ralph Rainger, lyrics by Sam Coslow), which is nearly 8 minutes in length and mostly instrumental, featuring jazz trumpet and drums. Dietrich sings the lyrics toward the end of this sequence, which takes place in a nightclub.
The movie begins with seven American students traveling in Germany. They stop at a pond and spot six girls (who all work for a theater) bathing. The unclothed girls discover the male students and attempt to conceal themselves. One of the girls, Helen (Dietrich), asks them to go away, to which one of the young men, Ned (Marshall), responds by adamantly refusing to leave.
The movie shifts to years later, showing a mother bathing a boy, telling him to hurry since his father would be coming home soon. The mother and the boy turn out to be Ned's wife and son years after their first meeting at the pond. The scene cuts to a doctor's office, where we see a man offering to sell his body to science for money. The man is Ned, now an American chemist poisoned with radium and expecting to die within the year. The doctor tells him that there is a famous German physician who has had success treating radiation poisoning and recommends Ned to travel to Germany. It would cost him approximately $1500 and he would have to be there for six months.
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