Product: Golden Earrings [VHS] (1947)
Rating: 5.0
One of Marlene's best later outings!
This is a wonderful romance-adventure with plenty of comic touches (we see from "Destry Rides Again" on that Dietrich got much more opportunity to let her talents as a comedienne shine than she ever had under von Stenberg's tutelage, and this is a good example. Not to be missed; the scene where Ray Milland, as the hero Ralph Denistoun, gets a good whiff of Marlene's hair!) She obviously had a lot of fun playing the role of Lydia (learning to play the zither, among other things), and her enthusiasm carries the film. She just can't stay away from the glamorous makeup job, even as a dusky-skinned Gypsy, but her performance is so strong you really don't mind. The ending is just what you would expect and hope for, and it's tear-jerking, but in a happy way. (Ten gets you one if they were remaking it today, they'd completely mess up the ending in the name of - gack - irony.) Marlene gets to help bust up on Nazis - something she, as a dedicated anti-Nazi, doubtless enjoyed very much - as she helps Milland with his secret mission on the eve of World War II. A very sympathetic portrayal of Gypsies; reference is made, in a foreshadowing kind of way, to the horrific fate they would suffer in the Holocaust along with Jews and other "undesirables".