page_title: The Blue Angel
section_title: Plot
hierarchical_section_title: The Blue Angel / Plot
caption_attribution_description: English: Description: Low-resolution reproduction of publicity photograph for the film Der Blaue Engel (w:The Blue Angel) (1930), featuring Marlene Dietrich.
context_page_description: The Blue Angel is a 1930 German tragicomedic film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, and Kurt Gerron. Written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller and Robert Liebmann – with uncredited contributions by Sternberg – it is based on Heinrich Mann's 1905 novel Professor Unrat and set in Weimar Germany. The Blue Angel presents the tragic transformation of a respectable professor to a cabaret clown and his descent into madness. The film is the first feature-length German full-talkie and brought Dietrich international fame. In addition, it introduced her signature song, Friedrich Hollaender and Robert Liebmann's "Falling in Love Again". It is considered to be a classic of German cinema.
  The film was shot simultaneously in German- and English-language versions, although the latter version was thought lost for many years. The German version is considered to be "obviously superior"; it is longer and not marred by actors struggling with their English pronunciation.
context_section_description: Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) is an educator at the local Gymnasium (high school for students expected to go to university) in Weimar Germany. The boys disrespect him and play pranks on him. Rath punishes several of his students for circulating photographs of the beautiful Lola Lola (Marlene Dietrich), the headliner for the local cabaret, "The Blue Angel". Hoping to catch the boys at the club, Rath goes there later that evening. He does find some students there, but while chasing them, he also finds Lola backstage and sees her partially disrobing. When he returns to the cabaret the following evening to return a pair of panties that were smuggled into his coat by one of his students, he ends up staying the night with her. The next morning, reeling from his night of passion, Rath arrives late to school to find his classroom in chaos; the principal is furious and threatens to fire Rath.
  Rath gives up his position at the school to marry Lola. Their happiness is short-lived, however, as Rath becomes humiliatingly dependent on Lola. Over several years, he sinks lower and lower, first selling dirty postcards, and then becoming a clown in Lola's troupe to pay the bills. His growing insecurities about Lola's profession as a "shared woman" eventually consume him with lust and jealousy.
  The troupe returns to his hometown and The Blue Angel, where everyone turns out to see the professor they knew play a clown. Once onstage, Rath is humiliated, not only by a magician who breaks eggs on his head but also by seeing Lola embrace and kiss the strongman Mazeppa. He is enraged to the point of insanity. He attempts to strangle Lola, but the strongman and others subdue him and lock him in a straitjacket.
  Later that night, Rath is released. He leaves and goes to his old classroom. Rejected, humiliated, and destitute, he dies clutching the desk at which he once taught.
caption: Marlene Dietrich in her classic cabaret pose. Her reclining position with one leg elevated was selected after a dozen other attitudes were tested and discarded.[5]
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