Philly Marelene: Dietrich's Horsie Movies Pt. 2

PREFACE: OOPS! On June 7, I accidentally posted an entry when I merely meant to update labels. Sorry about that!

The Song of Song's Lily may be bad, but she's perfectly good at it

Thank you everyone who responded to my Horseathon entry. A few of you expressed surprise that horses appeared in so many Marlene Dietrich movies, and I didn’t even get halfway through her filmography! Picking up from where I left off, I will elaborate on my third group of Dietrich movies, the Europeans, but I'd like to hype some of the other topics I'll be raising this month. Between June 18-22, I'll participate in the second annual Queer Film Blogathon, hosted by Garbo Laughs. Last year, I wrote an entry in which I began to articulate thoughts that had been vague considerations in my head about the homophobia in Maria Riva's book. Whether I address a similar topic or examine Dietrich's movies, I'm not sure. Another topic that I have put on the back burner pertains to Greta Garbo. I plan to write a Dietrich vs. Garbo series by pitting their movies against each other, and you can expect at least one such post some time this month because I have folders brimming with Dishonored and Mata Hari screen captures that I'd like to delete from my hard drive. Now, let's race through the topic at hand. . . .

Europeans

Even though vicious gossips would have you believe that Dietrich was born in 1901 and made several movies before The Blue Angel, true fans know this to be impossible. Dietrich was far too young in the ‘20s to star in any silents, and our little Reinhardt apprentice merely dipped her toes in motion pictures when her busy theatre schedule permitted it. In these silver screen bit roles, Marlene perfected the line, "Die Pferde sind gesattelt [The horses are saddled]!" Rumor has it that audiences didn’t even need intertitles to understand Dietrich’s catchphrase and that Hessian moviegoers were moved to tears when they read her lips.*

Riding sidesaddle isn't the only lesson that Von Prell teaches Lily

America and the rest of the world, however, would have to wait until after Dietrich blossomed into womanhood to see her equine ethos. Although that meanie Josef von Sternberg nipped  public demand in the bud by instead putting Marlene on boats, planes, and trains, Rouben Mamoulian finally answered fan magazine prayers, directing Dietrich in the 1933 foalsome flick, The Song of Songs. As the protagonist Lily Czepenek, Dietrich got the ride of her life. Biographer Charles Higham relayed old newspaper reports that on March 28, 1933, Marlene‘s sidesaddle excursion with her costar Hardie Albright (as Walter Von Prell) abruptly ended with a concussion when a snake spooked her horse, which threw her headfirst to the ground. On Ebay, you can currently buy an issue of The San Francisco News that includes a blurb about this incident. Whether Paramount publicity was fibbing to build the buzz around this movie, I don’t know, but I do know that the possibly Slavic Lily makes impressive headway in her informal finishing school to become a model German aristocrat, wielding a whip in such a way that contemporary moviegoers with minds as dirty as mine can't help but detect a hint of S&M. Who would have thought that Dietrich’s first Pygmalion-like role would be with Mamoulian, not Sternberg?

You know, Concha used to work in a cigarette factory.

While horses add to the genteel Central European atmosphere in The Song of Songs, they are the props of conspicuous consumerism and inept authority in the Spanish setting of 1935's The Devil Is A Woman. Dietrich played a cigarette factory worker named Concha Perez, who somehow acquires the means to travel by horse-driven parade float and carriages. The tricorn-capped officers of the Guardia Civil also ride horses throughout this film, somehow failing to prevent the illicit exploits around them. Just because characters can travel with horses doesn‘t mean they had in fact possessed the status and authority embodied by these animals.

Sternberg's smoke and mirrors were branches and rain.

If you don't think 1941's The Flame of New Orleans should be included in my Europeans group, please let me know. The movie's depiction of slavery is the elephant in the room that makes me question my classification system, but the New Orleans culture depicted in this movie is distinctly French, perhaps thanks to the direction of the un-Americanized Rene Clair. Plus, we learn from Clementine (played by Theresa Harris) that she and her mistress Claire Ledoux (Dietrich) have traveled extensively throughout Europe, which makes me wonder whether they in fact came from Europe. To support this possibility, Claire is apparently a countess, and titles of nobility in this movie's setting would have to be of European origin. Another very European element is Zolotov, a Russian caricature whom Mischa Auer played in many other movies, including Destry Rides Again.

This is no ride through the park!

Rather than carry on about the movie's European traits, I'll get to the crux of this discussion--the horses. Throughout the movie, we see characters in horse-drawn carriages, but I want to highlight one particular scene--Charles Giraud's failed attempt to prove his heroism to Claire on her ride through the park. Giraud (played by Roland Young) intended to win Claire's favor by stopping his henchman from "assaulting" her. Thanks to Clementine, Claire was in on the plot and thought she was playing along, but fate took her on a detour, with a monkey tangling itself around her carriage's back axle. When Robert Latour (Bruce Cabot) tried to extricate his simian friend, Claire assumed he was part of Giraud's scheme and demanded that her driver Samuel (Clarence Muse) steer ahead, leading to an unexpected muddy altercation. No horses appear to have been harmed because a warier Claire and Samuel continue their ride, evading Giraud's actual henchman with the flick of Samuel's whip.

Deep down, Claire likes it rough like Lily

Well, I've had enough and am about ready to hang up my stirrups. I'll get to the WTF group in another post!


*If you didn't get the joke or didn't find it at all funny, my apologies! I was mocking Dietrich's comments in the Maximilian Schell documentary about her silent film resume.