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12 August 2015

Online Palimpsests: Cached Sites About Marlene Dietrich

Blank and altered spaces have replaced many of my favorite Web sites and pages about Marlene Dietrich. It's as if the woman in the opening of The Blue Angel came by with her water bucket and rag to wash and scrub away their text, images, and even HTML. Nevertheless, online archives such as Wayback Machine have captured iterations of these information-rich resources as I remember them.
  • The great Werner Sudendorf's now-defunct Sounds Like Marlene humbly declared itself an "unspectacular but useful site," but I find its content as striking as it was practical. The site boasted many lists that I still consult, which cover Dietrich's songs, musical releases, radio performances, and TV performances. Furthermore, the site contained lyrics of many Marlene songs.
  • Then, there is the recently deceased MarleneDietrich.org, the site of Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin (MDCB). This site included many of the past newsletters (also all available at the "office" Marlene web site), bibliographies of some of the most useful print resources by or about Dietrich, including those produced by or with the support of MDCB. Additionally, it listed exhibitions about Marlene, provided production information about her films (production dates as well), and even included photos and biographical information. The only downside is that the videos once available on this site have not been archived.
  • Marlene.com is another site with cached pages I consult, especially when I'm seeking past news related to Miss Dietrich. Over the years, this site has been extensively cached, but you will have the most luck browsing through the cached versions made from the tail-end of 1998 through the present. Thanks to this site, I learned that there was once a Marlene Dietrich fan club!
  • I know next to nothing about The Last Goddess blog's visitors, but I do know that many of you stumble upon us because you are seeking the "last" photo of Marlene Dietrich. Well, Find A Death once posted one of these "last" photos, and although you can no longer find this photo on the site's current Dietrich page, the cached versions include it.
Are there other informative cached sites related to Marlene Dietrich? Other resourceful Marlene sites that you'd like to see archived? Other archives that cache content missing from Wayback Machine, such as, say, videos? Please let us know in the comments section!

16 comments:

  1. Thank you Joseph. I appreciate your thoughtful sharing of these sites and their archives. No doubt they will be useful to those of us working on Dietrich projects.

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  2. Funny, but the so-called last photo was published in a very main stream, extremely reputable, French magazine just after MD passed away. I don't find the photo problematic. She looks amazing for a 90 year old woman.

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    1. This photo (or another from the same "sitting") has been published in the May 14, 1992 issue of the German Bunte (thumbnail here) and the June 1, 1992 issue of the American People (see here). One of our great commenters and Marlene researchers Sauli informed us that the photo had been taken years before these publication dates--in June 1984. Even at 83, MD looked great!

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  3. Great post! I love Sounds Like Marlene.

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    1. Thanks! I forgot to mention that it has some incredibly informative concert tour details, too--sometimes more comprehensive that what's in the book Marlene Dietrich: Photographs and Memories. These details (such as band members and venues) must have drawn from the programs issued at Marlene's shows, I suppose?

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  4. I am wondering is there a marlene Dietrich Museum in Germany?

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    1. There isn't a Marlene Dietrich museum in Germany, but there is an enormous archive of her personal possessions held by the Deutsche Kinemathek. The archive is called Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin (MDCB). You can read about it here.

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  5. working on my website to be!!!

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  6. IT WILL BE CALLED HOLLYWOODS GOLDEN AGE: CONSERVATIVE FILM ICONS

    MISSION STATEMENT
    10 PAGES
    ACTRESS
    GENE TIERNEY
    ANNE BAXTER
    AND SO ON
    20 PAGES
    15 PAGE FILM REVIEW
    OF THE FILMS
    45 PAGES
    SEEN THE WEB DESIGNERS
    PLANNING THE SITE
    2-3 MONTHS AND THEN ITS UP
    WRITING THE PAPER DRAFT FILM REVIEW NOW
    THEN I WILL HAVE TO TYPE IT IN TO THE SITE THEY ARE BUILDING
    I WOULD LIKE TO TO DO CONSERVATIVE ACTORS SOME WILL BE HOMOSEXUAL MEN LIKE IVOR NOVELLO
    CLIFTON WEBB
    NOEL COWARD
    ABOUT 15 BUT NOT FOR 12 MONTHS FOR THEM ITS HARD WORK!!

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  7. if the hollywood golden age is taken the golden age of hollywood instead!

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  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. we have a problem with the facebook link?

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  10. did you get the message about the facebook link problem?

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  11. I tried to see the soundslikemarlene today and appear the "Page cannot be displayed due to robots.txt.
    ". It's sad if we can see this site anymore...

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    1. I forgot I saved some pages months ago in this one: https://archive.is/www.soundslikemarlene.de

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    2. Yes, thank you for pointing that out here! Does anyone know what has happened?

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