The Austrian Secret Service sends its most seductive agent to spy on the Russians.
Similar titles
You May Also Like
Reviews
You won't be disappointed!
Too much of everything
Brilliant and touching
The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
To begin with, this was another Marlene Dietrich production to rival a Greta Garbo vehicle – namely the same year's MATA HARI (which I own as an original DVD, through Warners, but have yet to check out). It is actually the most overlooked of the 7 collaborations between star and director; even so, German 'enfant terrible' film-maker Rainer Werner Fassbinder once named it one of his all-time Top 10 films! The reasons for this neglect being its inherently archaic quality (the film seems to belong to the Silent era as, indeed, the plot – ironically, supplied by Sternberg himself! – lacks substance and, even more so, credibility: we are told that Dietrich could have been WWI's greatest spy but she only handles two assignments before being captured, her risking life and honor – hence the title – for the sake of uncouth enemy agent and co-star Victor McLaglen and, just as incongruously, an obviously infatuated young officer is shown flipping at her execution!) and cornball tone (Austrian Dietrich disguised as a naïve Russian cleaning lady and cringe-inducingly meowing like a cat in order to flirt with her 'targets', not to mention having McLaglen irritatingly sport a constant grin throughout!). The film does look forward to subsequent (and superior) entries in the 'series': Dietrich would be re-united with both Warner Oland and Gustav von Seyffertitz in her very next venture with Sternberg, SHANGHAI EXPRESS (1932), while the carnival scenes early on (in which McLaglen feigns to be a cripple!) would be reprised in their last effort, THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN (1935)! Dietrich is literally picked off the streets by Seyffertitz, but he is immediately impressed with her when, offering the protagonist the opportunity of spying against her fatherland, she asks to be excused and summarily fetches the Police! Oland's womanizing weakness (actually an Austrian traitor in cahoots with Russian McLaglen) naturally makes her the ideal choice to expose him: when she does, he congratulates her and, in a nice reversal of the above-mentioned scene with Dietrich's superior, absents himself to commit suicide! Next, she goes after Oland's contact but, having fled back behind his own lines, Dietrich follows in pursuit: they engage in a game of cat-and-mouse but their mutual attraction holds them at bay; when McLaglen is eventually captured, she asks that the two be left alone, ostensibly for questioning but he is given a chance to escape instead! Tried and condemned to death by firing squad, Dietrich bravely faces her destiny: surprisingly, the actual shooting is not flinched upon (no loving final close-up for the star here!), the camera resting on a dejected Seyffertitz passing by the country's insignia embedded in the walls as he walks out of the barracks, his shadow hanging tall over the scenery.Exquisitely lensed by Lee Garmes, it is mainly in moments such as this that the film really comes to life; with this in mind, while it may not hang together dramatically nowadays, DISHONORED shows off the director's uniquely pictorial sense, as well as moulding the mythic Dietrich image of a mystery woman who could turn men's heads with her alluring beauty but is herself driven by love above all else...
Having just viewed this movie for the first time, I must say that from what I've seen written about Dishonored it seems somewhat unappreciated. While perhaps not a masterpiece on the level of other von Sternberg/Dietrich pairings, such as the two greats The Blue Angel and Blonde Venus, like them both it oozes with the unmistakable marks of its director: the stark dialogue, the lavish attention to atmosphere (such as all the wonderful interiors), and a pervading sense of marvelous oddness. Von Sternberg shows us that the real triumph of his cinema is not one of the reality it affords, but one of style, of which Dishonored has enough to spare.
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***This is the 3rd of the 7 von Sternberg films to star Marlene Dietrich (here, she plays a spy known as x-27) based on a story written swiftly by the director to capitalise on the success of 'Morocco'. If von Sternberg didn't 'write' all of his films he certainly 'rewrote' most of them, as 'Dishonored' replays a theme recurrent in many of his films, that of sexual desire as the overriding driving force behind behaviour. That 'Dishonored' is a lot less successful a film than 'Morocco' might be down in part to its leading man Victor McLaglen - unconvincing as the spy that Dietrich falls for a grinning rictus unable to convey charisma. Gary Cooper was the original choice for the part and, based on this, it's a shame that he refused to work with von Sternberg here. Cooper was certainly a Sternberg actor: his performances tended to be those of brooding but ultimately dignified types, internalising emotion: here, McLaglen doesn't give the impression of having any emotions at all. Coincidentally, it's this very Sterbergian aesthetic (of performers moving stolidly and glumly among highly Expressionist scenery) that is least to the fore in 'Dishonored'; Sternberg struggles to make much of 're-creations' such as the Austrian Secret Service headquarters and a Russian military base, instead depending on elongated dissolves between scenes (some of the double images achieved are Surreal). Likewise, the drawn out delivery of the dialogue, reminiscent of a school nativity play at times, would certainly be intolerable for a modern audience explaining the non showing of von Sternberg films today. Indeed, Dishonored could quite easily be a silent film (with a piano accompaniment) were it not for the final scene - SPOILERS * * * Dietrich's execution at the hands of a firing squad in which the echoing sound of military drums, soldiers' voices and guns, catapult the viewer to a different level than almost everything experienced before. This climactic scene isn't achieved by pyrotechnics alone however, so much as for the fact that the young lieutenant responsible for escorting X-27 to her death is the same soldier who had previously escorted the then new recruit to the office of the Head of the Austrian Secret Service on her first day.Back then, he had accompanied her along a long marble corridor.'Quite a walk, isn't it?' he'd remarked. To which she'd replied: 'I don't mind walking.' By the time they had reached the office the soldier confessed: 'I must tell you, I could walk with you forever.' In the final scene, upon entering X-27's cell and requesting that the spy follow him, X-27 asks: 'Are we going to walk together again?' - managing a disdainful laugh on 'together'. Finally, as she faces the firing squad it is the same young soldier who has the responsibility for giving the order to fire. Thus follows a remarkable sequence: A shot of the hesitating lieutenant; shot of the Head of the Secret Service; shot of Dietrich smiling benignly; shot of reflection of guns on the skin of a drum. The lieutenant cracks. 'I will not kill a woman. I will not kill anymore men either. You call this war? I call it butchery. You call this serving your country? You call this patriotism? I call it murder.' This would be unremarkable in itself were it not for the fact that throughout this impassioned speech X-27 is seen retouching her lipstick.Would does it mean? For me this final gesture mocks crocodile tears, mocks the sentimentality of the traditional Hollywood ending, mocks the very notion of Hollywood glamour itself. And it mocks those things for the very reason that those things are not real. The artificiality of Joseph von Sternberg's cinema (this most studio bound of all directors) is actually only a means to an end.
One up front negative: Victor McLaglen as a dashing, adventurous Russian officer is very badly miscast.This is a World War I Mata Hari genre film with Marlene Dietrich recruited by the Austrian Secret Service to spy for them against the Russians. Like the other Von Sternberg/Dietrich collaborations this is all about visual texture and Marlene's incredible persona (which is very much due to her equally incredible talent). Both come together perfectly in the amazing masked ball scene full, full, full of confetti, long twisted streamers, costumed revelers, and uncurling paper party-horns that you blow through to make a high pitched little squeal.In one remarkable scene Marlene is hypnotic just saying, "No." "Yes." "Noooo." and "Maybe." In another her dialog is a hilarious and inimatable series of "Meowwws." I don't remember her singing in this one but she plays the piano with abandon. Nevermind the plot, this is a film you watch because it is a great vehicle for one of film's greatest, if not the greatest, stars and because it is great cinema.