The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Raging Bull: for sheer tragic force, The
Blue Angel is as potent as any of them. It's up there as a piece of cinema,
too; though less flamboyant than Sternberg's Hollywood work, the
sense of style and space remain startlingly fresh. This film also has
definitive performances from Marlene Dietrich as Lola - the first of
her endlessly fascinating, sado-masochistic femmes fatales - and
Emile Jannings, as the rigid, haughty professor brought low by
obsessive lust. As the precision-tooled plot tightens inexorably
around him, it's impossible not to feel the classic pity and fear - and
awe at the accomplishment all round.
