Joseph von Sternberg’s dazzling 1930s masterpiece starring Marlene Dietrich in her breakthrough role, The Blue Angel, will be re-released in cinemas nationwide (UK & Ireland) from 31 May 2019, to coincide with the centenary of the Weimar Republic.
The Blue Angel [Der blaue Engel] is one of the first German language sound films, and the picture that represents the initial collaboration between Josef von Sternberg and his immortal muse, Marlene Dietrich.
Following up his role in von Sternberg’s great silent The Last Command, Emil Jannings portrays a schoolteacher named Immanuel Rath, whose fateful expedition to catch his students frequenting the cabaret known as “The Blue Angel” leads to his own rapture with the establishment’s main attraction Lola (Dietrich) — and, as a result, triggers the downward spiral of his life and fortune. Directed by von Sternberg while on loan from America to the pioneering German producer Erich Pommer, The Blue Angel is, at once captivating, devastating, and powerfully erotic, laced-through with Sternberg’s masterful cinematography.
From here, the director and Dietrich would go on to make six more films together in the span of five years, and leave a legacy of some of the most indelible iconography in the cinema of glamour and obsession.
Eureka and The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to bring The Blue Angel back to big screen once again from 31 May 3019, when it is released in selected cinemas nationwide (UK and Ireland) to coincide with the centenary of the Weimar Republic and the BFI Southbank’s major two-month season Beyond Your Wildest Dreams: Weimar Cinema 1919-1933. The season will celebrate one of the most innovative and ground-breaking chapters in the history of cinema, featuring the work of filmmakers such as Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Max Ophuls, Josef von Sternberg, Leontine Sagan, Lotte Reiniger, Robert Siodmak and more.
The Blue Angel has previously played at the following venues:
London; BFI Southbank
Dublin; Irish Film Institute
Manchester; Home
Cork; Triskel Arts Centre
Wallingford; Corn Exchange
Edinburgh; Filmhouse
Belfast; Queen’s Film Theatre (QFT)
Dundee; Dundee Contemporary Arts
Penarth, Wales; Snowcat Cinema
Inverness; Eden Court
Lancaster; The Dukes
Glasgow; Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT)
St. Leonards-on-Sea; Kino Teatr
Totnes; Totnes Cinema
Sheffield; Showroom Cinema
Aberdeen; The Belmont
Derby; The Quad
Cardiff; Chapter Arts Centre
Ipswich; Ipswich Film Theatre
Stamford; Stamford Arts Centre
Eastbourne; Towner Cinema
Chichester; New Park Cinema
Birmingham; Electric Cinema
London; Curzon Bloomsbury
Norwich; Cinema City
