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Nope wasn't me who mentioned Blonde Venus. I'll be getting a couple of the Sternberg ones and keep an eye open for reports on the quality of these (DVD Classik is a good place for these).

Amazon.fr still doesn't have Shanghai Express listed though.

Can someone link us to the individual titles at amazon.fr. Gary's links are gone, for now, it seems. Is Shanghai Express up yet?

But Shanghai Express is up on fnac. Perhaps it's time for a certain, at least somewhat, French speaking individual to ask amazon.fr what's up (nudge nudge David).

wait... didnt they all just come out in Germany too?

which releases are preferable, french or german?

godardslave wrote:wait... didnt they all just come out in Germany too?

Up to now only "Morocco" did. And no German site has any announcement for a german release. But the DVD all are said to have german subs, so if these Films come out here, the DVDs will be identical.

davidhare wrote:I think the prints will be local.

According to Universal's french website http://www.universalpictures.fr/recherc ... t=dietrich, all titles come with english HOH subtitles and subtitles for many central european and scandinavian languages. Therefore I'm hoping for british or german releases in order to get around amazon.fr's shipping rates.

The Dietrich discs were released in France today, and reports on the prints from the DVDClassik forum seem good - sharp, detailed picture, optional subtitles:

http://www.dvdclassik.com/%7Edvdclass/p ... c&start=45

No-one, though, is able to lay their hands on SHANGHAI EXPRESS. I've ordered it from Fnac (Amazon don't list it), but no word yet. Bah.

The comparisons of L'imératrice rouge on page 5 are interesting -- is it just me or does the French version look darker and grainier? (as well as sharper and less cropped?)

Thanks for your comments. I ordered Blond Venus yesterday. I have never seen Dishonoured and Devil is a woman. How good are the films?

According to critical consensus, Dishonored and The Devil is a Woman* are usually not considered as good as Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, and Scarlet Empress. However, I think they're outstanding films that hold up well on their own as well as being integral parts of the Sternberg/Dietrich cycle. There is no way I could defend them adequately (and I would need to see them again before even attempting it) but I would urge people to see all of these films, especially now that they're going to be available affordably.

*I hate that title. I believe it undermines Sternberg's and Dos Passos's complex characterization and reinforces the oversimplified reading of the films to which many people gravitate. Also, if I recall correctly was forced by producers who wanted something juicier than Sternberg's preferred "Caprice Espagnol."

I've been wanting these on DVD for years but I'm still hesitating partly because I want to see what else will be released in the US, UK and elsewhere and partly because the captures of Scarlet Empress still don't look too good to me.
David, you clearly have the advantage of having seen the actual DVDs, but I really think that (as dmkb pointed out) the comparisons on the forum linked above show the French Scarlet Empress to be softer and cropped all around. The lack of sharpness is especially evident on the capture with the turnpike.
Can you please tell me whether you don't see this or whether the captures are not really failthful to the transfer itself?

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll pick these up when I go back to France at Xmas.

davidhare wrote:Arn Devil is w Woman is Sternberg's most extreme foray into styalization (even more than Scarlet Empress) and the final chapter in his relationship with Dietrich.

Not sure that I agree that it's the most extreme -- I'd vote Anatahan there -- but it's essential viewing if you have any interest in the Dietrich/Sternberg cycle. It also features an absolutely heartbreaking last line, as well as one of the most transparently Sternbergian of the Sternberg characters.

davidhare wrote:Dishonored which I've only ever owned in crapoid copies in this print screams out for revaluation.

Dishonored is a grim little film -- great, but not really a favorite -- but I think it features one of Dietrich's best performances as the Mata Hari-esque agent. Her masquerade as the innocent fraulein is flat-out hilarious, and her final scene is the height of insouciance. I won't ruin it for those who haven't seen it, but suffice it to say that she pauses to straighten her garter at a most inopportune moment.

Cahiers du Cinema published the French translation of Fun in a Chinese laundry a few years ago, I haven't read it, but will soon as I watch the films.

Gregory wrote:Dishonored and The Devil is a Woman are usually not considered as good as Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, and Scarlet Empress. However, I think they're outstanding films that hold up well on their own as well as being integral parts of the Sternberg/Dietrich cycle.

I couldn't agree more. Especially with regards to Dishonored, which is probably von Sternberg at his most concentrated (I believe the whole film runs under 70 minutes). Dietrich is a joy to watch in this, the direction is economical and deft and the whole film fairly drips with style -- or should I say "atmosphere?" The English title has always struck me as inappropriate in the extreme. I much prefer the Japanese title "Spy X-27" which is, as I understand it, the original title that vS had intended to use. I think this also is covered in his autobiography.

That book also includes the scenario for the English voiceover dialog in Anatahan, which as David and Leo have mentioned is another very interesting work that deserves to see its life extended on DVD.

I'm dying to pick these titles up (as if this year hasn't been expensive enough already!) but I'm almost positive that when I do Universal will release them - cheaper - in R1.

The English title has always struck me as inappropriate in the extreme.

Me too, and not to chew my cud twice but I wanted to elaborate that my main problem with the title The Devil is a Woman is merely that it reinforces the (in my view) simplified and off-target "vamp" interpretation of these films. However, the commercialism behind the original motivation to use that title I definitely understand, and von Sternberg did too as he made clear in his book. (David, I don't know if it's in print at the moment but used copies seem plentiful enough, at least.) Base exploitation of star personae was and is near-limitless (see below), not that it will ever sit well with me.

That ad is clearly recent (which is why I said "was and is...") and was meant to illustrate something that has not only continued but greatly intensified in the US. My point about Sternberg was that he was NOT really to blame for her exploitation, rather it was the studio system that needed at least some of its films to contain titillation and exotic stars in lurid fantasies, and where this was not significantly apparent it needed to be played up (again, still today). Needless to say, many wonderful things came out of this system but it's still important to recognize how it operated (again, Sternberg's book has many good explorations of this).
Whatever Sternberg believed, I cannot consider Dietrich a co-auteur simply because her level of artistic commitment to and control over the films was nothing like Sternberg's. This is not to diminish her contributions as an actor in the least. Anyway, from what I've read, she later didn't even consider these very great works, although The Devil is a Woman was her favorite despite what she endured in it.

Hitchcock himself made plain the extent to which Dietrich directed herself in her scenes in Stage Fright, which would seem to be a rare capitulation for that director.

Also, Blonde Venus is a project that specifically originated with Dietrich (and her discussions about her life with von Sternberg). There is even evidence to suggest that she contributed to the script -- something very unusual for a star in Hollywood at that time (hence no credit).

The question of auteurism is particularly interesting with von Sternberg as his body of work is so consistent but is unthinkable without the pressures of the Hollywood system. In spite of much creative disagreement, it seems to me that his films largely succeed because of the concatenation of influences from Paramount, from his stars and their personae, etc. Von Sternberg is no von Stroheim, in other words.

Fun in a Chinese Laundry is (for obvious reasons) unreliable on this point, but I highly recommend Peter Baxter's BV production history, Just Watch! It's an amazing piece of scholarship, combining all manner of contextualization (production, reception, textual analysis) to illuminate this one, utterly unique film.

leo goldsmith wrote:Hitchcock himself made plain the extent to which Dietrich directed herself in her scenes in Stage Fright, which would seem to be a rare capitulation for that director.

"Rare" is right. The only other notable capitulation that Hitchcock made to a star's demands -- that I can think of, at least -- was to Charles Laughton in Jamaica Inn. Apparently, Hitchcock just gave up after a while.

Would have been interesting to have been there as a fly on the wall to see Hitch's reaction to either Dietrich or Laughton when they first began ignoring his direction....

Just one brief, profane interruption to this highly interesting debate: Are the subtitle options as vast as DVDfr states? If they really contain german subtitles, a release here (i.e. germany) in 2006 seems very probable, so i could rent them first.

davidhare wrote:Interestingly Laughton in a sense was Sternberg's undoing, in 1937. His intransigence on the set of Claudius, and his complete failure to find "motivation" for the character was the principal reason the shoot ground to a halt, rather than Merle Oberon's car accident. Yet the twenty minutes of edited footage (in the BBC doco The Epic that Never Was) are superb, despite Laughton

Or because of Laughton! In spite of his supposed lack of direction (something the actor was notoriously difficult about), I think he's quite excellent as Claudius (in the fragments we have). And the set pieces that still exist are incredible. This would have been a very interesting film.

Hitchcock and von Sternberg make very interesting comparisons for a variety of reasons (Mulvey's essay's pairing is but a minor example), but their (often very different) approaches to the star system is one of the most interesting to me. While it is clear that Hitchcock enjoyed manipulating the personae of his stars from a very early period (Novello being a good early example), VS seems to have liked to do cycles with his stars: George Bancroft, Emil Jannings, and finally Dietrich.

I received the seven that I ordered today (5 Sternbergs + Wilder + Song of Songs) and they are very nice indeed!

Unfortunately, it appears that Shanghai Express will not be released by Universal France soon: The inner sleeve of each disk displays the covers and the spines of the twelve DVDs that were released last week. The spines apparently show a portrait of Dietrich if all twelve are lined up in a particular order.

Scarlett Empress looks much nicer than Criterion's. As we all know, the Criterion suffers from excessive grain, while the Universal has just the right amount. There is a vast difference in contrast: the Universal is softer and reveals more details, where the CC renders uniform dark patches. While it is possible that the steep contrast could be an artistic choice that makes the CC more accurate, I strongly doubt it.

davidhare wrote:French Morocco - I assumed it was the same master as the German disc

Based on the Beaver's caps, it looks identical to me.

davidhare wrote: but all the other titles are so good, I am curious to know if it also is a restoration to the high standard of the remaining four Sternbergs in the series.

It certainly shows it's age more than the others, but the transfer appears to be a very faithful representation of the element and the closeups look beautiful on a 32' tube.

I find the transfer of Dishonored the weakest of the set: it's excessively grainy and the contrast is too steep. In fact, it reminds me a lot of the CC Scarlett Empress.

Unfortunately, it appears that SHANGHAI EXPRESS will not be released by Universal France soon

I'm afraid I have to corroborate this: FNAC have just sent me an email confirming that my order cannot be filled and has been cancelled (not postponed).

I can't believe that SE has fallen under the release wheels twice now on two continents. Someone must have crossed a Pharaoh.

Perhaps Criterion is doing SHANGHAI EXPRESS as well as a star-edition of DOUBLE INDEMNITY