Kirpianuscus one of old fashion films who, using the story only as pretext, gives magnificent cinematography. a war story, remembering Mata Hari biography, it is the scene for brilliant, fascinating, ambiguous, charming performance of Marlene Dietrich. not a real surprise. only delight. because each word, each gesture, each dialogue becomes a Persian carpet of details. the clothes, the music, the piano, the cat, the attitude of a woman who covers her patriotic feelings in a refined form of hedonism, her forbidden love story who has the only sin to not give to her the right partner to be easily credible, the last scene who gives to death new nuances are the ingredients of great example of high cinematography. and that does Dishonored memorable.

oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx It is best to write first about von Sternberg's aesthetic as some have not grasped it so well in my opinion. When I first watched his "The Scarlet Empress" my initial feeling was that it was very silly; as a historical portrait of Catherine the Great of Russia it's ludicrous, in every palace scene these grotesque and implausible Russian Orthodox inspired gargoyles and paraphernalia loom out of the darkness. The palace sets reek of congenital insanity and cobwebbed decay that is decadently overblown. This is not the point though, for what we are seeing is not Tsarist Russia, but childhood dreams of Tsarist Russia. Who as a child if they read of Rasputin or Mata Hari, or Jack the Ripper didn't fully over-egg the pudding in their mind? My favourite dream is of an insomniac Russian court listening to those inestimable gifts of Bach, the Goldberg variations. You will never see my fever dream as I am not Josef von Sternberg, one of the greatest artistic geniuses (I really mean that word) of the Twentieth century.Dishonored I am told is the least of the Dietrich/Sternberg collaborations, if that is so, then it is the least of the great peaks of the Himalayas in filmic terms. It is almost pure dreamscape. The film is in some respects an elaborate parry and thrust duello between Dietrich's X-27 and Victor McLaglen's Colonel Kranau, an Austrian and a Russian spy during The Great War.It has been said that McLaglen was miscast in this movie. That for me is palpably false. McLaglen is mainly known for his stock character roles in John Ford movies, usually playing slightly oafish but well-meaning fellows. It may be the case that folks have been unable to disentangle that persona from what they saw in this film. My own personal blind spot is that I can only see Norman Bates when I see an Anthony Perkins movie, which ruins them every time. For me Victor's smile, which is all you see in the masked ball, is perfect for the role, his lifestyle and way with the women positively makes James Bond look like a rank amateur. There is an almost balletic moment in Dietrich's (why not say Dietrich when we are dealing with such an artificial delight?) bedroom where Victor effortlessly catches her hand as she whirls away from him; how can a movie be so controlled yet seemingly effortless? What this film leaves you with, which is the way of life of both Kranau and X-27, is the feeling of being neither afraid of life nor of death. These are two super-people leading exorbitantly fulfilled existences. Frankly I was overcome by this film. The masked ball, with Kranau grinning and hobbling away on his crutches will stay with me until I am dribbling and senile.It is right and honest and proper to dedicate something you enjoyed doing. So I dedicate this review to Claire B, who is wonderful.

James-Morrell ***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.

psteier Mainly of interest who want to see more of Josef von Sternberg and the kind of movies he was involved in. Marlene Dietrich has her moments but cannot carry the whole movie. Of course, she is cute and seductive, especially when spying as a maid behind the Russian lines, but the whole movie does seem far from reality.