Dishonored
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Dishonored |
| Original title | Dishonored |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1931 |
| length | 85 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Josef von Sternberg |
| script |
Daniel Nathan Rubin Josef von Sternberg |
| production | Paramount Pictures |
| music |
Ludwig van Beethoven Ivanovici |
| camera | Lee Garmes |
| cut | Josef von Sternberg |
| occupation | |
| |
Dishonored is an American spy film by Josef von Sternberg from 1931.
action
Once again one of the prostitutes in a brothel has committed suicide . Officer's widow Marie Kolverer now earns her living with prostitution, but she is neither afraid of life nor death. This is what the head of the Austrian secret service hears. He knows a traitor in his ranks and believes that the influential Colonel Hindau is betraying the Austrian plans to the Russians with whom Austria is at war. Many Austrians have already lost their lives through betrayal. Hindau knows all of the country's spies and so Marie is appointed as a new spy on Hindau under the name X-27.
Marie made contact with Hindau during the New Year's Eve, was taken to his apartment and was soon able to convict him of being a spy. Before he can be captured, Hindau shoots himself. At the New Year's Eve party there was another gentleman at Hindau's side, obviously a contact who, however, had not introduced himself to Marie. She now wants to ask him too. Marie meets him in a gaming room, promises him a kiss and ensnares him, but he sees through her game and escapes unrecognized. The head of the Austrian secret service is annoyed that she was so simple-minded and underestimated the man - Lieutenant Kranau. She is sent on an espionage mission to Russia. Shortly before, however, Kranau went to her apartment to pick up the promised kiss. He admits to be an agent for the other side and to work as a colonel in the Russian army. Again he easily escapes her.
In Russia, Marie disguised as a housemaid can seduce a colonel and copy important documents. The colonel belongs to Kranau's unit, who immediately exposes Marie as a spy and has her captured. She knows the end is imminent and she only wishes to spend the last few hours with him. He agrees, she mixes sleeping pills in his drink and escapes. It transmits the copied strategies to Austria and the army can capture numerous Russians. Among them is Kranau, who turns out to be the long-sought, important Russian spy H-14. He is supposed to be executed, but Marie pretends to want to interrogate him for 10 minutes. During this time she enables him to escape, as she has long since fallen in love with him. Now Marie is charged with high treason and sentenced to death. Her last wishes - a dress from her days as a prostitute and a piano - will be granted before she is executed.
production
Dishonored is based on the story X.27 conceived by Josef von Sternberg . Originally the film should also bear this name, but Paramount decided against von Sternberg's will for the title Dishonored . "My protest that the lady was not dishonored but fusiled was ignored by [Paramount]", von Sternberg said in retrospect. The film became famous for the execution scene: “While soldiers are aiming at her, the prostitute Magda is putting on her lipstick. The sultry-erotic melody of Josef von Sternberg [...] was considered the answer to the Greta Garbo success Mata Hari ”.
The film premiered on March 5, 1931 at the Rialto Theater in New York City . After Morocco , it was the second film that Marlene Dietrich shot in Hollywood. The German premiere took place on January 6, 1932 in the Capitol , Berlin.
criticism
The contemporary German criticism was rather hostile to the film. “With this film, Sternberg [...] gives us a work that hardly makes us happy. [...] Sternberg wrote the book again. It must be surprising that a man who at least knows Europe was able to invent a scenario that was far removed from wartime Austria in every respect in terms of the external process, in terms of motifs, in terms of psychology, ”says the Lichtbildbühne.
The lexicon of the international film wrote: "Genre pictures from old Europe, sultry eroticism and inexorable fate: a melodrama - interesting in terms of presentation - by the Viennese Josef von Sternberg". “Marlene impresses with her ice-cold charm,” said Cinema .
Web links
- Disgraced in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Dishonored in marlenedietrich-filme.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from Renate Seydel: Marlene Dietrich. A chronicle of her life in pictures and documents . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1989, p. 132.
- ↑ a b See cinema.de
- ↑ Marlene Dietrich - actress . In: CineGraph - Lexicon for German-Language Film , Lg. 21, F 3
- ↑ Lichtbildbühne, January 7, 1932.
- ↑ Klaus Brüne (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 2. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990, p. 873.