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Blonde Venus

Play trailer Poster for Blonde Venus 1932 1h 34m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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72% Tomatometer 36 Reviews 70% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
A nightclub singer (Marlene Dietrich) becomes a playboy's (Cary Grant) mistress to support her son and ailing husband (Herbert Marshall).

Critics Reviews

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Globe Staff Boston Globe 15h
It is inevitable that so individual a director and so unique a personality as these two should have their detractors, but smart aleck critics or no, "Blonde Venus" is a superb film - grand entertainment on a lavish scale. Go to Full Review
Frank Daniel Atlanta Journal-Constitution 20h
"The Blonde Venus" has all those extraordinary qualities which Von Sternberg and his star bring to a production - originality, a magnificent pictorial quality, economy of dialogue, sensuous beauty, rhythm, and variety Go to Full Review
Republic Staff Arizona Republic 20h
Directed by Josef von Sternberg, [Marlene Dietrich] is offered in her first role as an American woman, a warm, loving, humanly-moved personality, through which Dietrich exemplifies an artistry more brilliant than in anything she has yet given the screen. Go to Full Review
Charlotte Observer Staff Charlotte Observer 14h
This picture gives Dietrich two important assets, a real down-to-earth story and a character to portray that is worthy of her talent. Go to Full Review
Rollin Palmer Buffalo News 14h
Pictorially, "Blonde Venus," is nothing short of elegant. Director von Sternberg shows again that he is one of the imperial wizards of his craft. Go to Full Review
Birmingham Post Staff Birmingham Post 15h
But while the story is scarcely plausible, Marlene Dietrich, with her icy exterior...makes Helen Faraday a real person who wins and keeps the sympathy of her audience in spite of her strayings from virtue. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Alec B @Alec97 01/10/2024 Iconic musical numbers aside this is a lesser Dietrich/Sternberg collaboration. Censorship of the time appears to have muddled the screenplay's themes. See more steve d 01/09/2023 One of Grant's worst. See more georgan g 11/29/2021 Maybe it's the difference in era, but I don't like films where the woman is always in the wrong. It's the double standard. Neither man is good for her but Dietrich is the "perfect" mother and does what's best -supposedly- for the child. See more 02/15/2021 Iconic musical numbers aside this is a lesser Dietrich/Sternberg collaboration. Censorship of the time appears to have muddled the screenplay's themes. See more 02/12/2021 It's all rather trashy, with Dietrich's Helen riding a see-saw of being rich and being poor and being rich and being poor, all the while looking great, carrying on torrid affairs, and detaching from everything but her boy. Only Dietrich could manage to make such a willfully self-destructive character as sympathetic a figure as she is. Although in many ways she's arrived at this point through her own series of bad choices, by the time her husband demands their son back, it's he who strikes the viewer as the problem. This in itself is a pretty remarkable feat for both the filmmaker and particularly the actress. All the while, von Sternberg continues to craft a bigger and more expansive sensory world for her to have her way with. And, though some of the sharp edges of their past films have been filed down this time, Dietrich does indeed have her way with it. See more david f @dfulmer 12/15/2020 A couple of excellent Marlene Dietrich music numbers enliven this racy soap opera fairy tale. See more Read all reviews
Blonde Venus

My Rating

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Movie Info

Synopsis A nightclub singer (Marlene Dietrich) becomes a playboy's (Cary Grant) mistress to support her son and ailing husband (Herbert Marshall).
Director
Josef von Sternberg
Producer
Josef von Sternberg
Screenwriter
S.K. Lauren, Jules Furthma, Josef von Sternberg
Distributor
Paramount Pictures, MCA/Universal Pictures [us]
Production Co
Paramount Pictures, Paramount Publix Corporation
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Sep 16, 1932, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Oct 8, 2020
Runtime
1h 34m
Sound Mix
Mono
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.37:1)