***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.
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.