Showing posts with label biopic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biopic. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Mae West

Most television biopics suck. Jennifer Love Hewitt as Audrey Hepburn, Lindsay Lohan as Elizabeth Taylor, any number of bland blonde starlets as Marilyn Monroe. However, there are a few exceptions: Christina Ricci as Lizzie Borden, Gina Gershon as Donatella Versace, Loni Andersen as Jayne Mansfield and Ann Jillian as Mae West.

During the 80s, Jillian was in the sassy waitress sitcom It's a Living, playing the sassiest waitress. While she doesn't quite possess the pulchritude of Mae West, she does convey more than a little of the sexiness, the self-possession and the wit of that resoundingly feminine proto-femninist.

The movie covers Mae's career through her child star days, her time in vaudeville, her scandalous stage productions of the 20s, her film career in the 30s and her later comeback. (Although they stop well before Myra Breckinridge. Because there's pretty much no one who wants to acknowledge that ever happened.) The wide chronology also offers plenty of opportunities for fabulous period costumes.

We first see Baby Mae as a precocious child performer with a head of Nellie Olsen ringlets, stomping her feet and demanding her spotlight (a tale West was to tell often later in life). Giving Baby Mae constant encouragement, support and new frocks is her mother Matilda, player by Piper Laurie as pretty much the polar opposite of the mom in Carrie.

We see the brunette Mae West plug along in vaudeville, trying singing trios, dancing duos, solo shimmys. She picks up a husband, who seems to spend most of his time following her around going, "Awww, Mae!" until she finally brushes him off--from both the act and the marriage. Well, i mean, she doesn't divorce him, she just gets him booked "on another circuit, with a lotta women. For forty weeks."




Mae is mentored and taught the fine points of individuality and style by a drag queen played by none other than Roddy McDowall. He watches in horror as she squeaks and grinds her way through a tawdry cave girl routine but, in the great tradition down to Bianca del Rio HerSelf, he counsels the tacky newcomer on how to get better. He takes Mae through everything from the nature of being a star to how to develop a routine to the finer points of contouring. I recall watching this movie when i was a kid and thinking: I need someone like this in my life.

Mae doesn't just pick up stage business and dance steps fast, she's also a quick study in life. She learns quick that when two men fight over a woman, it's often more about ego than love; that a woman who'll put up with anything from a man usually does. As the real Mae said: "I made up my mind early that I would never love another person as much as I loved myself. Maybe that sounds selfish. It is. But I saw what a mess people could make of their lives when they're smitten. Some of them go temporarily insane."


But TV movie Mae hooks up with rich businessguy James Timony, played by power bottom James Brolin. Blonde and begowned, Mae becomes a headliner with a bevy of tuxedoed chorus boys and a nice way with "C. C. Rider" and "Frankie and Johnny."

She writes and stars in her own play, Sex, promptly gets arrested and, after some laugh-tracked courtroom scenes, is thrown in the clink and comes out bigger and badder than ever. She writes and stars in Diamond Lil on Broadway, goes to Hollywood--if it seems to be happening awfully fast, it's because it is. The only real pause point, interestingly, is during the shooting of West's first film, Night After Night, where she gives a fine clinic in standing up for one's artistic rights (and comic timing).
Timony trails besottedly behind her the whole way but Mae West is too busy with her career to let anyone put a ring on it (again).  "Marriage is not a natural state! It was something invented by women to hang on to men!" This is kind of the closest we get to authentic Mae once the de rigeur romance kicks in..

The "becoming" part of the film is much more interesting and it's largely because it's all about Mae, not about some tacked-on romance. Mae West may have been well know for being more interested in career than romantic relationships but, once this movie hits the romantic relationship, that's all it's about. Unsurprising. The movie also brushes past the controversial nature of West's plays -- interracial relationships, homosexuality, cross-dressing, drug use, adultery, prostitution, castration, political corruption. Mae West: Too edgy for the 80s....
Jillian is notably less voluptuous than Mae West (isn't everybody, though) but she rocks the flapper look well. And heaven knows she does a better job then other ersatz Maes, the worst of which must be Faye Dunaway in a bargain-basement pseudo-religious flick entitled The Calling (don't inquire further, but let's just say there's a really cheap-ass Liberace too). It's recently been announced that Bette Midler will be playing Mae for HBO and, heaven knows, ain't no one (living) going to deliver those lines better. Still, her Mae West will probably give us a latter Mae, while Ann Jillian's Mae West , before it lapses into sentimentality, gives us an interesting depiction of her early years.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

The Jayne Mansfield Story

Remember that awful Liz Taylor TV movie with Lindsay Lohan? Yeah, me neither, really, although i know i watched it... but i brought up the Jayne Mansfield TV movie with Loni Anderson as a finer example of a trashy TV biopic. Then, lo, i got the DVD for Christmas. The stars seemingly being in alignment, i give you The Jayne Mansfield Story.

The movie is based on the book, Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton. It's one of those rare biographies that treats its subject with affection, yet pulls no punches. Even better, it places Jayne in context to the changing times she lived in, how she manifested them and how they ultimately ruined her.

Casting Loni Anderson at her WKRP in Cincinnati peak as Mansfield was an inspired idea -- while she may not look alike in the face, the rack is close to accurate and she's got the giggle, the wiggle and the jiggle for the role. Even more inspired was the casting of Arnold Schwarzenegger -- exactly halfway between Pumping Iron and Conan the Barbarian -- as Mansfield's musclehead hubby, Mickey Hargitay. He delivers a good bit of the narration -- the movie's framing theme is Mickey talking to an unnamed lady journalist about Jayne. He's expectedly wooden and weirdly earnest (present-day scenes with polyester sportcoat straining at the shoulders and light brushing of gray powder at the temples, flashback shots in a series of banana hammocks).

We kick off with the classic "open with the defining moment of the subject's career" gambit -- in this case, the car crash. LoniJayne is wrapping up a gig at a skeezy club in Biloxi, wriggling in a ghastly spangled dress and cheap Barbie wig. (sadly, this is all absolutely true) Then it's into the Buick, try to pass the semi in a cloud of fog and BANG!

Brief misty-eyed Ahnold, then it's back back back back to a brunette Jayne babysitting her toddler daughter while working the popcorn stand at a movie theater -- and, presciently, getting her picture taken with a chimp at a movie premiere (not accurate, but this movie was made during the Reagan years after all...) Jayne explains to adorable tyke that "Oh, I don't think daddy's ever coming back....He doesn't understand those auditions mommy's always going on."

Jayne bulldozes herself into an agent, but blows her first big audition for a bimbo part by insisting on doing a monologue from "Come Back Little Sheba." She quickly realizes that her biggest asset is what's filling out her sweater and decides that "I'll just sell the cheesecake until I'm famous." Of course, this will be Jayne's downfall, as she keeps putting off her ideals of being an actress, a wife, a person until she hits some magic level of famous. It's always just out of her grasp, but once she gets there, she's gonna only do serious roles, get married, spend more time with the kids, write a book....

But, until then, it's about making "Jayne Mansfield" and "big boobs" virtual synonyms, taking any schlocky movie role that comes her way, posing for any photo, opening any supermarket and using "Get me the Playboy Mansion, I want to talk to Hugh Hefner" as her answer to every setback. LoniJayne sports a variety of wild outfits of that special eighties-version-of-the-fifties variety: Everything is pink, sequined, polka-dot, leopard-print or all of the above. The costumes are even more over-the-top than the original Jayne outfits.

"You know, mommy got a lot of money for posing for those pictures. It's gonna help us to get out of here." (Add this to the list of things one hopes that one never says, along with "Here's my PIN number" and "I don't think it's my blood.") Jayne gets Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? by repeatedly dropping her towel. And it was only a hand towel to begin with.
Or, as Ahnold would say, "She was the center of attraction."
The two great chests meet and fall head over heels -- as Schwarzgitay incessantly bellows, "I loff you Jaynie!" Mansfield is at the pinnacle of her fame -- a short-lived pinnacle, not that she even suspected that. They move into the Pink Palace, replete with heart-shaped pool. (Unfortunately, it's not the real thing. Also in the "alas" department, we do not get any scenes about or any reference to Jayne's involvement with Satanism and palling around with Anton LaVey.) Though you wouldn't think it, The Jayne Mansfield Story passes the Bechdel test easily, as Jayne talks about her career with everyone she comes across. Sure, she loves Mickey. But she loves her career and herself more. And her kids. And her chihuahua. And vodka. Jayne develops a very special relationship with vodka.

Jayne gets so caught up in trying to get famous, she forgets what she wanted to be famous for. As the films get worse and worse and the publicity gets tackier and tackier, Jayne drinks more, yells more. I suppose in a way, you could say The Jayne Mansfield Story is all of our stories. As what we meant to be and what we are slide further and further apart, holding it together becomes more and more of a strain -- and almost impossible to do while simultaneously remaining bubbly and cheerful and stacked and compliant.
"But I'm a movie star. That's what I do." The seams do start to show, fraying even further as fifties cartoon bombshell Jayne becomes an anachronism in the Twiggy/Joplin sixties. Jayne stands on her balcony as tour buses cruise by, waving frantically with one hand, clutching her ubiquitous vodka in the other. She breaks up with her agent and spends most of her time loaded, staggering around the Pink Palace, howling, "Dammit, Carol Sue, where's the vodka!?" and yelling at the kids about their damn music. Her sodden, pathetic/sympathetic/narcissistic reaction to Marilyn Monroe's death is eerie, as she dreamily, soddenly intones that she's the last blonde standing without realizing that's no place to be.
And we wind up back where we started, in a cheap joint in Biloxi, as tawdry, tipsy Jayne croons and squeaks over the balding pates of pudding-jawed businessmen.

Loni Anderson is totally credible as Jayne Mansfield and it's easily the best work she ever did. (And i say this as a big fan of her as Jennifer The Receptionist on WKRP in Cincinnati, a rare example of the busty bombshell as the smartest, most competent person in the room.) Schwarzenegger isn't bad as Hargitay -- essentially, he's a well-meaning yet clueless Eastern European guy with barbells and biceps. Not much of a stretch, although this Mickey is smarter and more successful than the real thing.
This poster, however, is creepy. Arnold is unrecognizable, rendered in the Tijuana drugstore mural school of art, and that isn't even Loni -- it's an old Playboy photo of Jayne colored in with a paint-by-numbers set.
So, again, if you want a schlocky-yet-moving TV biopic, The Jayne Mansfield Story should be your go-to. (Did you know that Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Kiss them for Me" is about Jayne Mansfield. Listen to the lyrics... i'm pretty sure Siouxsie wrote them after watching this on late-night TV.) If you need a backup, Mae West starring Ann Jillian is also surprisingly good (hey, it has Roddy McDowall). However, bypass all of the many Marilyn Monroe TV biopics, as well as Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess starring Lynda Carter. (Even as a wee lass, i never really forgave Wonder Woman for what she did to Gilda.) And even i could not summon up enough hatewatch for Jennifer Love Hewitt as Audrey Hepburn. You're on your own with that one.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Liz & Dick

Quick! Open the liquor cabinet! The movie is about to start!
I would like to think that this is how they would react. After they changed the channel.

Now, I know it is impossible for Liz Taylor to be incarnated by anyone other than Liz Taylor -- they truly broke the damn mold on her. But casting Lindsay Lohan? Hollywood's ultimate star played by a washed-up wannabe? One of the great beauties of all time portrayed by a once-pretty 26-year-old who's blown enough rails and had enough truly unfortunate plastic surgery to look like a 43-year-old streetwalker? A woman renowned for high-profile relationships with some of the most famous men of her time acted by someone who's only notable score was banging some DJ whose stepdad was in Foreigner. (And that would not have provoked any interest at all if said DJ hadn't been a lady.) A multiple-Oscar winner who starred in a number of film classics impersonated by someone who last decent film was over a decade ago... Well, okay Zee and Co. was pretty dreadful, but not nearly as bad as I Know Who Killed Me. And, yes, while Machete was a fucking masterpiece, I would not count Lohan's brief contribution as crucial. Welcome and amusing, yes, but not essential.

Obviously, Lifetime did not intend Liz & Dick to be a quality product. No one who tuned into this movie expected it to be good. Which is not a bad thing: My friend Laura recently stated that she wished Lifetime was "a real women's movie channel with lots of schlocky biographies. Mommie Dearest twenty-four-seven." One would hope that Liz & Dick would be a step in this oh-so right directions. But, alas, no. It's a poor-to-middling biopic with some idiotic stunt casting.
I'd have no idea who this was supposed to be if they didn't keep telling me.

The movie is idly framed with the idea of Burton's love letters to Taylor -- they open with one, mention it at some point again later, whatever. they also repeatedly come back to what I suppose is supposed to be their 1972 interview with David Frost (you know, there one was Liz was so hammered on Jack Daniels that she always regretted doing it), but comes off more like some kind of faux Inside the Actor's Studio crap. What follows is an endless procession of brief scenes of the life of someone who they claim is Elizabeth Taylor. And i do mean brief: There is not a scene longer than 90 seconds. I don't know if that's because the writer had severe ADHD or maybe that's the longest Lindsay could go without her eyes rolling back into her head.

Listen, before we go any further with this, let me share the most memorable thing about viewing Liz & Dick, which was the perfecting of my newest cocktail invention...

The Pushkin
2 parts Stoli salted caramel vodka
1 part caramel-flavored Bailey's
1 part whole milk.

Shake and serve over ice. Like a White Russian, but a bit sweeter and with a more cafe au lait color. I'm not sure exactly what kind of drinking game to play during this movie. Rick suggested that every time someone shoehorns backstory into dialogue: "I made twenty-nine pictures in the last fifteen years." Drink! "This is your fourth marriage!" Drink!... Fuck! Let's make it easy: Every time they drink, we drink.
Honestly, i'm not sure this movie is even worth wasting your liquor. (And you know Lindsay can feel that snap from here, even passed out!) But, as Ginger pointed out, "The good thing about this being on television with commercials is that there's time to freshen your drink. Early. And often."

The guy who plays Burton at least does a competent Richard Burton voice, but his abs are definitely not the abs of a middle-aged 1960s alcoholic. At one point he wears a mink coat that inspires one to put their hand in the air and do the "'Big Pimpin' Whistle," but ends up in Jimmy Buffet shirts. Taylor's overprotective mother is played by Theresa Russell -- Remember Black Widow!? Remember Ken Russell's Whore!? Now she's here, playing down her still-fabulousness in the service of Lindsay Lohan. And Lohan -- Jesus, she's not even trying. I could do a better Liz Taylor than that. Watch her movies/clips with a bit of observance and you quickly notice a distinct timbre to her voice and a certain blowsy-yet regal body language.

Divine as Francine Fishpaw was a better late Taylor than this. Hell, at least we would have enjoyed that. I'm sure La Liz would too.

We're also lacking for historical accuracy or even truthfulness to the spirit of the character. The Liz of Liz & Dick is curiously prissy: The woman who would beam benignly as Mike Todd yanked down her top for a feel of the Imperial Bosoms in full view of two dozen dinner guests is here a princess who flounces away scandalized at the mere mention of her cleavage. Well, at least the double chin is accurate.

See, this is what we're going for! Clock that. That is over-the-top goddess-on-earth.

And at least for the 90's Liz Taylor TV miniseries they got an actually beautiful woman and an actual costume designer. Instead of the collaboration between David's Bridal and Bed, Bath & Beyond used by Lifetime for Liz & Dick.
See what I mean? They didn't even spring for Party City. That is another beef i have with this movie:  It's cheap. The costumes are off-the-rack, the sets are basically the same hotel suite shot from different angles, a yacht they rented for a weekend and various corners of the set with some work lights in them. And then....

It's the Elizabeth Taylor Story: Jewelry by Claire's Boutique!

The romance is about as shoddy. If you want to do the full tabloid diva Taylor, you gotta start sooner. Begin with the Mike Todd years, which gave her the taste for over-the-top luxury. Or the "Liz Steals Eddie from Debbie" superscandal of the post-Todd years. Actually the only time Lohan seems to spring vaguely alert is when she's being nasty to Sybil Burton (the hip nightclub owner who, after Burton, stole Roddy McDowall's boyfriend and then married a rock n' roller 12 years her junior, here as a pearl-clutching priss). Maybe a Liz vs. Debbie Mean Girls would have worked out better. Actually, you know what's a lot better, now that i'm thinking of it : The Jayne Mansfield Story TV movie starring Loni Andersen as Jayne and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mickey Hargitay. Now that was a brilliant piece of affectionate schlock!

So, back to the tedious tale of Liz & Dick. When the two finally get together, he recites poetry to her as they lie in a candle-surrounded soaking tub in a bed and breakfast in the Tuscan countryside... yep, Richard Burton's seduction of Elizabeth Taylor looks just like Antonio Sabato Jr. putting the moves on Jennie Garth. Dick tries to leave Liz, but then she runs off to her suite and starts speed-chasing pills with vodka. See! This part's convincing. Now Lohan's really acting... oh, wait.

They reunite and begin drinking a lot and making ridiculous movies like The V.I.P.'s, driving aghast directors to utter lines like :
"It's 8 a.m. and they're already drinking!"
"For God's sake, let's go for a take while they can still walk."


I know, that sounds pretty awesomely campy, but that's about as good as it gets. Here. I'll give you the two other amusing lines and save you the trouble of watching or, at least, paying attention:

"I need a ring. A big ring." 

"I'm not saying that it's colon cancer, but it's serious enough that I have to run more tests."

Liz & Dick overall is pretty lousy. Elizabeth Taylor herself made a string of uber-campy B-movies back in the late sixties/early seventies, but her presence always lit them up, whereas Lohan is a lead weight on Liz & Dick. Just because the paparazzi went after you and after her does not make you her. Having something in common does not mean you play yourself. The moment where the lights flashed in your face like they did in hers --that was two lines crossing. It was the path you could follow down the line from you to her. Jump the line. That's the magic of acting: You can be someone else. Or at least fucking try.

Blah blah blah, Liz & Dick, they drink, they fight, they divorce, they remarry, they divorce. She wants drinks and jewelry, he bitches and moans and cries about not winning an Oscar (the accepted explanation for Burton's non-win despite seven nominations was that he had slept with too many Academy member's wives). He puts some grey streaks in his hair and falls over dead, Lohan slaps on a Liza Minnelli wig and some shoulder pads and cries. Oh, wait! Back to the nearly forgotten framing device.


So, this is the epitaph for the great romance of the twentieth century? She didn't throw away his letters? That is the ultimate proof of eternal devotion? Hell, i still have the letters of the most evil of my exes (he wrote quite a bit while he was in prison) and i certainly would not say that i'll love him until the end of my days. (Although i am a bit of a pack rat when it comes to the written word and i'm especially intrigued by any piece of paper that blasts out the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" whenever it is unfolded.... What? Only i can hear that? Never mind.)

It's no wonder they waited until Elizabeth Taylor passed on to render forth this travesty. While i doubt she could have stopped it, the force of her displeasure would be enough to make the folks at Lifetime think twice. I'm imagining full excommunication from any party of note, having most of your phone calls ignored, your credit line declined on Rodeo Drive and in Gstaad, as well as being denied the services of any of the gays of West Hollywood, be they hairdresser, makeup artist, stylist, agent, producer or Geffen. in fact, such a mandate may exist even as the Grand High Exalted Mother of the Abbey has passed on from this world. Although i suppose no one can punish Lindsay Lohan any worse than she has herself already...
Really, bitch? I think not.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

The Scarlet Empress

Outside, it is as hot as.... well, outside is the desert in August, so you can guess how hot it is. When it's this kind of infernal, one of my favorite ways to imagine myself cool is watching black-and-white movies set in places with abundant snow. Among these are Alexander Nevsky and The Thing, but best of all is The Scarlet Empress. Josef Von Sternberg made seven films with Marlene Dietrich, their pairing was one of the finest examples of folie a deux in the history of film and The Scarlet Empress is Dietrich's iconicism and Von Sternberg's stylization, both cranked up to 11.
The story of Catherine the Great has been told over and over again in film, played by everyone from Jeanne Moreau to Julia Ormond to Jayne Meadows to Bette Davis to Catherine Zeta-Jones to Tallulah Bankhead and even my old boss Viveca Lindfors. Actually in 1934, the year of The Scarlet Empress, The Rise of Catherine the Great also came out, starring Elisabeth Bergner -- ironically, Dietrich had been minor supporting actress to Bergner's leading lady in a production of The Taming of the Shrew back when they were both young actresses in Berlin. But the Von Sternberg/Dietrich version is the one everyone remembers.

We begin with the young German Princess Sophia Frederica, briefly played by Dietrich's cranky-puss daughter, Maria. We then are reminded via intertitle of the barbarism of Russia. This offers an opportunity for Von Sternberg to indulge in some kinky torture scenes, then cutting directly to Shirley Temple -- excuse me, Marlene Dietrich, swinging in a flower-filled garden, a la Fragonard. Dietrich's performance is best described as smirk-inducing. Seeing the world-weary, cosmopolitan, bisexual, chic Marlene Dietrich playing wide-eyed, curly-topped innocent is, well, as ridiculous as it sounds.


The emissary of barbaric Russia arrives in the person of Alexei, Fabio-like hunk John Lodge. Lodge's acting career was very brief -- he only made a few films (and actually turned down a role in Mae West's She Done Him Wrong). He went on to become a congressman and governor of Connecticut, as well as ambassador to Spain. He has been sent to bring the young princess to Russia to marry the Grand Duke. There is much riding through great drifts of snow in piles of fur. Lodge leers at Dietrich, Dietrich continues to maintain the affect of someone with mild brain damage. More snow, more horses, more extras, more furs, more leering, more faux-naif Marlene, more snow, more furs, more horses, more snow. Brrrrrrr!

The set design of The Scarlet Empress is legendary, setting some kind of benchmark for the bizarre and it's when we hit Russia that it goes full-on bonkers. Doors 15 feet high and eight feet across that require a bevy of hoopskirted extras to open and close. Gargoyles looming over the tops of chairs, life-size skeletons serving as candelabrum: This is gothic home decor at it finest!
Princess Dietrich is presented to the Czarina, played by Louise Dresser as an overbearing Midwestern harpy. While taking in the bones of the damned end table and the magazine rack of the black soul, she gets an on-the-spot hymen check (Fun Fact: The bewigged queen crawling up under Dietrich's panniers is Hans von Twardoski, an old friend of hers from Berlin.), her name is changed to Catherine and she's introduced to her new husband -- a simpering, sadistic half-wit. Good times! We then get to the spectacular wedding sequence. Nearly wordless, it is sustained by Dietrich's beauty and Von Sternberg's visual skill. The many non-dialogue sequences and use of multiple and verbose title cards makes one thing Von Sternberg would have preferred The Scarlet Empress to be a silent film.
This motif continues with the post-wedding banquet scene. Surrounded by servants, statues, skeletons, violinists  and multiple forms of roast beast, we see the contrast between the elegant Grand Duchess Catherine and the pig's head-chomping lesser nobles, the contrast between the bug-eyed, drooling Grand Duke and the suave, sexy Alexei. We will be reminded of this over and over.
Dietrich is still keeping up her ditzy sophmore act at 33:26, but at least her costumes begin to improve and are a little less "the village idiot dressed in a bassinet," as her daughter Maria described it -- the black velvet riding habit with metallic trim and white ostrich plumed-tricorn hat is fabulous. Maria wrote a semi-vicious biography of her mother, but even when exposed on the page, Marlene reaches from the grave to still awe and enchant both reader and author. Thus the Mommie Dearest segments don't stick as much as the stories of film shoots, which largely hinged on costume selections. Dietrich worked closely with Travis Banton on the designs.
But, even in a pair of diamond-buckled mules that would make Christian Louboutin weep, Dietrich is still simpering and lisping and playing the fool. "A luvah? [blink blink, purse lips, blink] Why, what may that beeeee? [blink, blink, toss curls] How schocking!" This is possibly the most sophisticated woman who ever lived carrying on like this for forty-five minutes!
Finally, mercifully, after some rolling in the hay (Interrupted by a horse -- ha ha! Don't tell me Von Sternberg didn't intend that.) and some note-passing with Alexei (Love, love, love the fur-trimmed ballgown.), she finally hooks up with a passing guardsman and, lo! an heir to the throne is born. Just in time, since the Czarina of Cleveland is getting old -- "Empress, bah! I haven't the power to iron out a single wrinkle!" -- and infirm. Well, that's what you get from a life of red meat, vodka and screaming at people. (Don't get me wrong: I fully endorse all of those things.)

Dietrich's post-birth scene is another virtuosic Von Sternberg shot, traveling through multiple layers and foci. (Fun Fact: Josef von Sternberg's fondness for shooting through and around veils, lace and gauze migfht be traced back to his youthful day job in a lace store.) And, finally! We have Dietrich. No more curls, no more whispering, no more cluelessness, no more Baby Spice. It's back to the Dietrich voice, the Dietrich wit, the Dietrich appraising gaze. And, oh, what a confection of white plumes and satin she has to do it with. And the wig! She looks like a Macchiavellian survivor version of Marie Antoinette.  (Which, in a way, as another foreign princess sent to rule a hostile new court in late eighteenth-century Europe, Catherine the Great actually kind of was.)

"I have weapons that are far more powerful than any political machine." Spoken with the assurance of a woman who had Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Yul Brynner, Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, Erich Maria Remarque, Edith Piaf, Alberto Giacometti, Edward Murrow, John Gilbert, Colette, George S. Patton, Jean Gabin, and both Joe and Jack Kennedy!
Dimwit Grand Duke and his Court Tramp (who does rock a great smoky eye, though) threaten Catherine, but she is unimpressed -- actually, she manages to read them both to filth without saying a word and that, children, is why Marlene Dietrich was and is one of the greatest stars of all time.
Dietrich consolidates her power one man at a time. The Scarlet Empress is where that classic "reviewing the troops"  bit that the great Madeline Kahn did so well was born. More outfits! There's a sheer black peignoir trimmed with black and white feathers that would make Dita Von Teese squeal and clap her hands and which Marlene uses to help consolidate her, erm, military support. She gets the church on her side by slinging a few 36-strand pearl bracelets at them "for the poor." And, as you can imagine, everyone is Russia is swayed by her fabulous fucking style.
Finally, with the backing of the army, church, the people, and fashion bloggers everywhere, Catherine takes over Russia. The film closes with another of Von Sternberg's word-free visual mini-symphonies, Marlene in white military uniform leading the troops up the stairs of the Winter Palace...
I couldn't say whether The Scarlet Empress is my favorite Dietrich/Von Sternberg film. (And if Edie Sedgwick was the muse of my teenage years, Marlene Dietrich remains who i want to be when i grow up.) Shanghai Express has existentialist Dietrich in amazing deco fashions, sharing a cabin on the train of doom with her friend, the icily gorgeous and just as cool Anna May Wong. Or the finally-out-on-DVD Dishonored, in which fatalistic spy Dietrich displays a world-weariness and steely resolve that makes Angelina Jolie look like a simpering bint. But, on an August in the desert day, i'll take The Scarlet Empress.