{"id":15877,"date":"2011-09-25T18:20:41","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T02:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15877"},"modified":"2011-09-26T06:09:15","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T14:09:15","slug":"marlene-dietrich-her-own-song-david-riva-2001-germanyusa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15877","title":{"rendered":"Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song (David Riva, 2001): Germany\/USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on TCM.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0Marlene Dietrich:\u00a0 Her Own Song<\/a><\/em>\u00a0 follows the distinguished career of film icon Marlene Dietrich, which\u00a0highlights her films, recordings, personal life, and most importantly her triumphant role in World War II\u00a0history.<\/p>\n

Born in Germany in 1901, Dietrich’s career began on the stage in Berlin and quickly moved to silent pictures.\u00a0 She earned international fame through her role in The Blue Angel<\/em> (1930), the first of seven pictures in a collaboration with famed director Josef Von Sternberg.<\/p>\n

Accepting a film\u00a0invitation from Hollywood, the distinctly German actress would travel back and forth to Europe from the United States in order to visit family, while avoiding Germany and the loathsome\u00a0Nazi regime.\u00a0 Being given\u00a0an offer she couldn’t refuse from Nazi hierarchy, to become their poster child for propaganda, Dietrich promptly returned to the U.S. and decisively\u00a0took out\u00a0citizenship in 1939, prior to the outbreak of war.<\/p>\n

Soon after the United States entered the war in 1941, the most adamant anti-Nazi Marlene Dietrich, actively began to sell war bonds and\u00a0entertain the troops\u00a0with\u00a0the USO.\u00a0 Feeling very deeply for her “boys,” Dietrich was not content until she was able to mingle and travel with\u00a0American servicemen, by digging in\u00a0on the front-lines in France and elsewhere –\u00a0all while in her 40’s!<\/p>\n

She was called upon by the OSS to help in propaganda, in an Allied version of Tokyo Rose, and recorded popular tunes in German\u00a0that would be broadcast to German soldiers, making them increasingly war-weary and homesick.\u00a0 Often jeopardizing her own health and safety, Dietrich\u00a0eventually entered Germany with General John Gavin at the end of the European conflict, where she was reunited with her mother and family.<\/p>\n

Dietrich never fully recovered from the sting of war, but she did ultimately receive the Medal of Freedom award.\u00a0 She returned to performing live, and successfully performed German songs in Israel and Germany.<\/p>\n

Marlene Dietrich:\u00a0 Her Own Song <\/em>is a fascinating tribute, warmly documented by her grandson David Riva, and narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis.\u00a0 It contains notes from her diary, archival footage, first-person voice-overs, clips from various interviews,\u00a0and rare images of Dietrich in her front-line\u00a0fatigues.\u00a0 This is a must-see for film historians and WWII film fans, since Dietrich was in every way a brave ambassador for the Allies.<\/p>\n

There are a handful of tunes that are synonymous with Marlene Dietrich:\u00a0 Lili Marlene, The Laziest Gal in Town, Falling in Love Again, and her own version of La Vie En Rose.\u00a0 She\u00a0delivers standout performances in Hitchcock’s Stage Fright<\/em> (1950), and Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution<\/em> (1957) that are my personal favs.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed on TCM. \u00a0Marlene Dietrich:\u00a0 Her Own Song\u00a0 follows the distinguished career of film icon Marlene Dietrich, which\u00a0highlights her films, recordings, personal life, and most importantly her triumphant role in World War II\u00a0history. Born in Germany in 1901, Dietrich’s career began on the stage in Berlin and quickly moved to silent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,67,3,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-documentary","category-dvd","category-films","category-tv-programming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}