Blonde Venus

Infobox Film
name = Blonde Venus

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caption = Original French film poster
director = Josef von Sternberg
producer = Josef von Sternberg
writer = Jules Furthman
S. K. Lauren
starring = Marlene Dietrich
Herbert Marshall
Cary Grant
Dickie Moore
music = W. Franke Harling
John Leipold
Paul Marquardt
Oscar Potoker
cinematography = Bert Glennon
editing =
distributor = Paramount Pictures
released = flagicon|USA 16 September 1932
runtime = 93 min
country = USA
awards =
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
amg_id = 1:6079
imdb_id = 0022698

"Blonde Venus" is a 1932 drama film starring Marlene Dietrich and Cary Grant. The movie was produced and directed for Paramount Pictures by Josef von Sternberg with a screenplay by Jules Furthman and S. K. Lauren adapted from a story by Furthman and von Sternberg. The music score was by W. Franke Harling, John Leipold, Paul Marquardt and Oscar Potoker, and the cinematography by Bert Glennon.

Dietrich performs three musical numbers in this film, including the now-obscure "You Little So-and-So" (music and lyrics by Sam Coslow and Leo Robin) and "I Couldn't Be Annoyed" (music and lyrics by Leo Robin and Richard A. Whiting). The highlight is perhaps "Hot Voodoo" (music by Ralph Rainger, lyrics by Sam Coslow), which is nearly 8 minutes long and mostly instrumental, featuring jazz trumpet and drums. Dietrich sings the lyrics toward the end of this sequence, which takes place in a nightclub.

This movie predates "She Done Him Wrong" by a year even though Mae West always claimed to have discovered Cary Grant for that film, elaborating that up until then Grant had only made "some tests with starlets."

Plot

American chemist Ned Faraday marries a German entertainer and starts a family. However, he becomes poisoned with Radium and needs an expensive treatment in Germany to have any chance at being cured. Wife Helen returns to night club work to attempt to raise the money and becomes popular as the Blonde Venus. In an effort to get enough money sooner, she prostitutes herself to millionaire Nick Townsend. While Ned is away in Europe, she continues with Nick but when Ned returns cured, he discovers her infidelity. Now Ned despises Helen but she grabs son Johnny and lives on the run, just one step ahead of the Missing Persons Bureau. When they do finally catch her, she loses her son to Ned. Once again she returns to entertaining, this time in Paris, and her fame once again brings her and Townsend together. Helen and Nick return to America engaged, but she is irresistibly drawn back to her son and Ned. In which life does she truly belong?

Cast

*Marlene Dietrich - Helen Faraday, aka Helen Jones
*Herbert Marshall - Edward 'Ned' Faraday
*Cary Grant - Nick Townsend
*Dickie Moore - Johnny Faraday
*Gene Morgan - Ben Smith
*Rita La Roy - Taxi Belle Hooper
*Robert Emmett O'Connor - Dan O'Connor
*Sidney Toler - Det. Wilson
*Morgan Wallace - Dr. Pierce
*Evelyn Preer - Lola

External links

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