Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Prim professor Immanuel Rath finds some of his students ogling racy photos of cabaret performer Lola Lola and visits a local club, The Blue Angel, in an attempt to catch them there. Seeing Lola perform, the teacher is filled with lust, eventually resigning his position at the school to marry the young woman. However, his marriage to a coquette -- whose job is to entice men -- proves to be more difficult than Rath imagined.
The Blue Angel is a landmark of early sound cinema and German expressionism, with Marlene Dietrich's breakout performance as Lola Lola being genuinely iconic and electrifying — earning the Acting a 4. Sternberg's moody, expressionist cinematography is visually commanding, deploying shadow, fog, and cramped theatrical spaces with great artistry. Novelty is high: the film fuses Weimar cabaret culture, proto-noir fatalism, and a deeply unsentimental portrait of masculine humiliation in ways that felt singular in 1930 and remain distinctive. The plot — a respected man's erotic obsession leading to his complete degradation — is compelling if somewhat schematic, and the ending, while emotionally powerful and bleak, is a touch abrupt in its tragic resolution rather than fully devastating.