Von Sternberg - The Docks of New York & The Blue Angel

[Bobby Beksinski]

The Docks of New York is alot like Sternberg's other film with George
Bancroft "UNDERWORLD" except instead of a gangster pic we have a funny
romantic melodrama. Even though both films stand fairly equal to me I
do think I enjoyed Docks of NY slightly more. It provided a light
atmosphere with laugh out loud moments despite the story revolving
around dark themes such as suicide and failed marriages (the captain
and his wife). also rate this a 8/10

I still have to see The Scarlet Empress which is Thorkell's favorite
Von Sternberg film, but with the 4 I have seen The Blue Angel ranks as
my favorite. Emil Jannings gives again another earth shattering
performance, but with this film and reading about "The Way of All
Flesh", I do have a question regarding Jannings choice of roles. Are
most of them characters who suffer tremendous downfalls? I honestly
did not see it coming with this film as I did not read any sort of
synopsis or brief explanation beforehand. So the result was pretty
shocking, especially with how fun the film was in the first half.
There were many laugh out loud moments between The professor and his
students and all of the beginning scenes with the Professor and Lola
at the Blue Angel when she flirts with him. It is very cute in a way
and the viewer feels very romantic about Emil and the potential
relationship between his professor and Lola. So then it is a complete
180 degrees after they get married and it cuts to the next scene with
Emil looking unkempt and horrible sitting alone at the table smoking a
cigarette, then he proceeds to sell the same postcards with revealing
photos of his wife on them that in the previous scene said he would
never do as long as he had a penny to his name. His rock bottom was
pretty hard to take in as a viewer and to see Lola turn against him as
well, she who had been the only reason why he was still with the
traveling "entertainers" and gave up everything from his previous
life. It begun feeling like a Bergman type of depression on the viewer
and to end it with the same exact shot in the classroom that we seen
earlier in the movie when the professor was still indeed a professor
sitting at his desk as the camera slowly backs away and he recedes
farther in the distance only this time sprawled with a death grip on
the thing that was truly the most important to him, his teaching. 9/10