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Crisis
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The separation from Sternberg was supposed to end the Paramount
star's popularity crisis. But without Sternberg, Marlene
Dietrich cultivated her image of a grande dame with an inclination
for the amoral all the more uncompromisingly. In DESIRE
(1936, Frank Borzage and Ernst Lubitsch), when she rides
in a convertible, her hair does not get tousled by the wind
but instead merely a lock or two sways softy, decoratively.
In the deserts of the GARDEN OF
ALLAH (1936, Richard Boleslawski) or in the turmoil
of the October Revolution in KNIGHT
WITHOUT AMOUR (1937, Jacques Feyder) she adopts an attitude
– even in costumes which, according to the dramaturgy,
she must wear when trekking through murky swamps or in scorching
heat – as if it were all merely a beastly indisposition
before her grand entrance. DESIRE
and ANGEL (1937), both productions
by her countryman Ernst Lubitsch, are drawing-room comedies
in which she, a bit amused, elegantly carries out the escapades
dictated by the script. Humor, playful self-irony or even
wit were foreign to her nature. She fulfilled her contract
– which had made her one of the highest paid actresses
of the times – with iron discipline and Prussian accuracy.
But the public wanted more. And the theater owners, who
were feeling the consequences at the box office, got even.
On May 30, 1937, midway through shooting ANGEL,
a full page announcement appeared in a film journal: Marlene
Dietrich – along with Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo and
Bette Davis – was called "poison at the box office".
In a rage of indignation, she left the States. She spent
holidays on a farm with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and enjoyed
life on the Còte d'Azur with Erich Maria Remarque and Jo
Castairs – a star adored by the European elite, a
welcomed guest at the parties of the rich and beautiful.
And she discreetly supported emigrants, such as the essayist
Alfred Polgar; he wrote a book about her that was, however,
never published. She was also personally affected by political
events. The Nazis repeatedly tried to convince her to make
a film in Germany; instead, Marlene Dietrich signed a contract
in Paris in 1938 for a film that was, though, never made.
In 1937, before the publication of that fatal announcement
by American theater owners, she had applied for American
citizenship. A prerequisite for it was that her main residence
be in the USA. So she was forced to keep returning, until
finally on June 9, 1939 she received US citizenship. In
June of the same year, she took her Pullman and eight trunks
– five of which, as her husband Rudolf Sieber fussily
noted, weighed "over 75 kilos" – to Paris and Cap
d'Antibes. She received a call there on July 28 from producer
Joe Pasternak, who offered her a leading role in Hollywood
– this time in a western. She had not made a film
in two years; a new project with Sternberg in London had
fallen through, the dangers of the war in Europe were being
felt ever more acutely. Not only her new agent Charles Feldman
strongly urged her to accept Pasternak's offer. Joseph Kennedy,
ambassador to France and her neighbor on the Còte d'Azur,
agreed with Feldman and advised her to leave Europe. On
August 22, 1939, a good week after Germany invaded Poland,
Marlene Dietrich was back in New York.
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