Together in one Box – the Von Sternebrg-Dietrich Collection

Christmas is coming…and here’s what I think is a perfect gift…all the Von Sternberg/Dietrich flicks in one set from Criterion (here)

So here’s a couple of China Rhyming accompanying articles

On Shanghai Express – Harry Hervey’s original treatment for the movie

On Morocco – Amy Jolly’s Chinese Doll

Tasked by studio executives with finding the next great screen siren, visionary Hollywood director Josef von Sternberg joined forces with rising German actor Marlene Dietrich, kicking off what would become one of the most legendary partnerships in cinema history. Over the course of six films produced by Paramount in the 1930s, the pair refined their shared fantasy of pleasure, beauty, and excess. Dietrich’s coolly transgressive mystique was a perfect match for the provocative roles von Sternberg cast her in—including a sultry chanteuse, a cunning spy, and the hedonistic Catherine the Great—and the filmmaker captured her allure with chiaroscuro lighting and opulent design, conjuring fever-dream visions of exotic settings from Morocco to Shanghai. Suffused with frank sexuality and worldly irony, these deliriously entertaining masterpieces are landmarks of cinematic artifice.