The Blue Angel [Der blaue Engel] is one of the first German language sound films (filmed simultaneously in an English-language version), and the picture that represents the initial collaboration between Josef von Sternberg and his immortal muse, Marlene Dietrich.
Following up his role in Sternberg's great silent The Last Command, Emil Jannings portrays a schoolteacher named Immanuel Rath, whose fateful expedition to catch his students frequenting the cabaret known as "The Blue Angel" leads to his own rapture with the establishment's main attraction Lola (Dietrich) — and, as a result, triggers the downward spiral of his life and fortune.
Directed by Sternberg while on loan from America to the pioneering German producer Erich Pommer, The Blue Angel is at once captivating, devastating, and powerfully erotic, laced-through with Sternberg's masterful cinematography. From here, the director and Dietrich would go on to make six more films together in the span of five years, and leave a legacy of some of the most indelible iconography in the cinema of glamour and obsession.
The Blue Angel will be released on UK dual format (which includes both DVD and Blu-ray versions) by Eureka as part of the Master of Cinema series on 28th January 2012 at the RRP of £20.42.
Featuring a new 1080p HD presentation of both the German-language and English-language versions of the film, with progressive encodes on the DVD, and newly translated optional subtitles on the German-language version, and SDH on the English-language version, the release will have the following bonus features:
New and exclusive video essay on the films by critic and scholar Tag Gallagher
New and exclusive feature-length audio commentary by critic and scholar Tony Rayns on the German-language version
Original screen test with Marlene Dietrich
Archival interview clips with Dietrich
Substantial booklet containing writing on the film, vintage excerpts, and rare archival imagery
More features to be announced closer to release date.