Since its 1930 debut, there have probably been as many unauthorized edits of ``The Blue Angel'' -- originally shot in both German- and English-language versions -- as young actresses working to capture the elusive essence of Marlene Dietrich's complex, sultry cabaret singer Lola Lola.
``Falling in love again,'' she sang in this pivotal pinnacle of Weimar cinema, and, after years of abuse in the public domain desert, prolific U.S. distributor Kino on Video has issued a definitive two-DVD set of ``The Blue Angel.''
Pic was first of seven visually florid melodramas Dietrich made with Vienna-born director Josef von Sternberg. The helmer, at the request of thesp Emil Jannings, traveled from Hollywood (where he'd already scored big for Paramount with the pivotal 1927 gangster template ``Underworld'') to the new UFA sound studios outside Berlin to direct this reworked yet author-approved version of Heinrich Mann's 1904 novel.
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