The Song of Songs

Hollywood: Paramount Pictures, 1933. Vintage film program for the 1933 film. With a striking image of Dietrich on the front wrapper, and much detail throughout regarding the production.

Based on the novel by Hermann Suermann and the play by Edward Sheldon, about a country orphan who goes to Berlin to live with her aunt and who becomes the model for a handsome sculptor.

Director Rouben Mamoulian made the film simply and without artifice, a great departure from Dietrich's work with Josef von Sternberg. Filmed and released prior to the stringent Production Code, the filmmakers were allowed to display the full nude statue of Dietrich on the program's cover, for which she reportedly posed.

An interesting example of Hollywood's attempts to recreate on US soil the Berlin that Marlene Dietrich came from, onscreen a beautiful place, in reality a city that ultimately rejected her. In addition to the photos and biographical information, the program contains a detailed and interesting essay to this effect, "Again a Gay and Friendly Berlin," with several photographs of cameras, Mamoulian, and Dietrich on the set.

Two-color wrappers, 16 pages, saddle-stapled. Near Fine.

[Book #128589]