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The Devil Is a Woman

Play trailer Poster for The Devil Is a Woman Released Mar 15, 1935 1h 25m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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56% Tomatometer 16 Reviews 69% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
An older man (Lionel Atwill) warns a younger man (Cesar Romero) about a temptress (Marlene Dietrich) in 19th-century Spain.

Critics Reviews

View All (16) Critics Reviews
Variety Staff Variety While Devil is a somewhat monotonous picture, Sternberg has given it clever photography and background. Apr 8, 2016 Full Review Dave Kehr Chicago Reader Sternberg's universe is a realm of textures, shadows, and surfaces, which merge and separate in an erotic dance. Apr 8, 2016 Full Review Andre Sennwald New York Times This column regards The Devil Is a Woman as the best product of the Sternberg-Dietrich alliance since The Blue Angel. Apr 8, 2016 Full Review Justine Smith Vague Visages Dietrich’s otherness translates quite poorly to Spain and so does Sternberg’s filmmaking. With her beautiful voice lost to high pitched exclamations and her mystery reduced to mere coyness, Dietrich’s performance crosses the threshold into burlesque. Jun 6, 2024 Full Review Matt Brunson Film Frenzy The runt of the von Sternberg-Dietrich litter. Rated: 2.5/4 Jun 16, 2021 Full Review Forsyth Hardy Cinema Quarterly It is lacking in every virtue which made Sternberg a director of promise. Feb 4, 2021 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (41) audience reviews
georgan g If women had control over men shown in this film, the world would be a better place. Marlene Dietrich seems to play the ultimate femme fatale! Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Its a little shocking something so deliciously amoral was released in 1935. It is kind of the perfect final film for Sternberg and Dietrich as it lacks any subplots and simply focuses on Dietrich ruining the lives of pathetic men. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Audience Member The Devil Is a Woman has the wicked distinction of being both directed and photographed by von Sternberg. The result is a mise-en-scéne so dense in its fetish for detail, the story is all but suffocated. By this point it's obvious that von Sternberg never saw a large wicker cage that he didn't position in the foreground in one of his exotic locales. Not to mention the ubiquitous sheer curtains, plaster textures, and in party scenes, streamers, streamers, streamers... Streamers choking whatever oxygen remained in the frame right out. And yet, somehow, it's exhilarating. To think that von Sternberg was single-handedly pulling the strings on productions such as this, at this time in Hollywood, is staggering. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review david f Dietrich and Von Sternberg's final pairing is a bold, sensuous, Hollywood spectacle. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member The best romance movie ever made! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member An excellent way to part company, after six film together, for director Josef von Sternberg and superstar Marlene Dietrich. Odd that it flopped at the time--perhaps there was too much of a sameness in the femme fatale type of character she was consistently portraying, and thus needed a different directorial perspective, one that wasn't so obviously entranced by her. Very few aesthetic delights of the post-Code era tantalize and linger long afterwards in the mind as much as films from the Marlene Dietrich/Josef Von Sternberg partnership, and this, thankfully kept in Dietrich's vault as it was the favourite of her films, is no exception. Though anyone who knows me will readily recall I prefer the twice-Oscar nominated (for 'Morocco' and 'Shanghai Express'), Viennese expert craftsman's silent pictures to those made with the sexpot, this saga of vengeance is also superlative and well worth both purchasing and re-watching. Paramount caved in to pressure by the Spanish government, who hated the way Pierre Louÿs' novel portrayed the Spanish police, and actually destroyed the original print. Thankfully Dietrich's fear that her favourite film would otherwise be lost meant it was extremely well-preserved, and I saw my copy as part of a superlative DVD boxed set of six of her films that I've had for a few years now. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Devil Is a Woman

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Movie Info

Synopsis An older man (Lionel Atwill) warns a younger man (Cesar Romero) about a temptress (Marlene Dietrich) in 19th-century Spain.
Director
Josef von Sternberg
Production Co
Paramount Pictures
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Mar 15, 1935, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 12, 2017
Runtime
1h 25m