Blonde Venus

Blonde Venus (1932) is a Josef von Sternberg drama starring Marlene Dietrich, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Helen, a former cabaret singer, has traded the stage for a quiet American family life. Then her chemist husband is poisoned by radium, and the only cure waits in Europe — far beyond what they can afford.

To save him, Helen goes back to the nightclub floor as the Blonde Venus, where wealthy politician Nick Townsend takes notice. Her entrance out of a gorilla costume in the "Hot Voodoo" number became the film's signature image. What follows pulls her three ways: a dying husband, a small son she won't leave, and a man who can pay for everything. Herbert Marshall and a young Cary Grant co-star.

This was the fourth of seven films von Sternberg made with Dietrich, the partnership that turned every close-up of her into an event. Shot before the Production Code clamped down, it speaks bluntly about a woman, motherhood and the price of survival, all wrapped in smoke and hard backlight. Stream Blonde Venus (1932) online on iFILM.