Given the talent involved -- Dietrich at the height of her allure, Melvyn Douglas (who proved such a wonderful foil to Garbo just two years later in "Ninotchka"), support from such able troupers as Edward Everett Horton and Laura Hope Crews, and above all the famed "touch" of Lubitsch -- "Angel" should be a sparkling romp, a melancholy romance of renunuciation, a worldly social comedy, or better yet, all three.
Instead it's a mostly tiresome slog through familiar territory, as if all involved were inspired not by Dietrich or Lubitsch but by the stolid Herbert Marshall as Marlene's aristo-Brit husband.
While several recent writers on both Dietrich and Lubitsch have tried to tout this as an undeservingly overlooked film, it's really most worth watching for Crew's pre-Pittypat turn as a Russian emigre-turned-nightclub-hostess, and her few brief scenes can hardly save the picture.
Dietrich fans are better off hunting up stills -- she does look terrific in the wardrobe of English Gentlewoman tweeds and furs, and her legendary collection of emeralds were rarely shown to better advantage.
Instead it's a mostly tiresome slog through familiar territory, as if all involved were inspired not by Dietrich or Lubitsch but by the stolid Herbert Marshall as Marlene's aristo-Brit husband.
While several recent writers on both Dietrich and Lubitsch have tried to tout this as an undeservingly overlooked film, it's really most worth watching for Crew's pre-Pittypat turn as a Russian emigre-turned-nightclub-hostess, and her few brief scenes can hardly save the picture.
Dietrich fans are better off hunting up stills -- she does look terrific in the wardrobe of English Gentlewoman tweeds and furs, and her legendary collection of emeralds were rarely shown to better advantage.