Morocco ***** (1930, Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou) – Classic Movie Review 4262

Director Josef Von Sternberg’s 1930 American pre-Code romantic drama Morocco stars Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, and Adolphe Menjou. It is based on the novel Amy Jolly by Benno Vigny, though the on-screen credits state ‘From the play Amy Jolly’, and adapted by screenwriter Jules Furthman.

Sternberg and Furthman wrote a script for Morocco based on the Vigny story, and producer B P Schulberg signed to bring Dietrich to Hollywood in a two-film contract in February 1930, so, when she arrived in the US to begin filming Morocco, she got the full Paramount Pictures publicity treatment before American moviegoers saw her in The Blue Angel.

Legend says Dietrich gave a copy of Vigny’s story Amy Jolly in a going-away gift package to Von Sternberg when he sailed from Germany to America. In return, when Dietrich arrived in America, von Sternberg welcomed her with gifts that included a green Rolls-Royce Phantom II, which features in Morocco. So he got a book and she got a Rolls!

Josef Von Sternberg’s first American movie with Marlene Dietrich in their renowned collaboration finds the Paramount studio’s love goddess playing a cabaret singer called Mademoiselle Amy Jolly, who arrives in Morocco from Paris and falls in love with Legionnaire Tom Brown (Gary Cooper) who comes to see her act.

But their budding relationship is threatened when she cannot make up her mind between the soldier and the rich Monsieur La Bessiere (Adolphe Menjou).

Dietrich was Oscar nominated as Best Actress and oozes sensational allure in her American debut as the pansexual mystery heroine. Her spectacular performance includes dressing in top hat, white tie and tails and carrying out a mock seduction of a pretty female cabaret patron, whom Dietrich outrages with a kiss. Meanwhile the two actors have to work unaccustomedly hard to attract any attention.

[Spolier alert] Adapting Benno Vigny’s story Amy Jolly, screenwriter Jules Furthman has a soppy story to tell, with a wild ending as Dietrich sets out into the desert sands on spike heels in search of Cooper. But so what? It hardly matters at all with Dietrich shining so brightly.

Morocco premiered in New York City on 6 December 1930 and was a huge success at the box-office. The Academy was as impressed as the public, so there were three other Oscar nominations for the contributions of Von Sternberg as Best Director, Lee Garmes for Best Cinematography and Hans Dreier for Best Art Direction. Indeed all these are outstanding contributions to an outstanding movie. Lee Garmes developed the atmospheric distinctive lighting that enhances Dietrich’s most striking facial features.

The movie was filmed entirely in southern California, though it received a favourable response from the Moroccan government, who used it to advertise their picturesque country to American tourists. Sternberg then reassured the Pasha of Marrakesh that Morocco had not been shot in his country.

Marlene Dietrich in Morocco.

Also in the cast are Ullrich Haupt as Adjutant Caesar, Juliette Compton as camp follower Anna Dolores, Francis McDonald as a sergeant, Albert Conti as Colonel Quinnovieres, Eve Southern as Madame Caesar, Paul Porcasi as Lo Tinto, Thomas A Curran as nightclub patron, Émile Chautard as French general, Michael Visaroff as Colonel Alexandre Barratière, and Theresa Harris as camp follower.

Morocco: La Bessiere (Adolphe Menjou) and Amy Jolly (Marlene Dietrich).

Von Sternberg and Dietrich followed it with Dishonored (1931), which Cooper turned down after this experience of working with him, and then Shanghai Express (1932) with Clive Brook and Anna May Wong. Cooper did not get along with von Sternberg, who filmed him to look up at Dietrich, emphasising her at his expense.

Cooper and Dietrich followed Morocco with Desire (1936).

It is spoofed by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in Beau Hunks.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4262

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