The Devil Is a Woman told in flashbacks of an older man’s obsession for a woman who can belong to no-one but can frustrate everyone. The backdrop is SternbergÍs surreal and fantastic Carnaval in Spain. In a café the older man details his encounters with the heart breaker that his younger friend has only just met at the parade. Forewarned, the young man swears he will avoid the fate of his friend, but rushes all the same to his evening rendezvous. A dreamlike story of frustrated, lost romance, spoken in the past tense, never really resolved.
The Devil Is a Woman is a 1935 American romance film directed and photographed by Josef von Sternberg, adapted from the 1898 novel La Femme et le pantin by Pierre Louÿs. The film was based on a screenplay by John Dos Passos, and stars Marlene Dietrich, Lionel Atwill, Cesar Romero, Edward Everett Horton, and Alison Skipworth. The movie is the last of the six Sternberg-Dietrich collaborations for Paramount Pictures.
About the Production
When Sternberg embarked upon filming The Devil Is a Woman, Paramount was experiencing falling profits. His latest film, the lavishly produced The Scarlet Empress, had proved unpopular with the public. Devil was completed on February 6, 1935, premiered without fanfare in March, and released to general audiences in May. Incoming production manager Ernst Lubitsch (who was replacing Ben Schulberg) announced that Sternberg’s contract with Paramount would not be renewed.
The original title proposed by Sternberg for the film was Caprice Espagnol, a reference to Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov’s orchestral suite Capriccio Espagnol, of which several selections accompany the film. Lubitsch changed the title to The Devil Is a Woman. Sternberg later remarked: “Though Mr. Lubitsch’s poetic intention to suggest altering the sex of the devil was meant to aid in selling the picture, it did not do so.”
Approximately seventeen minutes of footage, including a musical number in which Dietrich sang “If It Isn’t Pain (It Isn’t Love)”, was cut from the film, reducing the total running time to 79 minutes. Presumed for a time to be a lost film, a copy of the work was provided by Sternberg for a screening at the 1959 Venice Film Festival, and The Devil Is a Woman received a limited re-release in 1961.
The Devil Is a Woman (1935)
Directed by: Josef von Sternberg
Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Lionel Atwill, Cesar Romero, Edward Everett Horton, Alison Skipworth, Don Alvarado, Jill Dennett, Luisa Espinel, Eumenio Blanco, Lawrence Grant, Stanley Price
Screenplay by: John dos Passos
Cinematography by: Josef von Sternberg
Film Editing by: Sam Winston
Art Direction by: Hans Dreier, Josef von Sternberg
Makeup Department: Dot Ponedel
Music by: John Leipold, Heinz Roemheld
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: March 15, 1935
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