The Devil Is a Woman

The Devil Is a Woman (1935)

Kiss me .. and I'll break your heart!

In the carnival in Spain in the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the exiled republican Antonio Galvan comes from Paris masquerade to enjoy the party and visit his friend Capt. Don Pasqual 'Pasqualito' Costelar. However, he flirts with the mysterious Concha Perez and they schedule to meet each other later. When Antonio meets Pasqualito, his old friend discloses his frustrated relationship with the promiscuous Concha and her greedy mother and how his life was ruined by his obsession for the beautiful demimondaine. Pasqualito makes Antonio promise that he would not see Concha. However, when Antonio meets Concha, she seduces him and the long friendship between Antonio and Pasqualito is disrupted

Date of release
1935-05-03
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (78)
Runtime
1h 20m
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Romance, History
Director
Josef von Sternberg

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Woman and the Puppet

The Devil Is a Woman is a 1935 American romantic drama film directed and photographed by Josef von Sternberg from a screenplay by John Dos Passos, based on the 1898 novel The Woman and the Puppet by Pierre Louÿs. The film stars Marlene Dietrich, Lionel Atwill, and Cesar Romero. It marks the last of the six Sternberg–Dietrich collaborations for Paramount Pictures.

Production

The Devil Is a Woman is the last of Sternberg's seven quasi-autobiographical films featuring his star and muse, Marlene Dietrich. 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.

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 17 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 20th Venice International Film Festival in 1959, and The Devil Is a Woman received a limited re-release in 1961.

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