MovieChat Forums > The Devil Is a Woman (1935) Discussion > a film about cuckolding

a film about cuckolding

posted 16 years ago by tuscaderofanclub
2 replies | jump to latest

Well, the subject matter of the film is deep, a study of a sort of masochism that is gaining popularity today: cuckolding. Look it up in Savage Love or on Elise Sutton's site.

It is a 1930s classic, shot extremely well, amazing shadows. Marlene Deitrich is of course amazing, and sometime hilarious as tempestous alluring spanish gypsy. The way she pouts and stamps her foot!

I think my favorite is her "Concha" hankercheif. Her vanity is so intense that it isn't worth being loved unless another man wants her too. She says to Don Pasquell, the man whom she truly loves, the night after she cuckolded him:

"If you really loved me, you would have killed yourself last night"

So confusing and deep sexual emotions crossed with high camp.
Hey, it even has the original joker as "The Bull".

Films directly influenced by this:

Luis Buñuel's That Obscure Object of Desire
heightens the absurd and comic sides, it must have felt so weird to see such spanish people played by hollywood people in the original, I think that helps inspire the 2 actress thing.

Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon
which also has a darkly comic element to a bizarre tale of infatuation and cuckolding told by an old man in flashbacks to a young man who is interested in her.

[–] koalacanth 9 years ago

Interesting about That Obscure Object of Desire. I picked up on this midway through the film. I wonder if they have the same source material?

[–] Jes' Sayin' (5947) 3 years ago

I felt that basically it's a retelling of Carmen, but using the flashback mechanism. Even including the cigarette factory, which is a clue, and similar sounding music.

Director von Sternberg liked to appropriate existing stories for his Dietrich films. For example, their film Dishonored is loosely based on the Mata Hari story.