This is assuredly among Marlene Dietrich’s more affecting and forceful portrayals—though it avoids sentimentality—as a woman balancing roles as both wife and mother when her husband (Herbert Marshall) contracts Radium poisoning. As medical expenses for his care in Germany escalate, she resumes her career as a cabaret singer and finds herself drawn to the wealthy "Nick Townsend" played by Cary Grant. Marshall is distr…

There’s something captivating about seeing von Sternberg and Dietrich collaborate on this dramatic film, and it's also enjoyable to observe both she and Cary Grant when their careers were just beginning, before they achieved widespread recognition and iconic status. It’s hard not to notice the connection between what happens in the narrative—Helen sacrificing her family for a chance at fame—and what happened to her p…