Blonde Venus

One of six films Cary Grant made in 1932, the first year of his Hollywood career, Blonde Venus also found him co-starring with the formidable Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich plays a cabaret singer who hooks up with Grant’s politician when her husband, an American chemist played by Herbert Marshall, accidentally poisons himself and requires an expensive, life-saving treatment. An irresistible concoction of cabaret and melodrama, Blonde Venus is unmistakably a Josef von Sternberg picture, and includes the infamous musical number ‘Hot Voodoo’, in which Dietrich emerges from a gorilla costume. (Powerhouse Films)