The Song of Songs

After her father’s death, peasant girl Lily is sent to live in the city with her cantankerous aunt. She becomes a model for a sculptor who is dazzled by her beauty, but the love affair that follows would break her spirit. Marlene Dietrich’s transformation from a simple peasant girl to a cynical ‘fallen woman’ – characterised not just by her wardrobe, but even by the changing of her voice – is just as captivating as Mamoulian’s work with Greta Garbo on Queen Christina. Even after it was cut to appease the censorship board, the pre-code romantic fable angered religious groups after Paramount sent replicas of the notorious nude Dietrich statue from the film to cinemas as a marketing ploy.