Marlene Dietrich In London
Marlene Dietrich
1965: Pye Records/DRG 13110
Recorded live at the Queen’s Theatre, 12 December 1964
Dietrich can be polarizing: people tend to either love her insanely or detest her or be completely unaware of her. I’m somewhere on the love side of the first two stances.
I think a lot of that has to do with the few contexts in which we get to encounter Dietrich: The Blue Angel, World War II troop-boosting appearances, some films in which she displays mixed ability but usually at least intensity, and then this last-hurrah round of concerts with Burt Bacharach as her musical director. The last is not her greatest form, by any means, but it still shows Dietrich as she chose to present herself at that time, and that is wherein value should be gleaned here.
Comments © 2005 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.