Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Gizmo Well now this is just very silly. As others have pointed out, Victor McLaglen acts his best but is fatally miscast - too rigid, charmless, snide and creepy in a role that is crying out for a Clark Gable or Cary Grant. On the other hand Dietrich was never more beautiful, and you can feel Sternberg's worshipping of her through the camera lens. The photography is luscious and the BluRay restoration a joy. Warner Oland has a small role as something other than Charlie Chan, which is very odd to see.The story, dialogue and characters are thoroughly unbelievable at every turn, and the whole thing, really, is just a delirious but delightful mess, a stilted, fevered, nonsensical fairytale dream about spies, but no less likeable for all that. Accept it and love it for what it is, because it isn't like anything else.

judy t The way to enjoy this film is to ignore McLaglen, an otherwise fine actor. His perpetual clenched-jaw grin is beyond odd, and yet I assume he's obeying Von Sternberg's orders to play agent X-27s love interest in this repellent manner. No matter. The love story, the plot, are irrelevant. Dietrich is the reason this film is mesmerizing.As expected, there are fabulous costumes that only Dietrich can wear and look enchanting. And lots of cigarettes being smoked in those glittery costumes. And that soft voice making the word 'No' seductive. Dietrich doesn't move in a straight line, rather she sways and spins from point A to point B. Then in a surprising change of pace, she plays a peasant girl working as a hotel maid stealing military secrets from Lew Cody. How fortunate we are, 85 years later, to be able to watch this film - again and again - on DVD.

bkoganbing Dishonored is the third of three films that the director/player team of Josef Von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich and the second for Paramount when they were imported from Weimar Germany. After the great reviews she got for the Blue Angel and Morocco, it was hoped they'd keep up the good standards of those two. Sadly they didn't.Originally Dishonored was planned for Gary Cooper and Dietrich to be re-teamed from Morocco, but Cooper could not stand Von Sternberg and flat out refused the role. So what did Paramount do, they got a guy who was more incongruous as a Russian and definitely not a sex symbol who Marlene would throw her life away for, Victor McLaglen.The film has Marlene, a war widow in 1915 now just getting by as a prostitute in this before the Code drama. She gets recruited by the chief of Austrian intelligence, Gustav Von Seyfertitz, to get the goods on Field Marshal Warner Oland whom they suspect of treason. She does the job, but then falls for Oland's Russian contact McLaglen. I can't go on any more with the script, but the theme of this film was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David forty years later, What I Did For Love.Marlene carried this one on her back more than the other two where she had a good story to help her. She's sexy and alluring as all get out, she has to be because if she wasn't the audiences would have been rolling up the aisles. As it was McLaglen as a Russian must have brought a lot of birth. He's as Russian as Chris-Pin Martin.Dishonred is for Marlene's die-hard fans only.

theorbys One up front negative: Victor McLaglen as a dashing, adventurous Russian officer is very badly miscast.This is a World War I Mata Hari genre film with Marlene Dietrich recruited by the Austrian Secret Service to spy for them against the Russians. Like the other Von Sternberg/Dietrich collaborations this is all about visual texture and Marlene's incredible persona (which is very much due to her equally incredible talent). Both come together perfectly in the amazing masked ball scene full, full, full of confetti, long twisted streamers, costumed revelers, and uncurling paper party-horns that you blow through to make a high pitched little squeal.In one remarkable scene Marlene is hypnotic just saying, "No." "Yes." "Noooo." and "Maybe." In another her dialog is a hilarious and inimatable series of "Meowwws." I don't remember her singing in this one but she plays the piano with abandon. Nevermind the plot, this is a film you watch because it is a great vehicle for one of film's greatest, if not the greatest, stars and because it is great cinema.