Marlene Dietrich often claimed that Joseph von Sternberg's 1930 German-American sensation The Blue Angel represented her film debut. That claim is belied by Kurt Bernhardt's underseen 1929 silent The Woman One Longs For. In his entrancing adaptation of Czechoslovakian author Max Brod's 1927 novel, Dietrich plays Stascha, a stylish young woman bound to Dr. Karoff (Fritz Kortner, Pandora's Box), a mystery man with a monocle, but first Bernhardt introduces Henry (Swedish actor Uno Henning, A Cottage on Dartmoor), scion of a struggling French steelworks who has just become engaged to Angela (Edith Edwards), a financier's daughter. It's a marriage arranged to save the company, and passion is in short supply.
Henry's preplanned future undergoes a paradigm shift when he spots Dietrich's Stascha in a train corridor while on route to his honeymoon destination. When their eyes meet, flames of passion practically materialize around him. While he lights Stascha's cigarette, she looks up at him imploringly and pleads for his help to escape from Dr. Karoff, implying that she's with him under duress. When they exit the train at a snowy mountain resort, Henry follows close behind, abandoning his wife and father-in-law. From then on, he'll do whatever it takes to push the doctor out of the picture so he can run away with his sharp-dressed companion.
Despite the director's expressionist flair, exemplified by twisty streets and ice-frosted windows, the film hews closer to romantic tragedy than film noir. Bernhardt also suggests that the entire episode lives in Henry's feverish head as a manifestation of his fears about monogamy, since he ends up much as he began. By the conclusion, Bernhardt has also clarified Dr. Karoff's motivations, while Stascha, neither wholly innocent victim nor sociopathic femme fatale, remains more enigmatic. It may have confused critics who praised the experienced Kortner while expressing reservations about the less expressive if undeniably captivating Dietrich.
Nonetheless, the film scored with paid writers and paying customers alike. In her top-notch commentary track, film historian Gaylyn Studlar suggests that the muted reaction to Dietrich's performance may have contributed to her decision to distance herself from it. Only a few years after its release, Bernhardt and Kortner, both Jewish, would trade Germany for Hollywood, much like their female costar, where all three enjoyed further success.
If Henning doesn't share Dietrich's name recognition, he handily anchors the feverish proceedings, garnering sympathy even as he makes all the wrong moves. He isn't a terrible person so much as a man under a spell. Bernhardt leaves it up to viewers to decide if the blame lies with an unbelievably irresistible woman or a critically immature man. The Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation's beautiful restoration burnishes the dreamlike cinematography of Curt Courant (La Bête Humaine), adding to the film's many charms. Highly recommended.