Marlene Dietrich in the 1940s: The changing face of transgressive Hollywood As the films Marlene Dietrich made at Universal emerge on Blu-ray, Tamsin Cleary explores how the starâs transgressive image evolved under new management â and in changing times. 10 February 2021 The Spoilers (1942) Arriving in Hollywood at the dawn of the talkies, Marlene Dietrich had a seismic impact on American film. Having already made an international name for herself in Josef von Sternbergâs landmark The Blue Angel (1930), Dietrich then followed her director from the Weimar Republic to the Paramount Pictures backlot that same year. Over the course of 5 years and 6 films, Sternberg and Dietrich would come to embody an idealised archetype of a great filmmaker and his muse, an artistic infatuation lauded the world over.Â