After the death of her husband, Amy Kolverer (Marlene Dietrich) turns to walking the streets to support herself. One night, she encounters a man who gives her the chance to become a spy on behalf of Vienna. The government is looking to get some information on Colonel von Hindau (Warner Oland), who they believe has been feeding information to the Russian Colonel Kranau (Victor McLaglen). They know a woman would be much more likely to get the information they need than a male agent. Amy accepts the offer and becomes known simply as X27.
Amy manages to find both von Hindau and Kranau at a masquerade ball and that night, she not only gets the information she needs from von Hidnau, she corners him so well that he would rather commit suicide than surrender to her. She immediately goes to work on Kranau, but Kranau isn’t about to go down as easily as von Hindau. First, he escapes from her when she approaches him in a nightclub. Then he sneaks into her apartment and finds her spy orders.
When Amy goes to Poland to carry out her next mission, she gets the information she needs by posing as a maid and coding her findings as a music composition. But then Kranau finds her, destroys the music she’s written, and threatens to have her executed. For her last request, Amy asks to spend the night with Kranau, and he agrees to it. But then Amy drugs his wine, escapes, and reveals all of her findings to the Austrian government, which leads to several Russian officials being arrested, including Kranau. Amy gets permission to interrogate Kranau privately and allows him to escape. This is the end of the line for Amy and she is executed for treason.
Of all the Dietrich/von Sternberg collaborations, I feel like Dishonored is the most under-appreciated of the bunch. Perhaps the fact that it was only recently released on DVD for the first time has something to do with that. But now that it’s more available, hopefully more people will rediscover it because it’s really worth a look. It’s not the best of their teamings, but it’s very interesting. I prefer Dishonored over Garbo’s Mata Hari.
I was not a fan of Victor McLaglen at all in this, but the teaming of Dietrich and von Sternberg absolutely can’t be beat. First of all, you have got to see Dishonored if only to see Dietrich meowing like a cat. No, seriously. There is a scene in this movie of Marlene Dietrich meowing and it is hilarious. Marlene seemed to enjoy playing Amy and it’s a lot of fun to just watch her work.
Marlene Dietrich’s image, especially when she was working with Josef von Sternberg, was always extremely polished. She was always lit to perfection, quick witted, and exceptionally glamorous, never a strand of hair out of place. So I was very fascinated by the fact that in Dishonored, there are moments when von Sternberg let her not be seen as supernaturally perfect. Early in the movie, there’s a scene where Marie walks into her apartment and takes off her elaborate hat and veil to reveal her very mussed hair underneath. I absolutely loved that moment, it was just so not how we typically picture Dietrich. Later in the movie, when Marie is posing as a maid, not only does she wear very minimal make-up and an unflattering hairstyle, she acts pretty silly, too. Before seeing Dishonored, if you had told me that there was a Marlene Dietrich movie that involved a scene of her wearing little make-up and meowing, I probably would have laughed. But, believe it or not, it actually does happen here.
