Materials and documents related to the 1932 Sternberg film Blonde Venus starring Marlene Dietrich as water nymph, mother, and nightclub star.

• Hear the song Hot Voodoo sung by Dietrich in the `African' dance number.

• Text of song:

  Text of 'Hot Voodo' song

  Sung by Dietrich in the movie Blonde Venus (1932)

  Did you ever happen to hear of Voodoo?
  Hear it and you won't give a darn what you do!
  Tom-Toms put me under a sort of Hoo-Doo
  And the whole night long,
  I don't know right from wrong!

  Hot Voodoo, black as mud
  Hot Voodoo, in my blood
  That African tempo, has made me a slave.
  Hot Voodoo, dance of sin,
  Hot Voodoo, worse than gin
  I'd follow a caveman, right into his cave!
  

  That beat gives me a wicked sensation,
  My conscience wants to take a vacation.
  Got Voodoo, head to toes
  Hot Voodoo, burn my clothes
  I want to start dancing
  Just wearing a smile.

  Hot Voodoo, I'm aflame
  I'm really not to blame,
  That African tempo,
  Its meaner than mean!

  Hot Voodoo, it makes me brave,
  I want to misbehave,
  Im beginning to feel like an African queen.
  Those drums bring out the devil inside me,
  I need some brave big angel to guide me.
  

  Hot Voodoo, gets me wild,
  Oh, fireman, save this child
  Im going to blazes, I want to be bad.
  

• Image of Dietrich in her blonde Afro in Blonde Venus

• Black and White picture from the film, showing Dietrich as mother. (Image shows Dietrich with her child, who is wearing a mask on the back of his head.)

• Various critiques and descriptions of this film.
  • Critique of the film by Michael Filipidis

  • Critique of the film by Susan Moke

  • Another anonymous critique that asks a lot of pertinent questions.

  • Link to a recent NYTimes article describing Paramount Studios' movies made between the advent of sound, and the enforcement of the "code" which limited the depiction of sexual, violent, verbal etc. "immorality".

  • See also images of various sorts, and some reviews of Blonde Venus at this site.