One of six films Cary Grant made in 1932, the first year of his Hollywood career, Blonde Venus also found him co-starring with the formidable Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich plays a cabaret singer who hooks up with Grant’s politician when her husband, an American chemist played by Hebert Marshall, accidentally poisons himself and requires an expensive, life-saving treatment.

An irresistible concoction of cabaret and melodrama, Blonde Venus is unmistakably a Josef von Sternberg picture, and includes the infamous musical number ‘Hot Voodoo’, in which Dietrich emerges from a gorilla costume.

• 4K restoration
• Original mono audio
• Audio commentary with film and arts critic Adrian Martin (2019)
• Introduction by Nicholas von Sternberg (2019, 7 mins): the son of Josef von Sternberg discusses Blonde Venus
• Dietrich, a Queer Icon (2019, 25 mins): So Mayer, author of Political Animals: The New Feminist Cinema, analyses the queer iconography and legacy of Marlene Dietrich
• Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
• New and improved subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing