Reviews

Cafe Electric is one of many German silent films Marlene Dietrich played in before her "discovery" by Josef von Sternberg in which she was cast as Lola Lola in the Blue Angel and began her American film career. The early scenes of Berlin in the 1920's are notable for a glimpse of the times and that they were shot on location. The plot is moralistic but not without intrigue. It's also very interesting to see a young Dietrich before the meticulous attention to her glamorous look in American films. I searched for many years to find any copy of Cafe Electric as a die-hard fan who wanted to see everything she was ever in before finding a DVD available from forgottenfilms.net. There are no special features or even scene selection, but the musical score and English titles are very good. Cafe Electric is a must see for those interested in silent films of the '20's and especially Marlene Dietrich fans.

Knight without Armour is extremely melodramatic and somewhat tedious. Just when you think you've reached the end, the plot goes on and on and on. Dietrich shows how to have flawlessly overdone hair while on the run. Donat's Russian hat is reminiscent of Dietrich's in Scarlett Empress. In fact at times his costume looks like he's doing a drag act on Dietrich! Nevertheless, the film is entertaining and required viewing for Marlene Dietrich fans and collectors.

This film was once very hard to find at all and is still limited in DVD availability. I searched for this film for ages before finally finding it as an Australian DVD (Reion 4--US viewers can strip region encoding and burn a disc playable on Region 1 players).