Why Josef von Sternberg hated the title of his 1931 spy thriller Dishonored
In short: In 1931, Paramount Pictures rushed a spy film into production to capitalize on Marlene Dietrich's rising fame. While the studio insisted on the title Dishonored, director Josef von Sternberg vehemently objected. He argued the name fundamentally misrepresented the fate of his protagonist, a tragic figure who faced death with defiance.
Released in 1931, Dishonored is a pre-Code romantic spy film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Marlene Dietrich as Marie Kolverer, a war widow turned secret agent known as X-27. The plot follows her mission to expose a traitor within the Austrian secret service during the First World War. After successfully infiltrating Russian headquarters by disguising herself as a chambermaid, she secures vital military plans encoded as sheet music. Her eventual capture and subsequent escape lead to a climactic betrayal of her own mission when she helps her lover, the Russian spy Colonel Kranau, evade capture, resulting in her own execution for treason.
The film was produced in a climate of intense studio competition; Paramount sought to replicate the success of Sternberg and Dietrich's previous collaborations, The Blue Angel and Morocco, while MGM countered with its own spy feature, Mata Hari, later that same year. Sternberg’s narrative was loosely inspired by the life and death of the Dutch spy Mata Hari, yet he maintained a specific vision for his character's final moments. In the film's closing scene, the protagonist refuses a blindfold and calmly applies lipstick before the firing squad, a gesture of composure that Sternberg felt contradicted the implications of the studio-mandated title.
Contemporary reception was mixed. While critics like Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times praised the direction and Dietrich’s performance, they often found the screenplay’s dialogue amateurish and the narrative structure lacking in credibility. Despite these criticisms, the film remains a notable example of Sternberg’s visual style and his complex, often fraught, relationship with the studio system. Sternberg famously maintained that his character was not dishonored by her actions, but rather killed by the state, viewing the title as a distortion of the significance of her ultimate sacrifice.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Dishonored (film)
- Also: Wikidata — Dishonored · CC0
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