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Morocco

A world-weary cabaret singer steps off a one-way boat to Mogador and finds two men waiting: a rich admirer who offers safety, and a Foreign Legionnaire who offers nothing but trouble. Josef von Sternberg’s first American film — and Marlene Dietrich’s Hollywood debut after he made her a star in The Blue Angel — is a pre-Code fever of smoke, shadow, and desert heat. Dietrich, in top hat and tails, sings “Quand l’amour meurt,” kisses a woman in the audience, then falls for Gary Cooper’s Tom Brown while Adolphe Menjou waits with money and patience. Sternberg, the great stylist of light and glamour, turns a Paramount backlot into an erotic mirage; Lee Garmes’s photography earned an Oscar nomination, as did Sternberg and Dietrich. The ending — Dietrich kicking off her shoes to follow the Legion into the sand — remains one of the most famous walks in movies.

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