Musical and Music Film  Marlene, Schlager Kitsch, and Milli Vanilli

The smoke is thick, the morals are loose. On the stage of the variety theater The blue Angel, singer Lola Lola perches cheekily atop a barrel, dressed in tails and top hat, singing “Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt…” With this iconic entrance, Marlene Dietrich not only launched her career in 1930 but also gifted the world a song that would be covered countless times. Director Josef von Sternberg immortalized the moment in which sound film finally conquers the screen. The Blue Angel became the first milestone of a genre that continued on an unprecedented roller‑coaster ride: The Music Film. 
 

Comfort for the Soul in Uncertain Times

“Germany invented me, but Hollywood made me.”*,Dietrich later reflected. Her path reveals a consequential pattern: the exodus of Germany’s most talented musical artists, most of them heading to the United States.

Even in the silent film era, pioneers such as Oskar Messter were experimenting as early as 1903 with “sound pictures” — short films synchronized to shellac records. But it was the Ufa studios that, in the early 1930s, turned this into mass entertainment. The formula for success: stars, lighthearted stories, catchy melodies. In The Three from the Filling Station (1930), Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch, and Heinz Rühmann harmonize in the trio Ein Freund, ein guter Freund. Film‑schlager songs become, not least, a balm for troubled times.

Using Musical Film as Propaganda

The Nazi regime quickly recognizes this potential. Under the Third Reich, the music film becomes a propaganda vehicle: it glosses over wartime realities, conveys regime‑friendly messages, and conjures an idyllic, “German” normality. Swedish singer Zarah Leander, one of Ufa’s biggest wartime stars, becomes a projection screen for false hopes of victory with morale‑boosting hymns such as Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh’n from The Great Love (1942). In 1983, Nina Hagen gives the ideologically tainted song a punk‑infused update with Zarah, transforming it into an ironic, theatrical art statement.

With the Nazi rise to power begins the systematic persecution of Jewish and dissident artists. Key figures such as composer Friedrich Hollaender — who wrote Dietrich’s signature tune Falling in Love Again — flee to the United States. In Los Angeles, he shapes the sound of numerous Hollywood productions, alongside luminaries like Ralph Benatzky, Franz Waxman, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, and arranger Konrad S. Elfers. For Marlene Dietrich, Hollaender writes further film hits such as The Boys in the Back Room (Destry Rides Again, 1939). Like many in exile, he feels rootless for the rest of his life. In his 1965 autobiography Von Kopf bis Fuß. Mein Leben mit Musik und ohne, he writes: “One always remains a piece of driftwood.” Dietrich herself becomes the most prominent resistance figure within the émigré community. Unforgettable: in 1944 she sings Lale Andersen’s Lili Marleen for Allied troops. After the Second World War, many West Germans attempt to suppress the shadows of the past. The cinema of the economic‑miracle years provides the soundtrack: the 1950s and ’60s become the golden age of the Schlager film. To Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (1953), the nation hums along in Klangfilm Eurocord. The screen becomes a parallel world of bliss, populated by audience favorites like Caterina Valente (Love, Dance and a Thousand Songs, 1955). Child star Conny Froboess packs her swimsuit in The Young Sinners (1957), Trude Herr wants not chocolate but a man in Marina (1960), and American‑German jazz singer Bill Ramsey collects Souvenirs, Souvenirs in The World Is Blue All Over (1960). That same year, Peter Alexander sings his way around Lake Wolfgang in the operetta adaptation The White Horse Inn. Freddy Quinn, like Hans Albers before him, longs for the wide world to the tune of La Paloma in Freddy and the Millionaire (1961). Today, not only that song is a classic.

Beach, Sun, and a Serving of Socialist Harmony

In the GDR, films like Hot Summer (1968) create a similar, state‑curated counter‑model of beaches, sunshine, and socialist harmony. Outside the German‑speaking world, these cheerful musical romps fail to make an impact. Meanwhile, exiled composers such as Franz Waxman achieve global success in Hollywood, for example with Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950). The social upheaval of the late 1960s makes the naïve world of sentimental musical films look hopelessly outdated. Filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Lili Marleen, 1980) complains in interviews that “all this German schlager and Heimat‑film kitsch” is a refusal “to look at the real Federal Republic.” The industry remains unfazed. In the 1970s, it retreats with a hearty “Hossa!” into the comfort of television entertainment. On the big screen, however, the era of sunny musical escapism is over. Here, the German music film survives primarily as the biopic. Successes such as Comedian Harmonists (1997), Lindenberg! Mach dein Ding (2020), or Simon Verhoeven’s Girl You Know It’s True (2023), about the rise and fall of the Frank Farian‑produced disco‑pop duo Milli Vanilli, reveal the darker sides of fame. Fatih Akin’s Rheingold (2022) is more than a biopic about rapper Xatar — it is a study of society and social milieu. Perhaps the most radical break with the genre’s cheerful traditions comes in 2023, when Angela Schanelec wins the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the Berlinale with Music. She entrusts her reimagining of the Oedipus myth entirely to the power of image and sound. Perhaps the future of the genre lies precisely here: in telling stories through the universal language of music — stories that can once again be understood around the world.

Streaming (North America, as of 2025)

The Blue Angel (1930) – Criterion Channel
The Great Love (1942) – Goethe‑on‑Demand (curated program)
Wenn die Conny mit dem Peter (1958) – DVD, Goethe‑specials
My Wife Wants to Sing (Meine Frau macht Musik, 1958) – DEFA Film Library (Kanopy)
Rhythm Is It! (2004) – Kanopy, Amazon VOD
B‑Movie (2015) – Kanopy, Amazon VOD
Traumfabrik (2019) – Amazon / Apple VOD
Lindenberg! Mach dein Ding (2020) – Amazon Prime, Apple
Rheingold (2022) – Festival VOD, Amazon VOD
Music (2023) – festival streams, now available on MUBI (US)

* from: Maria Riva: Marlene Dietrich. A Personal Biography (Simon & Schuster, 1993)

03/2026