0:00:33 > 0:00:36Meet Marlene Dietrich.
0:00:36 > 0:00:42She is Shanghai Lily, a professional user of men.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45Alone in her compartment, she smokes a cigarette.
0:00:46 > 0:00:52Her face is lit from above, as if from some celestial source.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55She has just learned that the great love of her life is still
0:00:55 > 0:00:57obsessed with her.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01Is it the motion of the train that causes her hand to shake,
0:01:01 > 0:01:02or her inner turmoil?
0:01:04 > 0:01:06It doesn't matter.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10Alone with her triumph, she transcends earthly concerns,
0:01:10 > 0:01:14attaining what the Greeks called an apotheosis
0:01:14 > 0:01:15the state of the divine.
0:01:15 > 0:01:17She is a goddess.
0:01:28 > 0:01:31The cinema was the new art form of the 20th century.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36In its golden age, it was truly a mass entertainment.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39Everybody could enter the temple, as if they were participating
0:01:39 > 0:01:46in a new religion, drawn by the light that came from a projector.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54Cinemas were built on a grand scale.
0:01:54 > 0:01:59They were called Palaces, Alhambras, Regals, Forums.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04They were the cathedrals of the movies.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08The screen was like a vast altarpiece.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12On it, the actors appeared bigger than life.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16No longer men and women. Gods and goddesses.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24When movie actresses faced a camera, they were lit, made up
0:02:24 > 0:02:27and dressed to perfection.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30They became an ideal of beauty.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33It was as if they truly belonged to another world.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41In mythology, gods do sometimes come down to earth.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46Occasionally the cinema played with the idea.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53In Down to Earth, Rita Hayworth plays Terpsichore,
0:02:53 > 0:02:55muse of the dance.
0:02:55 > 0:02:57She is shocked by how a Broadway producer
0:02:57 > 0:02:59intends to portray her on stage.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02Wait until you hear what's happening on Earth!
0:03:02 > 0:03:05A mortal, Daniel Miller is presenting a musical
0:03:05 > 0:03:07play about us, the nine muses.
0:03:12 > 0:03:17She descends to Earth to put things right, and being divine,
0:03:17 > 0:03:19she already knows the moves.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26I need a goddess and a goddess comes down out of nowhere.
0:03:29 > 0:03:33In One Touch of Venus, a window dresser inadvertently brings
0:03:33 > 0:03:36to life a statue of the goddess of love.
0:03:38 > 0:03:43Please, how can I fix this if you don't stand still?
0:03:48 > 0:03:53As incarnated by Ava Gardner, she moves with extraordinary grace,
0:03:53 > 0:03:54and speaks, too.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57Oh, look, I don't understand any of this, who are you?
0:03:57 > 0:04:00I am Venus, daughter of Jupiter, goddess of love
0:04:00 > 0:04:02Oh, very glad to know you,
0:04:02 > 0:04:04my name is Hatch, Eddie Hatch, display...
0:04:04 > 0:04:07- Goddess of what?!- Love.
0:04:36 > 0:04:40Goddesses suggest that an ideal world exists,
0:04:40 > 0:04:43where choices are clear and wrongs are righted.
0:04:43 > 0:04:45A world of certainties.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50But Goddesses can also punish and destroy.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52They can be jealous and spiteful.
0:04:57 > 0:05:01In Mata Hari, the infamous spy is played by Greta Garbo.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06Seducing a young pilot into treason, she makes him put out
0:05:06 > 0:05:10the lights, with the last being the candle before the Virgin Mary.
0:05:13 > 0:05:15- The Madonna's lamp?- Yes.
0:05:16 > 0:05:18I couldn't do that.
0:05:18 > 0:05:20You said I came first.
0:05:20 > 0:05:22But don't you understand, that it's a holy lamp?
0:05:22 > 0:05:24That I swore to keep it burning
0:05:26 > 0:05:28You wouldn't do that for me?
0:05:29 > 0:05:30Why, why do you ask me to?
0:05:32 > 0:05:34To see if you love me as you say.
0:05:34 > 0:05:35I do, but I do.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39Well then, put it out...
0:05:40 > 0:05:42..if you love me.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46Garbo did inspire fanatical devotion.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49She was said to have a "sensuousness that speaks to all men
0:05:49 > 0:05:53"and women", and that, "She is all woman.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55"All women."
0:05:57 > 0:06:00In Mata Hari, Garbo even wears a headdress that mirrors
0:06:00 > 0:06:02the one worn by the Madonna.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06Her triumph has made her divine in her own right.
0:06:07 > 0:06:08Forgive me.
0:06:20 > 0:06:24Garbo belonged to MGM, the Hollywood studio which promised
0:06:24 > 0:06:27"More stars than there are in heaven".
0:06:27 > 0:06:31Actors under contract were groomed and protected by the studios,
0:06:31 > 0:06:34controlling how they were portrayed in fan magazines.
0:06:34 > 0:06:39Cinema-goers devoured these stories and formed cults around the stars.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44A chosen few were venerated as though they were deities.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52It wasn't like that in the first years of Hollywood.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58The actors had faces, but no names.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00Producers thought that giving them an identity
0:07:00 > 0:07:02would hand them too much power.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09But the public grew to love this actress,
0:07:09 > 0:07:14here playing Kate in a very abridged version of The Taming of the Shrew.
0:07:14 > 0:07:16They demanded to know who she was.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21Eventually she was named Florence Lawrence.
0:07:25 > 0:07:29Her fame was short-lived, but the studios got the point.
0:07:29 > 0:07:34The first actress created purely for the cinema had a very enticing name.
0:07:37 > 0:07:41They called her Theda Bara.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46They said it was an anagram of "Death Arab,"
0:07:46 > 0:07:48and that she had been born in the Sahara.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52Actually, she was Theodosia Goodman,
0:07:52 > 0:07:54from Ohio.
0:07:57 > 0:08:01Bara's first screen character originated in a Pre-Raphaelite
0:08:01 > 0:08:03painting called The Vampire.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14In A Fool There Was, she was simply known as "The Vamp."
0:08:16 > 0:08:21In this scene, Bara taunts a desperate lover, driving him
0:08:21 > 0:08:25to suicide with a line that came a catch-phrase for years.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35Bara was a goddess of destruction, like Astarte or Kali.
0:08:36 > 0:08:37GUNSHOT
0:08:43 > 0:08:47The great pioneer director, DW Griffith, looked for the opposite
0:08:47 > 0:08:54of the vamp an embodiment of goodness, sacrifice, renunciation.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57He found her in Lilian Gish.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00And he saw how she should be filmed in close up,
0:09:00 > 0:09:03and lit like a saint in a Renaissance painting.
0:09:07 > 0:09:12In Orphans of the Storm, set during the French Revolution, Gish plays
0:09:12 > 0:09:15a girl who is separated from her blind sister,
0:09:15 > 0:09:17but believes she is close by.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26In fact, the sister, played by real-life sibling, Dorothy Gish,
0:09:26 > 0:09:28is in the street outside.
0:09:31 > 0:09:37With one potent tear on her cheek, Lilian Gish goes beyond acting.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46Like the Virgin Mary, she suffers for the sins of man.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06I always saw myself as a painter.
0:10:06 > 0:10:11And I had a canvas, instead of brushes and paints,
0:10:11 > 0:10:13I only had this, face and body.
0:10:13 > 0:10:20But I painted, I hoped, with emotion or with laughter, whatever,
0:10:21 > 0:10:26truly enough to affect the people looking, so that they would
0:10:26 > 0:10:32believe what I was trying to convey and never catch me acting.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40In the silent era, not all
0:10:40 > 0:10:44the inhabitants of Hollywood's Mount Olympus were as elevated as Gish.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47Clara Bow was more of a nymph.
0:10:47 > 0:10:52Her taste for men, on and off screen, was voracious.
0:10:52 > 0:10:57Red haired, vivacious, vulgar, she was pronounced by
0:10:57 > 0:11:01English writer Elinor Glyn to be the perfect embodiment of "it."
0:11:04 > 0:11:07According to Glyn, "it" was that
0:11:07 > 0:11:10"strange magnetism which attracts both sexes."
0:11:16 > 0:11:21This could be seen in the film It, which starred Clara Bow
0:11:21 > 0:11:26as a shopgirl, here flirting with her boss after an awkward date.
0:11:26 > 0:11:31Uninhibited, high-spirited and divinely carefree,
0:11:31 > 0:11:34she was a very 20s deity.
0:11:48 > 0:11:53The first generation of goddesses were stars of the silent screen.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55They were not invulnerable.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58Clara Bow was one of many victims of the transition
0:11:58 > 0:12:02to talking pictures at the end of the 20s.
0:12:05 > 0:12:09Another was Gloria Swanson.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12Here she is in Queen Kelly, playing a convent girl.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16She was then powerful enough to have produced the film herself.
0:12:19 > 0:12:23Years later, Queen Kelly was projected on a screen
0:12:23 > 0:12:25in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard.
0:12:26 > 0:12:30Wilder slyly cast Swanson as a fictional former silent goddess,
0:12:30 > 0:12:31Norma Desmond.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36She hopes that her younger lover, a screenwriter
0:12:36 > 0:12:39played by William Holden, will help her make a comeback.
0:12:46 > 0:12:51Still wonderful, isn't it? And no dialogue.
0:12:51 > 0:12:54We didn't need dialogue, we had faces.
0:12:55 > 0:13:01There just aren't any faces like that anymore. Maybe one, Garbo.
0:13:07 > 0:13:13Sweden, chill and remote, produced a different kind of goddess.
0:13:13 > 0:13:18Greta Garbo could have been Freya, the Norse deity of love and war.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24Her perfect features and gloomy introspection
0:13:24 > 0:13:28were well-suited to a romantic cinema of tragedy and loneliness.
0:13:39 > 0:13:44In Flesh And The Devil, John Gilbert plays a young Austrian officer
0:13:44 > 0:13:48who sees the woman of his dreams alighting from a train.
0:13:48 > 0:13:53It is of course, Greta Garbo, already aloof and removed.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04When their eyes finally meet, the spark is lit.
0:14:04 > 0:14:09Fortunately for the film-makers, the two actors really did become lovers.
0:14:29 > 0:14:34As in so many films of this era, the intimacy of their encounter
0:14:34 > 0:14:36is fuelled by the exchange of a cigarette.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48In this world of mythical passions
0:14:48 > 0:14:51and ever more sophisticated lighting,
0:14:51 > 0:14:55the striking of a match signifies overwhelming desire.
0:15:04 > 0:15:10Garbo had a curious way of being the aggressor in the love scenes.
0:15:10 > 0:15:18She would take the man, and then she created her own brand of eroticism.
0:15:18 > 0:15:22I remember seeing when she kissed Robert Taylor without using,
0:15:22 > 0:15:25very imaginatively, without using her hands at all,
0:15:25 > 0:15:28she just kissed him with small kisses all over his face.
0:15:38 > 0:15:39Marguerite Gautier.
0:16:08 > 0:16:13In Queen Christina, Garbo was at her most iconic as the defiant monarch
0:16:13 > 0:16:16who abdicates her throne for her Spanish lover,
0:16:16 > 0:16:19and leaves Sweden for ever.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31Her director, Rouben Mamoulian told her,
0:16:31 > 0:16:34"I want your face to be a blank sheet of paper.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38"I want the writing to be done by every member of the audience".
0:16:43 > 0:16:46In a much imitated single shot,
0:16:46 > 0:16:50Garbo's expression says everything and nothing.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54It was an image for eternity.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08Garbo made her last movie in 1941.
0:17:08 > 0:17:11From then on, she was very seldom seen.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14Her elusiveness guaranteed she would be remembered as a
0:17:14 > 0:17:18screen goddess who was for ever young and beautiful.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30Garbo's great rival came from Germany.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33The famed Hollywood director Josef Von Sternberg went to
0:17:33 > 0:17:36Berlin in 1929 to make The Blue Angel.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40One look at party girl Marlene Dietrich
0:17:40 > 0:17:46and he knew he had found his sleazy bar-room singer Lola Lola.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52When his producer said she looked frightful and couldn't sing,
0:17:52 > 0:17:55Von Sternberg gave her a screen test.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03That's Von Sternberg's voice giving Dietrich instructions.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07He was showing how expressive her face could be
0:18:07 > 0:18:10with his lighting and her attitude.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21In The Blue Angel, Dietrich performs a song that would become
0:18:21 > 0:18:24her anthem, Falling In Love Again.
0:18:24 > 0:18:28She sings it to Emil Jannings' besotted schoolteacher.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32In the original German, the lyrics are actually saying,
0:18:32 > 0:18:36"I live for sex, it's the way I'm made".
0:18:36 > 0:18:38You've been warned.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12When Paramount brought Dietrich to Hollywood,
0:19:12 > 0:19:15Von Sternberg forced her to lose 30 pounds.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19He re-designed her make-up, her clothing, her style,
0:19:19 > 0:19:23the way she was lit - with a single light placed high up.
0:19:26 > 0:19:31She was an extraordinary woman and she was a great beauty,
0:19:31 > 0:19:34and she was a fine assistant,
0:19:34 > 0:19:37and very easy to respond.
0:19:37 > 0:19:43She responded beautifully and gave me an image very often
0:19:43 > 0:19:47which was not only exactly as I wanted
0:19:47 > 0:19:54but very often better than I wanted and she was...she was quite a gal.
0:20:00 > 0:20:05Von Sternberg's films were rife with sexual ambivalence, revealing
0:20:05 > 0:20:09his masochistic fascination with his enigmatic creation.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12In Morocco, Dietrich performs a cabaret number
0:20:12 > 0:20:14dressed in top hat and tails.
0:20:21 > 0:20:24In a gesture shocking in its casualness,
0:20:24 > 0:20:29Dietrich seizes a sly opportunity to kiss one of her own sex.
0:20:29 > 0:20:33And the action couldn't be censored without cutting the whole scene.
0:20:34 > 0:20:36May I have this?
0:20:36 > 0:20:38Of course.
0:20:43 > 0:20:45THE CROWD LAUGH
0:21:06 > 0:21:11In Shanghai Express, Dietrich's only rival in exoticism
0:21:11 > 0:21:16is the young courtesan played by Anna May Wong.
0:21:17 > 0:21:22Born to a laundryman in Los Angeles, Wong was a rarity,
0:21:22 > 0:21:25a screen goddess who was Chinese American.
0:21:35 > 0:21:39One of her finest roles was actually in a British film called Piccadilly.
0:21:39 > 0:21:44Wong played a dishwasher who finds stardom as an exotic dancer.
0:21:53 > 0:21:57The English club manager succumbs to her charms.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01But see how their kiss was considered too risque for the times.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20Wong was doomed to play out her career
0:22:20 > 0:22:23in a succession of oriental stereotypes.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26As the Hollywood of the times saw it, screen goddesses had to
0:22:26 > 0:22:32be all-American or all-European, and definitely white-skinned.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44Dolores Del Rio was Mexican.
0:22:44 > 0:22:48For all her beauty, she would be cast only for her exoticism.
0:22:48 > 0:22:53Never more so than in King Vidor's Bird Of Paradise.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55THEY DRUM AND CHANT
0:22:55 > 0:22:59Del Rio plays a South Sea Islander.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02Joel McCrea is the only American at the party.
0:23:16 > 0:23:18She bewitches him.
0:23:18 > 0:23:23His mission is to civilise her, but in the end he goes native.
0:23:28 > 0:23:30A naked swimming scene portrays
0:23:30 > 0:23:35Del Rio as innocent of the inhibitions of McCrea's world.
0:23:40 > 0:23:44Once the moralising Hays Code was inflicted on Hollywood in 1934,
0:23:44 > 0:23:47this scene was cut from the film.
0:23:54 > 0:23:59Over in Europe, a naked swim would be the making of another legend -
0:23:59 > 0:24:01the Austrian actress once called,
0:24:01 > 0:24:05"The most beautiful woman in the world." Hedy Lamarr.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12Ecstasy, a Czechoslovakian film,
0:24:12 > 0:24:15made the 19-year-old Lamarr an overnight sensation.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18The film caused outrage wherever it was shown.
0:24:22 > 0:24:28Equally controversial were its daring scenes of sexual passion.
0:24:28 > 0:24:32Little wonder Lamarr's millionaire husband, the first of five,
0:24:32 > 0:24:35tried to have all copies of Ecstasy destroyed.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59Lamarr was brought to Hollywood by MGM,
0:24:59 > 0:25:02but the studio failed to find her a defining role.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09# I'll have you all to myself
0:25:09 > 0:25:11# Alone and apart...#
0:25:11 > 0:25:15In this lavish number in Ziegfeld Girl,
0:25:15 > 0:25:19she is simply presented as a goddess for all to adore.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22# Safe in my heart
0:25:22 > 0:25:28# Out of a dream of you... #
0:25:28 > 0:25:31But Lamarr had brains as well as beauty.
0:25:31 > 0:25:33Probably her greatest achievement
0:25:33 > 0:25:36was collaborating on a revolutionary radio technology,
0:25:36 > 0:25:39which paved the way for today's mobile phones.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53Some Hollywood stars shone most brightly in the wilder years
0:25:53 > 0:25:58before 1934 when the Hays Code imposed its rules of decency.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04The rigid censorship greatly limited the freedom of expression
0:26:04 > 0:26:07of American filmmakers.
0:26:07 > 0:26:12One who made her mark before its imposition was Mae West.
0:26:12 > 0:26:17She wrote her own scripts, shimmied around in outlandish costumes,
0:26:17 > 0:26:19even chose her leading man.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22Here it's a young Cary Grant.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26Her verbal playfulness was worthy of Oscar Wilde.
0:26:26 > 0:26:27Come here, dear.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30I haven't had you alone all evening with all those people.
0:26:30 > 0:26:32Well, my public.
0:26:32 > 0:26:34THEY LAUGH
0:26:34 > 0:26:36Let me take a good look at you.
0:26:40 > 0:26:41Ah, you were wonderful tonight.
0:26:41 > 0:26:43I'm always wonderful at night.
0:26:43 > 0:26:44THEY LAUGH
0:26:44 > 0:26:47Yes, but tonight you were especially good.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52Well, when I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad...I'm better.
0:26:52 > 0:26:56If Mae West belonged to the bar-room and the sideshow,
0:26:56 > 0:27:01her sister in the night-club and cocktail lounge was Jean Harlow.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05Harlow personified the hot blonde.
0:27:05 > 0:27:10In Howard Hughes' World War One flying epic, Hell's Angels,
0:27:10 > 0:27:13one line was enough to make her famous.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?
0:27:16 > 0:27:17I'll try to survive.
0:27:29 > 0:27:33Such carnal directness made Harlow an instant star.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37She was dubbed "The Blonde Bombshell".
0:27:37 > 0:27:41She had the physical confidence that was the mark of a true goddess.
0:27:43 > 0:27:47In Red Dust, she sparred brilliantly with the last word in
0:27:47 > 0:27:50American masculinity, Clark Gable.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53How many times have I told you to let down those curtains?
0:27:53 > 0:27:55Why? They've all gone off to work.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58You heard me, let em' down!
0:28:00 > 0:28:03What's the matter? Afraid I'll shock the duchess?
0:28:03 > 0:28:07Don't you suppose she's ever seen a French postcard?
0:28:08 > 0:28:12Naked bathing was a speciality of pre-Hays Code Hollywood.
0:28:16 > 0:28:20Get out of there! What's the idea?
0:28:20 > 0:28:21What?
0:28:21 > 0:28:22Getting in that barrel.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm going over Niagara Falls.
0:28:30 > 0:28:35Jean Harlow died shockingly young of kidney failure at 26.
0:28:35 > 0:28:38But her youthful potency survives,
0:28:38 > 0:28:42wittily encapsulated in the closing scene of Dinner At Eight.
0:28:44 > 0:28:46I was reading a book the other day.
0:28:46 > 0:28:48Reading a book?
0:28:48 > 0:28:52Yes, it's all about civilisation or something, a nutty kind of a book!
0:28:52 > 0:28:55Do you know that the guy says that machinery is going to take
0:28:55 > 0:28:56the place of every profession?
0:28:56 > 0:29:00Oh, my dear, that's something you need never worry about.
0:29:04 > 0:29:08Unlike Harlow, there were stars whose careers endured,
0:29:08 > 0:29:11even through the decades of the Hays Code.
0:29:17 > 0:29:21Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were said to be screen rivals.
0:29:21 > 0:29:26Their currency was power and willpower.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32Bette Davis was a supreme technician of screen acting,
0:29:32 > 0:29:35the accomplished manipulator of what Graham Greene called,
0:29:35 > 0:29:38"A corrupt and phosphorescent prettiness."
0:29:42 > 0:29:44Why don't you lay off that stuff?
0:29:44 > 0:29:46Because I'd rather be drunk than sober.
0:29:46 > 0:29:48In her first Oscar-winning role,
0:29:48 > 0:29:53she played to perfection a downfallen actress ruined by drink.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56Her bitterness and self-pity are her undoing,
0:29:56 > 0:30:00but Davis is magnificent in her fury.
0:30:00 > 0:30:02Take a look at yourself, take a good look.
0:30:02 > 0:30:06Drunken, ill kept, the only feeling you could arouse in a main is pity.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09Pity? PITY?
0:30:09 > 0:30:13You dare feel sorry for me, with your fat little soul and your smug face.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16Picking your way so cautiously through a pest hell existence.
0:30:16 > 0:30:20Well, I've lived more in a day than you'll ever dare live.
0:30:20 > 0:30:22Pity for me, that's very funny,
0:30:22 > 0:30:25because I've never had any for men like you!
0:30:25 > 0:30:29'I've often wondered why I had such...enjoyment...'
0:30:29 > 0:30:31SHE LAUGHS
0:30:31 > 0:30:34..From playing these women.
0:30:34 > 0:30:38But they are meatier from the standpoint of your craft,
0:30:38 > 0:30:43but they are also enjoyable, enjoyable to play.
0:30:43 > 0:30:45So I always, as I grew older,
0:30:45 > 0:30:49wondered if this was really in my nature, way underneath.
0:30:49 > 0:30:52I've never given a definite statement on this fact yet.
0:30:54 > 0:30:56The kid, Junior that is, will be down in a minute
0:30:56 > 0:30:59unless you'd like to take her drink up to her.
0:30:59 > 0:31:04As fading actress Margot Channing, in All About Eve, Davis found
0:31:04 > 0:31:09her defining role, boldly fighting her corner against upstarts and age.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12We know you, we've seen you like this before.
0:31:12 > 0:31:14Is it over or is it just beginning?
0:31:17 > 0:31:22She remains as ever the mistress of timing, whether sober...
0:31:24 > 0:31:29Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night
0:31:29 > 0:31:30..Or drunk.
0:31:30 > 0:31:35Don't get up, and please stop acting as if I were the Queen Mother.
0:31:35 > 0:31:36I'm sorry, I didn't...
0:31:36 > 0:31:38Outside of a beehive, Margot,
0:31:38 > 0:31:41your behaviour would hardly be considered queenly or motherly.
0:31:41 > 0:31:43You're in a beehive, pal, didn't you know?
0:31:43 > 0:31:46We're all busy little bees, full of stings,
0:31:46 > 0:31:49making honey day and night, aren't we, honey?
0:31:54 > 0:31:58I'm sure you must get very bored by the constant fiction that you
0:31:58 > 0:32:00and Bet Davis are positively daggers drawn.
0:32:00 > 0:32:02She'd kill you if she heard you say "Bet."
0:32:02 > 0:32:05She's a fascinating actress, Bette Davis.
0:32:05 > 0:32:09There's some truth in the charge that artists were manufactured...
0:32:09 > 0:32:13You manufacture toys, you don't manufacture stars.
0:32:13 > 0:32:17You can't turn them out. There were...nowadays, you see them,
0:32:17 > 0:32:19they're all out of the same cookie cutter, you know?
0:32:19 > 0:32:24Joan Crawford longed for stardom, and it showed.
0:32:24 > 0:32:28If Bette Davis' forte was anger, hers was ambition.
0:32:30 > 0:32:32I wish I were free tonight.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36In her early roles, this could be tempered with a certain sweetness,
0:32:36 > 0:32:40as in Grand Hotel, where her eager, good-hearted stenographer
0:32:40 > 0:32:43is flattered by John Barrymore's invitation.
0:32:45 > 0:32:46What time tomorrow?
0:32:46 > 0:32:485.00. Downstairs.
0:32:48 > 0:32:49Where downstairs?
0:32:49 > 0:32:52In the funny yellow room where they dance.
0:32:52 > 0:32:54- SHE LAUGHS - You're funny.
0:32:56 > 0:32:58Tomorrow?
0:32:58 > 0:32:59Of course.
0:32:59 > 0:33:01Really?
0:33:02 > 0:33:05We'll...dance, hmm?
0:33:05 > 0:33:08All right, we'll dance, hmm?
0:33:11 > 0:33:14Like Davis, Joan Crawford transformed her image
0:33:14 > 0:33:17in tune with her advancing age.
0:33:17 > 0:33:21In All About Eve, Davis is usurped by a younger woman.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26Mildred Pierce runs on parallel lines.
0:33:28 > 0:33:30Crawford's thrusting shoulder pads
0:33:30 > 0:33:33and imperious cheekbones were on full display.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41She played the self-made business woman fighting the brattish daughter
0:33:41 > 0:33:44and lounge-lizard lover who drag her down.
0:33:47 > 0:33:52Crawford's mask-like face expressed sacrifice as few others could.
0:33:52 > 0:33:55We weren't expecting you, Mildred, obviously.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01It's just as well you know. I'm glad you know.
0:34:02 > 0:34:04How long as this been going on?
0:34:05 > 0:34:08Since I came home and even before.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10He never loved you, it's always been me.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13I've got what I wanted.
0:34:13 > 0:34:15Monty's going to divorce you and marry me.
0:34:15 > 0:34:17No, Veda.
0:34:18 > 0:34:20And there's nothing you can do about it.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28# You must remember this
0:34:28 > 0:34:30# A kiss is just a kiss
0:34:30 > 0:34:34# A sigh is just a sigh...#
0:34:35 > 0:34:40Ingrid Berman was another kind of goddess altogether.
0:34:40 > 0:34:43# As time goes by...#
0:34:43 > 0:34:45In Casablanca, she played Elsa,
0:34:45 > 0:34:49a noble, troubled woman displaced by World War Two.
0:34:49 > 0:34:54She's haunted by the song which evokes her great lost love.
0:34:54 > 0:34:59The man in her thoughts, Humphrey Bogart's Rick, arrives on cue.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03# No matter what the future brings
0:35:03 > 0:35:06# As time goes by... #
0:35:06 > 0:35:09Sam, I thought I told you never to play...
0:35:20 > 0:35:23When the Swedish Bergman came to Hollywood,
0:35:23 > 0:35:26she felt her only image was herself.
0:35:26 > 0:35:30She refused to be re-modelled, and quickly tired of
0:35:30 > 0:35:34the rigid conventions of the Hollywood dream factory.
0:35:34 > 0:35:40They became terribly glossy, and the censorship was so hard on us
0:35:40 > 0:35:44that you couldn't do anything that was really down to earth.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48And I happened to see a picture called Rome, Open City,
0:35:48 > 0:35:56and it so struck me, it so moved me, and it was the real feeling.
0:35:57 > 0:36:02Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City revealed unflinchingly
0:36:02 > 0:36:06the terrible consequences of the Nazi occupation.
0:36:06 > 0:36:08Francesco! Francesco!
0:36:10 > 0:36:13Pina! Pina!
0:36:13 > 0:36:15Pina! Pina!
0:36:15 > 0:36:20The film starred Rossellini's muse and lover, Anna Magnani,
0:36:20 > 0:36:23and scenes like this made her a cinema icon.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29Her reckless defiance of the enemy was a far cry
0:36:29 > 0:36:33from the romantic view of the resistance depicted in Casablanca.
0:36:33 > 0:36:36Francesco!
0:36:36 > 0:36:38Francesco!
0:36:38 > 0:36:39SHOUTING
0:36:39 > 0:36:41GUNSHOTS FIRED
0:36:41 > 0:36:44Mama! Mama!
0:36:44 > 0:36:46THE CHILD WAILS
0:36:49 > 0:36:52As if to confirm her divine status,
0:36:52 > 0:36:56Magnani dies in the priest's arms, as in a Pieta.
0:37:01 > 0:37:06Impulsively, Bergman wrote to Rossellini, offering her services.
0:37:06 > 0:37:10He cast her in Stromboli as a Lithuanian refugee
0:37:10 > 0:37:13who attempts to make a new life on the volcanic island.
0:37:21 > 0:37:24VOLCANO ROARS
0:37:27 > 0:37:31The goddess, now deprived of her make-up and hair stylists,
0:37:31 > 0:37:34found reality with a vengeance.
0:37:34 > 0:37:36Enough.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39Enough!
0:37:39 > 0:37:44During the filming, director and star became lovers.
0:37:46 > 0:37:50When the already married Bergman also became pregnant,
0:37:50 > 0:37:53she was exiled from Hollywood.
0:37:53 > 0:37:57An American senator called her, "A powerful influence for evil."
0:38:00 > 0:38:05But she stuck with Rossellini and had a further two children with him.
0:38:10 > 0:38:14Ironically, the rejected Anna Magnani,
0:38:14 > 0:38:19no Madonna in her own private life, went on to be embraced by Hollywood.
0:38:19 > 0:38:23She won an Oscar in 1956 for The Rose Tattoo.
0:38:35 > 0:38:39The aftermath of war introduced a new kind of American film.
0:38:39 > 0:38:43Dark thrillers dubbed film noir.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47They brought to the screen a dangerous type of goddess.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50One liberated and toughened by the absence of men
0:38:50 > 0:38:52fighting for their country.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58In Double Indemnity, Fred McMurray's insurance man
0:38:58 > 0:39:02is seduced by Barbara Stanwyck's glamour, and her fast wit.
0:39:02 > 0:39:06There's a speed limit on this date Mr Neff. 45 miles an hour.
0:39:06 > 0:39:08How fast was I going, Officer?
0:39:08 > 0:39:09I'd say around 90.
0:39:09 > 0:39:12Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.
0:39:12 > 0:39:14Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.
0:39:14 > 0:39:16Suppose it doesn't take.
0:39:16 > 0:39:18Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.
0:39:18 > 0:39:21Suppose I start crying and put my head on your shoulder.
0:39:21 > 0:39:24Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.
0:39:24 > 0:39:25That tears it.
0:39:25 > 0:39:31Well, speaking of horses, I like to play them myself,
0:39:31 > 0:39:33but I like to see them work out a little first.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36See if they're front runners or come from behind.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39Find out what their whole card is.
0:39:39 > 0:39:42In The Big Sleep, Lauren Bacall gives
0:39:42 > 0:39:45Humphrey Bogart as good as she gets.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49I'd say you don't like to be rated, you like to get out in front,
0:39:49 > 0:39:53open up a lead, take a little breather in the back stretch
0:39:53 > 0:39:55and then come home free.
0:39:56 > 0:39:59You don't like to be rated yourself.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02I haven't met anyone yet that could do it. Any suggestions?
0:40:04 > 0:40:08Hell, I can't tell until I've seen you over a distance of ground.
0:40:08 > 0:40:12You've got a touch of class but I don't know how far you can go.
0:40:12 > 0:40:15A lot depends on who's in the saddle.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20But no-one could match the actress dubbed "The Love Goddess" -
0:40:20 > 0:40:25Rita Hayworth, as Gilda, the woman no man can resist.
0:40:25 > 0:40:29Would you like perhaps a tiny drink of Ambrosia,
0:40:29 > 0:40:31suitable only for a goddess?
0:40:31 > 0:40:33No, thank you.
0:40:33 > 0:40:37# One night she started to shim and shake
0:40:37 > 0:40:40# That brought on the Frisco quake
0:40:40 > 0:40:42# So you can...#
0:40:42 > 0:40:46For the number Put The Blame On Mame, about a woman with the power
0:40:46 > 0:40:51to cause natural disasters, Hayworth was dressed to kill in black satin.
0:40:51 > 0:40:54# They once had a shootin'
0:40:54 > 0:40:56# Up in the Klondike
0:40:56 > 0:41:00# When they got Dan McGrew...#
0:41:00 > 0:41:03To underline her sexual supremacy,
0:41:03 > 0:41:09she removes a single glove as only a screen goddess can.
0:41:09 > 0:41:12# That's the story that went around
0:41:12 > 0:41:15# But here's the real lowdown
0:41:17 > 0:41:21# Put the blame on Mame, boy
0:41:21 > 0:41:23# Put the blame on Mame... #
0:41:23 > 0:41:28"There never was a woman like Gilda," the poster announced.
0:41:28 > 0:41:31Such adoration came at a price.
0:41:31 > 0:41:34Rita Hayworth famously sighed,
0:41:34 > 0:41:38"Most men fell in love with Gilda and woke up with me."
0:41:42 > 0:41:46This photograph of her was one of the most popular wartime pin-ups.
0:41:52 > 0:41:57Scientists testing an atomic bomb even pasted it on the casing.
0:41:57 > 0:42:01When Hayworth was told about it, she wept.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04She had no desire to be a goddess of destruction.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16In the 1950s, the focus of glamour
0:42:16 > 0:42:19shifted from the Hollywood Hills to the shores of the Mediterranean,
0:42:19 > 0:42:24the world of European chic and the International Jet Set.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31A new bolder breed of European goddesses
0:42:31 > 0:42:34were trailed by a circus of hack journalists and news cameras.
0:42:40 > 0:42:42Federico Fellini called
0:42:42 > 0:42:46the snapping, flashing photographers paparazzi.
0:42:46 > 0:42:49They first appeared in his sardonic view of the new hedonism,
0:42:49 > 0:42:51La Dolce Vita.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54PHOTOGRAPHERS CLAMOUR
0:42:54 > 0:42:59Anita Ekberg parodied herself as a publicity crazy Swedish star
0:42:59 > 0:43:02arriving in Rome and soaking up attention.
0:43:05 > 0:43:10The stars were just as much on stage in their private lives
0:43:10 > 0:43:12as they were on the set.
0:43:12 > 0:43:16And at press conferences, they needed to know their lines.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19Please, miss. Dormi con pigiama o camicia da notte?
0:43:19 > 0:43:23How do you sleep? With pyjamas or night gown?
0:43:23 > 0:43:28Night. I sleep only in two drops of French perfume.
0:43:28 > 0:43:30One who rose to the challenge
0:43:30 > 0:43:35was the irrepressible French sex-kitten, Brigitte Bardot.
0:43:35 > 0:43:38You've been called the world's sex symbol,
0:43:38 > 0:43:40is this the way you want to be known?
0:43:40 > 0:43:42Is this what you hope the future will bring for you
0:43:42 > 0:43:44as an actress, or would you like to do something else?
0:43:44 > 0:43:46I want to be myself.
0:43:46 > 0:43:47And what is yourself?
0:43:47 > 0:43:48Look.
0:43:57 > 0:44:04In And God Created Woman, Bardot was the embodiment of appetite.
0:44:04 > 0:44:08Dancing to a sweatier rhythm than any Hollywood goddess,
0:44:08 > 0:44:11she taunted and teased her admirers.
0:44:25 > 0:44:28From Italy came Sophia Loren,
0:44:28 > 0:44:32who combined a regal air with a sense of mischief.
0:44:32 > 0:44:36In It Started in Naples, even that veteran of
0:44:36 > 0:44:40Hollywood masculinity Clark Cable was there to approve.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52What do you enjoy most about now being a world famous beauty?
0:44:55 > 0:44:57Men's admiration.
0:44:59 > 0:45:01Maybe I didn't understand the question?
0:45:01 > 0:45:05Yes, indeed you did! I was waiting for you to go on.
0:45:09 > 0:45:13Europe became a source of fascination to American stars.
0:45:13 > 0:45:15Like Orson Welles,
0:45:15 > 0:45:20Ava Gardner was a regular on Spain's bullfighting circuit.
0:45:21 > 0:45:25Not for nothing did fellow aficionado Ernest Hemingway
0:45:25 > 0:45:29call her, "The most beautiful animal in the world."
0:45:32 > 0:45:36She was very much at home appearing in a film set in Spain.
0:45:40 > 0:45:42In Pandora And The Flying Dutchman,
0:45:42 > 0:45:45Gardner's as much a fury as a goddess.
0:45:45 > 0:45:49She plays a wilful adventuress who challenges
0:45:49 > 0:45:52her racing driver suitor to make a sacrifice.
0:45:53 > 0:45:55If I were to ask you, Stephen,
0:45:55 > 0:45:58would you push this car off the cliff and into the sea?
0:46:03 > 0:46:04Yes.
0:46:07 > 0:46:09Do it, Stephen.
0:46:28 > 0:46:33In her triumph, Pandora's face becomes the landscape itself,
0:46:33 > 0:46:35dominating her admirer.
0:46:35 > 0:46:37When do you want to marry me, Stephen?
0:46:38 > 0:46:40Tomorrow?
0:46:44 > 0:46:47Meanwhile, another American screen goddess
0:46:47 > 0:46:49was waiting for her European moment.
0:46:51 > 0:46:54In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window,
0:46:54 > 0:46:57James Stewart is housebound in a plaster cast.
0:46:59 > 0:47:03The woman in his life appears to him like an angel.
0:47:05 > 0:47:10A slow-motion kiss underlines the bestowing of a divine grace.
0:47:16 > 0:47:18How's your leg?
0:47:18 > 0:47:20Hurts a little.
0:47:20 > 0:47:22And your stomach?
0:47:22 > 0:47:23Empty as a football.
0:47:26 > 0:47:28And your love life?
0:47:28 > 0:47:30Not too active.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34Anything else bothering you?
0:47:34 > 0:47:37Mmm-hmm, who are you?
0:47:39 > 0:47:45Grace Kelly really did walk in beauty. She was untouchable.
0:47:45 > 0:47:48She might have been a goddess come to earth.
0:47:48 > 0:47:50Can we be sure she wasn't?
0:47:59 > 0:48:02Kelly's career had a perfect Hollywood ending.
0:48:02 > 0:48:05She married into Monaco's royalty
0:48:05 > 0:48:08and left the movies for an alternative Olympus.
0:48:08 > 0:48:12Nothing so much became her stardom as the leaving of it.
0:48:19 > 0:48:21With Grace Kelly out of the picture,
0:48:21 > 0:48:26Hollywood cherished another ethereal goddess, Audrey Hepburn.
0:48:26 > 0:48:30Her gamine looks suggested an eternal youthfulness,
0:48:30 > 0:48:33and her slim figure was made for fashion.
0:48:33 > 0:48:38She was European, and was the irresistible face of European chic.
0:48:40 > 0:48:42In Breakfast at Tiffany's,
0:48:42 > 0:48:47she lives in New York but wear Paris clothes, by Hubert de Givenchy.
0:48:47 > 0:48:49Taxi!
0:48:49 > 0:48:52She's both other-worldly and street smart.
0:48:53 > 0:48:55SHE WHISTLES LOUDLY
0:48:55 > 0:48:58- I never could do that.- It's easy.
0:49:10 > 0:49:14In the 1950s, the dream factory that was Hollywood
0:49:14 > 0:49:17still produced screen goddesses.
0:49:17 > 0:49:21But these deities would see out the studio system
0:49:21 > 0:49:23that nurtured and groomed them.
0:49:23 > 0:49:27In the case of one actress, she even helped to destroy it.
0:49:34 > 0:49:39In George Stevens' A Place In The Sun, Elizabeth Taylor was cast
0:49:39 > 0:49:44as the rich girl who falls for the ambitious but poor Montgomery Clift.
0:49:44 > 0:49:47Behind her remarkable beauty,
0:49:47 > 0:49:50Taylor revealed an engaging emotional vulnerability.
0:49:52 > 0:49:58I tell you why. I love...are they watching us?
0:50:01 > 0:50:04I love you too. It scares me...
0:50:08 > 0:50:10But it is a wonderful feeling.
0:50:10 > 0:50:15It's wonderful that you're here. I can hold you. I can see you.
0:50:15 > 0:50:16I can hold you next to me.
0:50:16 > 0:50:19But what's it going to be like next week?
0:50:19 > 0:50:22That quality did not last long.
0:50:22 > 0:50:27Taylor's adulthood, a series of bad marriages and messy divorces,
0:50:27 > 0:50:28parallelled her screen career.
0:50:29 > 0:50:33Girlish freshness gave way to a jaded voluptuousness.
0:50:40 > 0:50:44But she was, without question, a star.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47A goddess who knew her worth.
0:50:47 > 0:50:53She demanded the unprecedented sum of 1 million to play Cleopatra.
0:51:07 > 0:51:11When Cleopatra arrives in Rome, Taylor's equally famous co-star
0:51:11 > 0:51:17and lover, Richard Burton, is as much in awe as everyone on the set.
0:51:17 > 0:51:22These crowds and monuments were not created by a computer.
0:51:25 > 0:51:28But the scene also symbolises the triumph of
0:51:28 > 0:51:32an extravagant star over an ailing studio system.
0:51:44 > 0:51:47Cleopatra was an epic out of control.
0:51:47 > 0:51:51Filming in Britain had to be abandoned when Taylor fell ill.
0:51:54 > 0:51:56The sets were demolished.
0:51:56 > 0:52:00As production began over again in Rome,
0:52:00 > 0:52:05the budget soared from 2 million to 44 million.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12While Cleopatra was draining 20th Century Fox's resources,
0:52:12 > 0:52:16the studio's last great sensation, Marilyn Monroe,
0:52:16 > 0:52:19died in Hollywood in 1962.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28Monroe is seen today as a victim of her screen persona,
0:52:28 > 0:52:32struggling to bridge the gap between her sex bomb image
0:52:32 > 0:52:34and her aspirations to be a serious actress.
0:52:40 > 0:52:43Monroe's films played with the discrepancy between her
0:52:43 > 0:52:47apparent innocence and the effect she had on men.
0:52:48 > 0:52:52The iconic moment comes in The Seven Year Itch
0:52:52 > 0:52:56when her skirt lifts up, and director Billy Wilder juxtaposes
0:52:56 > 0:53:01her child-like rapture with an older man's lascivious response.
0:53:01 > 0:53:03It sort of cools the ankles, doesn't it?
0:53:03 > 0:53:06Well, what do you think would be fun to do now?
0:53:06 > 0:53:08I don't know, it's getting pretty late.
0:53:08 > 0:53:09It's not that late.
0:53:09 > 0:53:11The thing is I have this big day tomorrow,
0:53:11 > 0:53:13I really have to get to sleep.
0:53:13 > 0:53:14What's the big day tomorrow?
0:53:14 > 0:53:17Tomorrow I'm on television. You remember, I told you about it?
0:53:17 > 0:53:18The Dazzledent hour.
0:53:20 > 0:53:21Oooh, here comes another one!
0:53:27 > 0:53:33She had no handle on life, but by God she had some other things,
0:53:33 > 0:53:36that if you knew what they were,
0:53:36 > 0:53:39we could sell that patent to DuPont and they could manufacture it.
0:53:39 > 0:53:42Because one would think it's not that difficult,
0:53:42 > 0:53:46maybe it's tough to have another, to make another Garbo.
0:53:46 > 0:53:53But it should be easy, a blonde small girl with a sweet face.
0:53:53 > 0:53:55My God, there should be thousands of them!
0:53:55 > 0:53:58They come from all over the world.
0:53:58 > 0:54:00Doesn't make a Monroe.
0:54:05 > 0:54:09Some stars began their careers swimming naked,
0:54:09 > 0:54:12that's how Marilyn Monroe ended hers.
0:54:12 > 0:54:16In this scene from the unfinished film Something's Got To Give.
0:54:19 > 0:54:21DOORBELL RINGS
0:54:21 > 0:54:23Get back in!
0:54:23 > 0:54:25Monroe's irresistible charm takes us
0:54:25 > 0:54:29back to the uninhibited days of pre-Hays Code Hollywood.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32Come on, the water's so refreshing.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35You know, once you've finished doing...you know.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40She died in mysterious circumstances a few months after
0:54:40 > 0:54:42these images were filmed.
0:55:05 > 0:55:08Marilyn Monroe was not just a screen goddess.
0:55:08 > 0:55:12She's become an icon for the whole world.
0:55:12 > 0:55:14She gained immortality
0:55:14 > 0:55:18while the old Hollywood studio system went into terminal decline.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24The reign of the screen goddess came to an end.
0:55:25 > 0:55:29Many of their temples closed.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31This one became a bingo hall.
0:55:39 > 0:55:43The post-studio era of the 1960s gave us
0:55:43 > 0:55:46female stars cut from a different cloth.
0:55:46 > 0:55:51They wanted to appear natural, to avoid looking manufactured.
0:55:51 > 0:55:56Even to venture off the screen into the real world of politics.
0:55:59 > 0:56:03They were no longer mysterious and untouchable.
0:56:14 > 0:56:17But have we seen the last of the screen goddesses?
0:56:22 > 0:56:23To answer the question,
0:56:23 > 0:56:27we have to go back into the vaults of film history.
0:56:27 > 0:56:30There lies a chance of resurrection.
0:56:31 > 0:56:34It happened in the case of a silent star who refused to play
0:56:34 > 0:56:38the Hollywood game and faded into obscurity.
0:56:38 > 0:56:42Decades later, as modern cinema began,
0:56:42 > 0:56:45Louise Brooks was rediscovered,
0:56:45 > 0:56:48and elevated to the status of a cult icon.
0:56:53 > 0:56:57In 1929, the German director, GW Pabst,
0:56:57 > 0:57:01cast her in the lead role of Lulu in Pandora's Box.
0:57:03 > 0:57:07With her miraculous combination of innocence and perversity,
0:57:07 > 0:57:09Brooks was perfect as Lulu.
0:57:09 > 0:57:14No dialogue, but an extraordinary face.
0:57:14 > 0:57:19On the screen, Louise Brooks simply exists.
0:57:36 > 0:57:42In Pandora's Box, Lulu brings down all who fall for her.
0:57:42 > 0:57:46Here she fights to regain a lover who plans to marry another woman.
0:58:05 > 0:58:09With the arrival of the shocked bride-to-be, Brooks completes
0:58:09 > 0:58:14her seduction with a devastating smile of erotic triumph.
0:58:19 > 0:58:23Nobody can resist the magnetism of her eyes.
0:58:24 > 0:58:28This is the ultimate quality of a screen goddess.
0:58:28 > 0:58:31When she is before us, we adore.
0:58:55 > 0:58:58Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd