Morocco

Marlene Dietrich makes her triumphant Hollywood debut as a seductive, gender-bending cabaret singer with an appetite for mischief.

Amy Jolly (Marlene Dietrich), a world-weary nightclub singer, flees to 1920s French colonial Morocco where she finds herself headlining a notorious club while fending off the overtures of a wealthy suitor. Complicating matters further is the simmering attraction that develops between Amy and Tom Brown (Gary Cooper), a dashing Legionnaire with a shadowy past.

When Tom is posted on a dangerous mission, Amy must make a choice, and the scene is set for noble sacrifice, wartime danger and sizzling desire.

Curator's note
Morocco was the pinnacle of Dietrich's collaboration with director Josef von Sternberg, whose adoring camera fetishised the star while encompassing everything that made her such an icon: mystery, androgyny and a devil-may-care demeanour that was equally modern and timeless.

Nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for the role, the film is most famous for a scene where Dietrich performs a song dressed in a man's top hat and tailcoat and kisses another woman, both considered quite scandalous for the period.