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The Devil Is a Woman, the 1935 Josef von Sternberg romantic love triangle melodrama ("'Kiss Me... And I'll break your heart!"'; "If my eyes deceive you... even if my lips entice you... don't take me in your arms!"; about a Spanish officer who meets a woman and falls in love with her, but he learns from his friend that he used to be in love with her, and that she two-timed him over and over and ruined him; he promises his friend that he will stop seeing her, but he can't resist, and he goes back to her, and after many complications, he starts to leave with her, and at the last minute, she tells him she is returning to his friend, her former lover!) starring Marlene Dietrich, Lionel Atwill, Cesar Romero, Edward Everett Horton, Allison Skipworth, and Don Alvarado. Note that Joel McCrea was originally the lead in the movie, but he quit after just one day because he could not get along with director Josef von Sternberg! Also, Joseph Breen of the Hays Office wanted them to drastically change the end of the movie, so that the leads would be punished for their crimes. The studio did not make that change, but they did make other changes that he requested, to tone down the sexuality in the movie. Also note that this movie was loosely based on the classic opera, "Carmen". It had a very unfavorable depiction of Spanish police, and the Spanish government told Paramount Pictures that they would never allow any other Paramount films into Spain if the studio did not withdraw the movie and destroy all prints of it. Amazingly, the studio complied after the movie had completed its initial run, and it destroyed all the prints it had, but Miss Dietrich had a personal print of the film that she had kept locked away in a vault, because it was her favorite movie. In the 1980s, she allowed new prints to be created from her personal copy, and the film is now commonly available, and it is much better preserved than almost any movie of that era!
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.

Important Added Info: Note that together with this still is a typewritten piece of paper that gives thoughts about the movie, written by the movie reviewer who owned it (see below and see our image of the paper)!

Note that this still is part of an amazing collection of 204 scene stills we are auctioning in this set of auctions. All of them were collected by David Mallery, a noted Philadelphia film critic/college professor of the 1960s to the 1990s. He had a great love of movies, and he would go to memorabilia shows and shops in the 1960s and 1970s and he assembled a collection of great original stills from films he loved! He put them into scrapbooks using double-stick tape on the back of each still, and sometimes he would type a paragraph about that movie and put that in the scrapbook as well.

After his passing, his scrapbooks were obtained from his estate, and the stills were carefully removed from the scrapbook pages, but the double-stick tape was left on the back of the stills, although the "sticky" part on the face of the tape was removed. In almost all cases, the tape did not affect the front of the still. It can be removed by a professional or talented amateur, but it has not harmed the still in the many decades since it was first placed in the scrapbook, so I really don't see a reason to do so, but that will be the choice of the new owner of each still!

Mr. Mallery naturally had excellent taste in movies, and he was collecting at a time when you could find great original scene stills from the very best movies (but even in the 1960s and 1970s, it took some work to find them!). This is a rare opportunity to acquire truly great and rare original vintage stills, and they have a wonderful "provenance" as well!

Here is more information about David Mallery. He was a professor of cinematography at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, from the 1960s into the 1990s. He was a founding member of AFI (American Film Institute), and a member of the Motion Picture Academy. He was a film critic who wrote many reviews for many publications, and hosted a TV show where he interviewed directors, actors, and others involved in the film industry.

Over the years, he developed both working and personal relationships with many actors, actresses, and directors, including Frank Capra and his wife, Charlton Heston and others. eMoviePoster.com will be auctioning letters from these celebrities and others to Mr. Mallery in their next auction of signed items!

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