"Born in Vienna, raised and educated in both Austria and the United States, Josef von Sternberg was one of several contract directors who brought a distinctly European inflection to Paramount’s house style. In Sternberg’s case the accent was notably Germanic. He fashioned a unique Hollywood expressionism, with its play of light and shadow, sensuous images and exotic production design, sexual symbology and frank eroticism. Sternberg’s best films—all made for Paramount between 1930 and 1935—often were set in foreign locales and were populated by cynical, dissolute outcasts; they generally were weak on plot but remarkably strong on style and characterization. And they all starred Marlene Dietrich, whose rapid rise in Hollywood coincided with Sternberg’s, and whose screen persona was perhaps the most essential component of his inimitable style." - Thomas Schatz, Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film