An Evening with Marlene Dietrich

''An Evening With Marlene Dietrich'' is a concert-format television special, starring Marlene Dietrich, first broadcast in 1973.

Production

Alexander H. Cohen, who had produced Dietrich's successful Broadway runs of her one-woman show in 1967 and 1968, suggested a television version of her show.

Dietrich would receive a fee of $250,000 for her participation in the project. It was said at the time that this was the highest one-shot fee ever paid to a performer to appear on television. After two airings (one in the UK and one in the US), the copyright on the show would revert to Dietrich.

Dietrich—wary of television as a medium—insisted that the show be filmed in a legitimate theatre in Europe, to best capture her act and audience reaction thereto. The New London Theatre in London was chosen as location for filming, although the theatre would still be under construction at the time of filming. (The theatre would only officially open the following year.)

Lighting designer Joe Davis was brought in to recreate Dietrich's stage lighting and designer Rouben Ter-Arutunian designed a set featuring scrims and incorporating a Dietrich sketch by René Bouche. Dietrich's costumes were by Jean Louis, and Stan Freeman conducted the orchestra, using orchestrations of the Dietrich repertoire by Burt Bacharach.

Taping took place on November 23 and November 24, 1972. Dietrich gave two complete shows to non-paying, invitee-only audiences. Shots of Dietrich interacting with the audience were also taped at the end of the second concert. She also shot retakes of "Lili Marlene" and "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)" (the latter both in English and German) sans audience against a black velour backdrop to facilitate a post-production split-screen montage of her singing beside old black and white stills from the 1930s and 1940s. The best selections from the various tapings would be combined to form the final, one-hour-long special.

Repertoire

A set-list of twenty songs was devised for the taping, including foreign-language selections in French and German, which would facilitate variant edits for differing European markets:
* "I Get a Kick Out of You"
* "You're the Cream in My Coffee"
* " My Blue Heaven"
* "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have"
* "The Laziest Gal in Town"
* "When the World Was Young"
* "Johnny"
* "Go 'Way From My Window"
* " I Wish You Love"
* "White Grass"
* "Boomerang Baby"
* " La Vie en Rose"
* "Allein in Einer Grossen Stadt"
* "Lola"
* "Das Lied ist Aus"
* "Marie Marie"
* "Lili Marlene"
* "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
* " Honeysuckle Rose"
* "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)"

Broadcast

Originally titled ''I Wish You Love,'' the show premiered in the UK on the BBC
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