Considering Dietrich refused to be filmed for this 1984 biographical documentary, Maximilian Schell fashioned a startling, ingenious, riveting portrait from recorded interviews and comprehensive film clips.
As interviewer he runs from boyish admiration to outrage with his exasperating subject, while she unintentionally gives away a great deal in veering unpredictably from charm, wit and penetration to venality, arrogance, cranky obstructiveness and fury: "Scheli! No man has ever walked out on me! Schell!