Somewhat marred by the unbearable optimism of the 50s German cinema, this is one of the last true Marika Rökk classics of the "golden age". Her later musicals don't seem to belong anywhere, since the age of the movie musical had passed by the late 50s and Miss Rökk, nearing 50, had became a curious institution in her own rights, performing somersaults, sizzling with relentless energy and pirouetting on her toes well into her late seventies to the weird mix of rock'n'roll and operetta. In this film you get most of the good elements of a solid true blue musical. Nevertheless, the attention is solely on the big production numbers, performed on the stage. This is not an adaptation of the famous operetta The Mask In Blue; they only perform the operetta on stage and have a lot of unnecessary mishmash, loosely based on the subject, woven around it, retaining most of the songs. Some of the outcome is very bad, the jokes being incredibly lame and the romantic part not taking off at all (the young man involved seems to be about 15 years younger than she, even though La Rökk looks fine).
The musical numbers performed within the film are obviously influenced by The Red Shoes: here we have a lady who is cursed by some sort of devil Leonide Massine lookalike to wear a blue mask, until she is redeemed by love (by an incredibly boyish male dancer, who is forced to mime to the voice of a very irritating tenor). This subject should have been touched more deeply, as today it is the most attractive part of the film.
If you can look past the embarrassing moments, including the tour de force performance by Marika Rökk (in one unmotivated scene she acts to be two different people, shouting at herself and pleading with herself), you might enjoy the musical part very much. Four years passed before her next film was released. If you like to see the Rökk that was popular in the thirties and forties, playing to her own rules, then that's your last chance.
