Wilder replays the beginning of Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will—Hitler’s arrival into Nuremberg—as parody. A squabbling American congressional delegation descends from the clouds into Berlin and tours the ruined city. Led by Jean Arthur’s plain-faced Iowa congresswoman (“Phoebe Frost”), they’ve been sent to check on de-Nazification efforts, but she’s scandalized by the excessive fraternization between American GIs and Germans. The film dramatizes the allure of the immoral and the power of the perverse, personified by Marlene Dietrich playing a Nazi nightclub singer. In glinting gowns and elaborate maquillage, she seduces with melancholy songs about “Illusions” and the cynical nature of the “Black Market.” There’s a hint of lesbianism as the seemingly incorruptible Frost falls as much under the spell of Dietrich’s Nazi goddess as the dimwitted but good-hearted GIs. This sexual subversion is at its peak when Dietrich slithers through the Loereli nightclub and stops in front of Arthur to tauntingly sing, “come and see my little music box today.” Democracy wins in the end, but not before everyone and everything is turned on their heads. It’s worth noting that in later interviews Wilder, with great admiration, revealed that Dietrich directed the film’s two nightclub numbers. She was the master of her own visage.