The Heavens Over Berlin...

...were once full of stars. Some were born there, some passed through; some lingered long, some burned out young or moved too close to black holes artistic or political. You still feel them, at times, in the streets here, in the makeup of old women and the attitudes of young girls...

Pola, once a serious artist before becoming a Hollywood vamp...

Louise, who arrived something of a Hollywood lightweight and left, although she didn't know it for two decades, a sublime artist - and a has-been...

Miss Dietrich, of whom no more need be said than that she did quite all right for herself...

Anna May, who was here a bigger star than ever she managed to be again...

And the ineffable Lil Dagover, for a while the biggest lady of all of these...

Not to mention the problematic Fraulein Riefenstahl, long-lived - but not enough to live it down...

A trouble shared, to some extent, by the far less villainous (and infinitely more camp) Miss Zarah Leander.

I think I saw at least three of them at yesterday's parade...