Trappists in The Garden of Allah (1936)

The Garden of Allah is a 1936 American film whose main character, Boris Androvski (played by Charles Boyer), is a Trappist monk. He – and only he – knows the secret recipe for the liquor his abbey produces, but he leaves the monastery, falls in love with a woman played by Marlene Dietrich (above), but later decides to return to his abbey and make reparations for leaving.
The film was produced by David O. Selznick and based on the 1904 novel of the same title by Robert S. Hichens, a friend of Oscar Wilde's. The novel's perceived potential as a crowd-pleaser is attested to by the fact that it was filmed twice before, as silent films in 1916 and 1927.
The film was not a commercial success, but it has been remarkably successful in diverse subcultures. Cistercian monks are not one of them; I had never heard of it until recently. In Rio, however, the Jardim de Alah was named after the movie, as was the literary hotel in Los Angeles and a bar in Seattle. Cyndi Lauper used it for the opening scene of her video Time After Time. 
One of the reasons for its strange reception may lay in the bizarre casting: Marlene Dietrich as a deeply religious Catholic, the product of a strict upbringing in a French convent school? Well...
But for those interested in Cistercian Studies, the film deserves mention for its refectory scene, in which arguably the largest number of Trappist monks, ever, appear onscreen. But it also reflects on the connection between French colonies and Trappist foundations, and – most of all – the popular perception of Trappist liquor production.