There is no denying that Erich Von Stroheim was one of Hollywood's greatest directors, and not only for the silent film period that he worked in. His best films transcend that. But in watching what is left of QUEEN KELLY one understands why he drove producers crazy and destroyed his directorial career.
I had seen parts of the film before tonight. In SUNSET BOULEVARD Gloria Swanson is watching one of "Norma Desmond's" old films with William Holden, and it is the convent chapel sequence from this film. Then, in the 1980s, the series about Hollywood in the silent period narrated by James Mason showed (in an episode about Von Stroheim) the sequence when Queen Regina (Seena Owen) whips Kelly through her palace as punishment for romancing (possibly sleeping with) Prince Wolfram (Walter Byron). The most memorable bits of that sequence are the laughing faces of some of the palace guards enjoying the "catfight".
But now I saw the film as it now survives (thanks to the restoration firm KINO), and while I marvel at the flow of the activities in his scenes, I am fully aware why Von Stroheim destroyed himself. Every sequence goes on too long. Yes they are marvels to watch, and if the film were say five or six films of twenty minutes to half an hour each they'd be perfect. But no matter how the actions flow into each other, the viewer accustomed to the telescoping of events in most films soon tires of it.
Take the fire in the convent. Byron and his adjutant climb a ladder at night to get into the convent, but they realize that they don't know Swanson's room. Seeing a fire alarm, Byron shows his adjutant they can start a small, smoky fire and force everyone out (and then catch Swanson). This ought to take about one or two minutes of the film. Instead it takes fully five or six. There is no reason for this.
The tryst at the palace of Wolfram and Kelly takes nearly twenty five minutes - and that does not count the business of Queen Regina discovering them and taking revenge on both. In the course of the tryst sequence, we learn of how the wine tastes to Kelly (not bad, considering this is a silent film), we learn that she has two postcards with Wolfram's likeness on them, and that most girls in the country have his image under their pillows, that she belatedly discovers how she is not wearing her dress but her nightgown (Wolfram has put her dress away). She and Byron work well together, and she does have a kind of naive charm (note her looking for the missing dress behind the couch, with her tilting herself over the couch's back to do it). The couple do discover they love each other - partly in the room in the palace, and partly on the palace's balcony (oddly enough the moon in the background looks fake - possibly Joe Kennedy managed to put his foot down on expenses there). They end up in his bedroom. This whole sequence could have been squeezed into eight minutes tops - it's half an hour!
Another defect is the second half, where Kelly goes to Dar es Salaam as the heiress of a successful brothel owner. Fascinating in the characters of the dying aunt, Jan Vryheid (Tully Marshall in a colorful degenerate type - Tully's enjoying himself, but playing it well), and the prostitutes and black clergyman. But the sequences leading to her marriage to Marshall last for forty minutes. They could have been done in fifteen. Moreover, the connection is weak - suddenly a humiliated and suicidal Kelly gets a second chance by going to Africa. That's hardly realistic. Von Stroheim was building to a change in Kelly in the portion of the film that was never shot - she was to harden into a smart businesswoman like her aunt, and to be able to rejoin Byron as an equal. But the plot devices are so odd they just don't work too well.
In short - a curious, and truthfully fun film to watch, but not the classic that Von Stroheim thought it would be. It's an eight for it's individual strengths, not for the entire overshot, incomplete picture that it is.
I had seen parts of the film before tonight. In SUNSET BOULEVARD Gloria Swanson is watching one of "Norma Desmond's" old films with William Holden, and it is the convent chapel sequence from this film. Then, in the 1980s, the series about Hollywood in the silent period narrated by James Mason showed (in an episode about Von Stroheim) the sequence when Queen Regina (Seena Owen) whips Kelly through her palace as punishment for romancing (possibly sleeping with) Prince Wolfram (Walter Byron). The most memorable bits of that sequence are the laughing faces of some of the palace guards enjoying the "catfight".
But now I saw the film as it now survives (thanks to the restoration firm KINO), and while I marvel at the flow of the activities in his scenes, I am fully aware why Von Stroheim destroyed himself. Every sequence goes on too long. Yes they are marvels to watch, and if the film were say five or six films of twenty minutes to half an hour each they'd be perfect. But no matter how the actions flow into each other, the viewer accustomed to the telescoping of events in most films soon tires of it.
Take the fire in the convent. Byron and his adjutant climb a ladder at night to get into the convent, but they realize that they don't know Swanson's room. Seeing a fire alarm, Byron shows his adjutant they can start a small, smoky fire and force everyone out (and then catch Swanson). This ought to take about one or two minutes of the film. Instead it takes fully five or six. There is no reason for this.
The tryst at the palace of Wolfram and Kelly takes nearly twenty five minutes - and that does not count the business of Queen Regina discovering them and taking revenge on both. In the course of the tryst sequence, we learn of how the wine tastes to Kelly (not bad, considering this is a silent film), we learn that she has two postcards with Wolfram's likeness on them, and that most girls in the country have his image under their pillows, that she belatedly discovers how she is not wearing her dress but her nightgown (Wolfram has put her dress away). She and Byron work well together, and she does have a kind of naive charm (note her looking for the missing dress behind the couch, with her tilting herself over the couch's back to do it). The couple do discover they love each other - partly in the room in the palace, and partly on the palace's balcony (oddly enough the moon in the background looks fake - possibly Joe Kennedy managed to put his foot down on expenses there). They end up in his bedroom. This whole sequence could have been squeezed into eight minutes tops - it's half an hour!
Another defect is the second half, where Kelly goes to Dar es Salaam as the heiress of a successful brothel owner. Fascinating in the characters of the dying aunt, Jan Vryheid (Tully Marshall in a colorful degenerate type - Tully's enjoying himself, but playing it well), and the prostitutes and black clergyman. But the sequences leading to her marriage to Marshall last for forty minutes. They could have been done in fifteen. Moreover, the connection is weak - suddenly a humiliated and suicidal Kelly gets a second chance by going to Africa. That's hardly realistic. Von Stroheim was building to a change in Kelly in the portion of the film that was never shot - she was to harden into a smart businesswoman like her aunt, and to be able to rejoin Byron as an equal. But the plot devices are so odd they just don't work too well.
In short - a curious, and truthfully fun film to watch, but not the classic that Von Stroheim thought it would be. It's an eight for it's individual strengths, not for the entire overshot, incomplete picture that it is.