One of the most mythic productions in Hollywood history, the story behind Queen Kelly has left a legacy that still, even today, intrigues film historians. For many, it could well be the most famous incomplete film of all time. A lavish romantic epic planned to weigh in at thirty reels (approximately five hours) that would be financed by the father of a future US President (Joseph Kennedy), directed by one the greatest auteurs of his age (Erich von Stroheim) and provide a definitive showcase vehicle for it's ambitious producer/star Gloria Swanson. Yet such was the acrimony and furore surrounding the films collapse, Kennedy reeled away from the industry never to return, von Stroheim (tragically) never directed a major Hollywood production and Swanson's star soon began to fade. Or should that be, her "pictures got small"!
Indeed! Such is the fascination of Queen Kelly that Billy Wilder used it in his own merciless critique of the film industry, Sunset Boulevard. Yep. That's right. The film that Norma Desmond (Swanson) and her butler Max (von Stroheim) watch in her decaying mansion... That's Queen Kelly! Now that is what I call satire!!!
However, from amidst the wreckage of incomplete scenes and a Shakespearean alternative ending (After von Stroheim was removed, Swanson employed future Citizen Kane Gregg Toland cinematographer to tack on a semblance of a denouement in order to at least salvage something that could be released - a futile effort as von Stroheim owned the rights to the screenplay and blocked it) emerges around 100 minutes of luscious, decadent cinema that, at times, approaches something close to genius.
The story is pure romantic melodrama. A love triangle between a handsome but sexually voracious young Prince (lustily played by Walter Byron) , a jealous and insane Queen (outrageously played Seema Owen) and a young, orphaned convent girl, Kelly (Gloria Swanson, herself). The Prince and the Queen he loathes are due to wed, yet both her status and his fear of her violent fits of pique holds him reluctantly to her... Although it doesn't stop his drunken dalliances with the local prostitutes! Yet, whilst out with his cavalry on parade he meets Kelly and they fall in love at first sight. He whisks her away from her convent and brings her to his luxurious rooms at the palace and woos her. However, the Queen walks into the room at the moment of consummation and explodes with rage. She puts the Prince under house arrest before driving Kelly out of the palace whilst flogging her with a riding crop! Bereft, Kelly leaps from a tower into a river below.
This is where the story breaks asunder. Swanson's abrupt, enforced close see's the Prince freed only to arrive at the convent to find Kelly drowned. In his despair, he kills himself in front of her plinth. Von Stroheim's vision embraced Kelly being rescued, joining her dying Aunt in the German East Indies to run a brothel and being forced into marriage to a sleazy, lecherous pimp (Tully Marshall)... Only for her Prince to track her down years later. Not that it got that far!
It was the gruesome, deeply disturbing wedding sequence that finally brought Queen Kelly crashing to a halt. No more footage remains after this point. Already containing enough material to give the censors a heart attack (Seema Owen is virtually naked throughout the film and the Prince's sexual forays are barely disguised), von Stroheim's perverse change of direction and attention to almost squalid detail finally convinced Swanson that her project would never, ever pass the censors of the day. With costs spiralling, she called her financiers and von Stroheim was removed.
What now remains is the fascinating, lusty and wildly decadent corpse of a decaying, subversive fairy tale. A bizarre cinematic cross between Hans Christian Anderson and The Marquis de Sade! The directors attention to detail and elegant, regal sets seem almost at odds with the lurid (almost ludicrous) potboiler storyline and the wildly hedonistic performances from not only Owen and Marshall but also of the actors within the Queens court and from Rae Daggett as a prostitute called Coughdrops. Yet, somehow, Queen Kelly enchants. Bewitches. There's a real sultriness running throughout and a distinctly European sense of liberal humour that anticipates the films of Joseph Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich a couple of years later. Most of all though, Swanson's performance is fabulous. A real breathing counterpoint to camp excesses around her. Her terror at the wedding sequence is absolutely striking, as is the fear and subsequent heartbreak as she is discovered in the bed of her already betrothed paramour. Similarly, her moments of supposed penance in which she kneels at the alter of the chapel instead prays for another moment with the Prince is electric. What is most admirable of all, however, is her ability to find at a sexual knowingness beneath her genuine innocence.
Is Queen Kelly a lost masterpiece? I'd say it just falls short. Just. Whether a completed version would have been will be forever open to debate. What von Stroheim and Swanson do deliver is wild, vivid, fantastical, lusty melodrama that is uneven, excessive and yet strangely compulsive.
Indeed! Such is the fascination of Queen Kelly that Billy Wilder used it in his own merciless critique of the film industry, Sunset Boulevard. Yep. That's right. The film that Norma Desmond (Swanson) and her butler Max (von Stroheim) watch in her decaying mansion... That's Queen Kelly! Now that is what I call satire!!!
However, from amidst the wreckage of incomplete scenes and a Shakespearean alternative ending (After von Stroheim was removed, Swanson employed future Citizen Kane Gregg Toland cinematographer to tack on a semblance of a denouement in order to at least salvage something that could be released - a futile effort as von Stroheim owned the rights to the screenplay and blocked it) emerges around 100 minutes of luscious, decadent cinema that, at times, approaches something close to genius.
The story is pure romantic melodrama. A love triangle between a handsome but sexually voracious young Prince (lustily played by Walter Byron) , a jealous and insane Queen (outrageously played Seema Owen) and a young, orphaned convent girl, Kelly (Gloria Swanson, herself). The Prince and the Queen he loathes are due to wed, yet both her status and his fear of her violent fits of pique holds him reluctantly to her... Although it doesn't stop his drunken dalliances with the local prostitutes! Yet, whilst out with his cavalry on parade he meets Kelly and they fall in love at first sight. He whisks her away from her convent and brings her to his luxurious rooms at the palace and woos her. However, the Queen walks into the room at the moment of consummation and explodes with rage. She puts the Prince under house arrest before driving Kelly out of the palace whilst flogging her with a riding crop! Bereft, Kelly leaps from a tower into a river below.
This is where the story breaks asunder. Swanson's abrupt, enforced close see's the Prince freed only to arrive at the convent to find Kelly drowned. In his despair, he kills himself in front of her plinth. Von Stroheim's vision embraced Kelly being rescued, joining her dying Aunt in the German East Indies to run a brothel and being forced into marriage to a sleazy, lecherous pimp (Tully Marshall)... Only for her Prince to track her down years later. Not that it got that far!
It was the gruesome, deeply disturbing wedding sequence that finally brought Queen Kelly crashing to a halt. No more footage remains after this point. Already containing enough material to give the censors a heart attack (Seema Owen is virtually naked throughout the film and the Prince's sexual forays are barely disguised), von Stroheim's perverse change of direction and attention to almost squalid detail finally convinced Swanson that her project would never, ever pass the censors of the day. With costs spiralling, she called her financiers and von Stroheim was removed.
What now remains is the fascinating, lusty and wildly decadent corpse of a decaying, subversive fairy tale. A bizarre cinematic cross between Hans Christian Anderson and The Marquis de Sade! The directors attention to detail and elegant, regal sets seem almost at odds with the lurid (almost ludicrous) potboiler storyline and the wildly hedonistic performances from not only Owen and Marshall but also of the actors within the Queens court and from Rae Daggett as a prostitute called Coughdrops. Yet, somehow, Queen Kelly enchants. Bewitches. There's a real sultriness running throughout and a distinctly European sense of liberal humour that anticipates the films of Joseph Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich a couple of years later. Most of all though, Swanson's performance is fabulous. A real breathing counterpoint to camp excesses around her. Her terror at the wedding sequence is absolutely striking, as is the fear and subsequent heartbreak as she is discovered in the bed of her already betrothed paramour. Similarly, her moments of supposed penance in which she kneels at the alter of the chapel instead prays for another moment with the Prince is electric. What is most admirable of all, however, is her ability to find at a sexual knowingness beneath her genuine innocence.
Is Queen Kelly a lost masterpiece? I'd say it just falls short. Just. Whether a completed version would have been will be forever open to debate. What von Stroheim and Swanson do deliver is wild, vivid, fantastical, lusty melodrama that is uneven, excessive and yet strangely compulsive.