I have been intrigued by this silent film by Erich von Stroheim starring Gloria Swanson ever since I first saw the clips from it in Billy Wilder's much later "Sunset Boulevard", which of course starred the much-aged Swanson and von Stroheim. I naturally assumed it was a "lost film" and that I was watching just fragments of it but was intrigued to learn that a heavily truncated version of the movie is available to view on-line.
Sadly as I've learned from doing some background research, the movie was never completed down to Von Stroheim's habitual trait of running way over budget which caused the film to be shelved halfway through the shoot.
So what we have, as I understand it, is only the first half of the story, one which turned much darker in the second half.
The first half we do see is that story old as time of the young convent orphan who espies the visiting handsome prince lined up to marry the country's all-powerful queen and in her excitement bursts her knicker elastic causing them to fall at her feet whereupon she throws them at him like a regular teenybopper! Yes, this actually happens!
Moreover, he keeps them and after a brief chat with the embarrassed girl, later decides he wants to see her again so naturally he goes to her convent with a chum, breaks in, starts a fire to burn her out (yes, this too actually happens!) and then takes her to his luxurious quarters in the royal palace where over champagne and caviar he duly seduces her. Unfortunately for the pair, the queen gets wind of their tryst and interrupts the love-birds the next morning, excoriating him with his own riding crop, (we've already seen him act the drunken playboy) but worse is in store for the girl Kelly, who is ignominiously beaten out the door.
In the part that we never get to see, we apparently would have seen the girl turn up at her old aunt's in a missionary camp in Africa, marry an ugly old man and end up running a brothel - now that does sound interesting.
As it is, a blink-and-you-miss-it tragic ending is tacked on and that's The End folks!
Straight away I must say that the only copy that I could find to watch online was one only 71 minutes long, bearing Italian subtitles which I didn't understand. I also had to turn off the florid orchestral background music, as usual containing a welter of Tchaikovsky, which seemed to bear no relation to the action.
I wish I could have had the chance to see the extent of Von Stroheim's full vision of his grand idea, no doubt showing the full narrative arc of Kelly and leaving me curious as to whether she achieved any kind of redemption in the end.
Anyway, what I did see was a wonderfully opulent, dramatically lit and well acted production. Swanson with her dazzling teeth does seem much too old to play a convent girl although one could easily see why she turned the prince's head.
One can only speculate as to what might have happened to the reels and reels of footage Von Stroheim must have shot before the bigwigs turned off the tap leaving me to wonder if there might be a sliver of hope for some great restoration project maybe on the centenary anniversary of the original production in a few years time.
I live in hope. Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, over to you!
Sadly as I've learned from doing some background research, the movie was never completed down to Von Stroheim's habitual trait of running way over budget which caused the film to be shelved halfway through the shoot.
So what we have, as I understand it, is only the first half of the story, one which turned much darker in the second half.
The first half we do see is that story old as time of the young convent orphan who espies the visiting handsome prince lined up to marry the country's all-powerful queen and in her excitement bursts her knicker elastic causing them to fall at her feet whereupon she throws them at him like a regular teenybopper! Yes, this actually happens!
Moreover, he keeps them and after a brief chat with the embarrassed girl, later decides he wants to see her again so naturally he goes to her convent with a chum, breaks in, starts a fire to burn her out (yes, this too actually happens!) and then takes her to his luxurious quarters in the royal palace where over champagne and caviar he duly seduces her. Unfortunately for the pair, the queen gets wind of their tryst and interrupts the love-birds the next morning, excoriating him with his own riding crop, (we've already seen him act the drunken playboy) but worse is in store for the girl Kelly, who is ignominiously beaten out the door.
In the part that we never get to see, we apparently would have seen the girl turn up at her old aunt's in a missionary camp in Africa, marry an ugly old man and end up running a brothel - now that does sound interesting.
As it is, a blink-and-you-miss-it tragic ending is tacked on and that's The End folks!
Straight away I must say that the only copy that I could find to watch online was one only 71 minutes long, bearing Italian subtitles which I didn't understand. I also had to turn off the florid orchestral background music, as usual containing a welter of Tchaikovsky, which seemed to bear no relation to the action.
I wish I could have had the chance to see the extent of Von Stroheim's full vision of his grand idea, no doubt showing the full narrative arc of Kelly and leaving me curious as to whether she achieved any kind of redemption in the end.
Anyway, what I did see was a wonderfully opulent, dramatically lit and well acted production. Swanson with her dazzling teeth does seem much too old to play a convent girl although one could easily see why she turned the prince's head.
One can only speculate as to what might have happened to the reels and reels of footage Von Stroheim must have shot before the bigwigs turned off the tap leaving me to wonder if there might be a sliver of hope for some great restoration project maybe on the centenary anniversary of the original production in a few years time.
I live in hope. Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, over to you!