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The Merry Widow; At last!
Topic Started: Mar 9 2011, 08:36 AM (369 Views)
panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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One of the most jaw-dropping items in film history has finally become available on home video thanks to Warner-Archive. For silent film nuts, this is a really big deal: The Merry Widow without the music.

Irving Thalberg assigned Erich Von Stroheim to the picture as a sort of punishment, and Erich proceeded to revenge himself by turning a charming romp into a frank study of moral decay in a fictional country that looks like Austria. For students of film sabotage, the picture is a must-see, an operetta with fetishism, the blackest of black comedies. Mayer must have been hecked off, but ironically the film made more profit than Louis B's pet project, Ben-Hur, so Stroheim got to step up to the plate two more times, first (The Wedding March) for Paramount, and next, Queen Kelly, for Joseph Kennedy (yeah, that Joe Kennedy). March was so long they cut it in half and released it in two parts. The first part tanked and the second, The Marriage of the Prince, may never have played in the U.S. and is lost, though there is a rumored print in South America. Production was halted on Queen Kelly, supposedly after an anguished Gloria Swanson stormed off the set shrieking "There's a madman in control," but probably because Stroheim took so much time shooting that talkies arrived, the whole thing would have to be redone, and it didn't seem commercial enough to be worth the trouble. It shows up on TCM at times, abrupt ending and all and, as usual with Stroheim, is a pretty darned sick movie. According to him, Europe was pretty messed up in those days. I can't say foot fetishism shocks me exactly -- stuns would be a better word -- but I guess it was a sign that something was amiss. There are many hints at other naughtiness as well. One wonders what the legions of little girls whose parents took them to see it thought of the film. Surely a lot of it went over their heads. Hey, a lot of it goes over my head...

Also in this week's releases is Michael Curtiz's forgettable Noah's Ark and The John Barrymore Don Juan, the first movie with an all-Vitaphone music track and pretty entertaining, if a little slow.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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CliffClaven
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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There's a story somewhere that Von Stroheim was trying to convince Thalberg that miles of film of feet were necessary, because the character had a foot fetish. Thalberg answered something to the effect that Von Stroheim had a footage fetish.
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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I've heard that one, but I can't imagine Stroheim making such a preposterous claim. He was a strange guy but not a fool.

I forgot that Noah's Ark is a part-talkie. There were several films made in this period -- Mysterious Island is another -- that execs tried to salvage with added talking sequences. I don't know any movie that got improved that way. Usually a silent version was released too, for rural theaters that weren't yet wired for sound, and these versions are mostly better movies. I think MMO once had a part-talkie version of Murnau's City Girl, which would be fun to see, but it's never come to home video. Maybe it's the version with the overhead tracking shot in the restaurant I remember so well.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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mort bakaprevski
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Yeah, I've heard that one too. But, the version I heard didn't have him justifying the amount of film he had used. In this one, he was explaining the actions of one of the key characters.

Damn story's probably apocryphal anyway (but, a good one)!!
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
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panzer the great & terrible
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Mouth Breather
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There's a long explanation of Von Stroheim's fantasies on the B soundtrack of the DVD of The Great Gabbo. Seems that he himself had most of the peculiarities his characters exhibited, which makes sense when you think about it.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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