The wedding march
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The wedding march |
| Original title | The Wedding March |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1928 |
| length | 130 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Erich von Stroheim |
| script |
Erich von Stroheim , Harry Carr |
| production | Pat Powers / Paramount |
| music |
JS Zamecnik , Louis de Francesco |
| camera |
Hal Mohr , Bill McGann, Harry Thorpe, Roy Klaffki B. Soerenson |
| cut |
Erich von Stroheim , Josef von Sternberg , Frank E. Hull |
| occupation | |
| |
The Wedding March (OT: The Wedding March ) is an American film drama by Erich von Stroheim from 1928.
action
Vienna , 1914: Prince Nicki is the offspring of a decrepit aristocratic family . He serves the emperor in a cavalry regiment .
His parents, Prince and Princess von Wildeliebe-Rauffenburg, can't stand each other and are arguing incessantly when they get up. For his part, Nicki tries to pull one of the maids into his bed when he wakes up.
At a parade for Emperor Franz Joseph in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral , Nicki notices the simple girl Mitzi in the crowd, who is present with her family and her hideous fiance, the spitting and sausage-eating butcher Schani. Nicki, on horseback, and Mitzi flirt without a word. When Nicki's horse shies away because of a gun salute , Mitzi is injured and goes to the hospital. Schani, who violently insults and threatens Nicki, is arrested.
Nicki visits Mitzi in the hospital and later in the tavern, where she works as a harpist. They love each other passionately on the banks of the Danube . Although he is strongly attracted to the girl, that doesn't stop him from going to brothels.
During a repulsive feast, a wealthy factory owner comes to Nicki's father and suggests a “deal”: Nicki should marry his daughter Cecilia. Money for titles of nobility.
Schani has since been released from prison and learns of his fiancée's relationship with the prince.
In the meantime, Nicki has reluctantly agreed to enter into the relationship with the manufacturer's daughter.
Schani shows Mitzi a newspaper article announcing the prince's marriage. Mitzi is completely dissolved, but gives Schani to understand that she hates him profoundly and still loves the prince. Beside himself with anger, Schani tries to rape Mitzi in the pigsty . His father prevents the outrage at the last moment. Schani decides to murder Nicki after the marriage.
The prince's wedding is celebrated. Schani waits for the couple with a pistol at the exit of the church. At the last moment Mitzi appears and promises Schani to marry him if he abandons his plan.
The newly married couple get on the carriage and drive away.
background
The first part of the film ends here.
The film was cut in two because of its length. In the USA only the first part was distributed. The second part, The Honeymoon , was shown only in a few cinemas in Europe and then disappeared in the archives. The Honeymoon is considered lost . Probably the last copy was destroyed in a fire in the Cinémathèque française in the late 1950s .
The Honeymoon is about the prince's honeymoon in the Alps and the wedding of Mitzi and Schani. Mitzi still loves the prince and Schani decides one more time to murder the prince. Schani shoots Cecilia, who threw herself protectively in front of Nicki. On the run, Schani falls into the depths. At one last meeting, Mitzi tells Nicki that she is going to a monastery. Nicki goes to war where he falls.
Stroheim had had great success with his previous film The Merry Widow and so his new producer Pat Powers initially gave him a free hand at Paramount Studios. Stroheim spared no effort this time either: The Viennese scenery was reproduced in dozens of decorations, uniforms had to be genuine except for the last medal, the actors were required to do the last. Scenes were repeated excessively until Stroheim was satisfied. For weeks he shot bizarre orgies that would never have happened at a censorship point back then . The apple tree, under which Nicki and Mitzi make love, was hung with handmade wax blossoms to create the shimmering light that can be seen in the film. Fay Wray was on the verge of physical exhaustion from the grueling filming.
In this film, Fay Wray played her first major leading role. Stroheim had discovered them in little-noticed westerns and melodramas . Fay Wray was later very positive about working with von Stroheim. She often compared his way of working and his human nature with that of Mauritz Stiller , who was fired from Louis B. Mayer almost at the same time and worked at Paramount with Fay Wray and Emil Jannings in The Street of Sin , among others .
Since the film was produced in the transition phase from silent to sound film, the studio also recorded a soundtrack with sound effects, which was saved on records . The equestrian parade was filmed in the still relatively primitive two-color Technicolor . Especially in the early days of the sound film, it was good form to add color sequences to expensive productions.
Countless hours of film were exposed and the result was an excessively long film , similar to Stroheims Gier before . After months of filming, producer Powers stopped the project. Stroheim had enough material to make a finished film, so he started editing in 1927. He struggled with his material until the donors lost patience and the film was taken from Stroheim. Among other things, Josef von Sternberg was commissioned with the editing. The producers were horrified at the sight of the brothel scenes and severely shortened these and other scenes. Once again, one of Stroheim's works was disfigured almost beyond recognition.
According to producer Powers, the cost of canceling filming was $ 1,125,000, and Stroheim himself said it was $ 900,000.
Shortly before his death, Stroheim cut a version of The Wedding March from various versions in France , which was more or less in line with his original intentions. It was also possible to get the records with the original soundtrack and add them to the film as a soundtrack .
Awards
2003: Entry into the National Film Registry
Reviews
- “Stroheim even knows the soft waltz melody of the great longing, banal fairy tales. But it also has the screeching, evil tone of exaggerated reality. And he has the cold, mocking, piercing giggles of the high, ironic octaves. His wedding march is even a colored fairy tale. But the colors are poisonous. Stroheim is a tough person. But its hardness shows the memory of the dream's tender lie. And his melancholy avenges its existence in brutal caricatures. A unique, exciting case. " (Hanns G. Lustig in Der Film , No. 51, December 21, 1929)
- "In spite of all interventions, an extraordinary film-historical document, remarkable above all because of the overflowing opulent design, which becomes the biting (distorting) mirror of a society and its pathological state. Von Stroheim designs the stations of an erotic competition between the aristocratic officer in a ruthless and ruthless manner and the (petty) bourgeoisie. " in the lexicon of international film
literature
- Herman G. Weinberg: The Complete Wedding March of Erich von Stroheim. Little & Brown, Boston 1974, ISBN 0-316-92842-9 . (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Herman G. Weinberg: Stroheim. a pictorial record of his nine films. Dover Publications, New York NY 1975, ISBN 0-486-22723-5 , p. 179.
- ↑ quoted from Jacobsen, Belach, Grob (ed.): Erich von Stroheim. Aargon 1994, ISBN 3-87024-263-9 , p. 284.
- ↑ The wedding march. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 20, 2016 .
Web links
- The wedding march in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Wedding March as a download from the public domain . (With Spanish subtitles)