Queen Kelly

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Movie
German title Queen Kelly
(also Queen Kelly )
Original title Queen Kelly
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1929
length 101 minutes
Rod
Director Erich von Stroheim
script Erich von Stroheim
production Gloria Swanson
Joseph P. Kennedy
music Adolf Tandler
camera Gordon Pollock
Paul Ivano
cut Viola Lawrence
occupation

Queen Kelly is an unfinished film by Erich von Stroheim , which was shot in 1928/29. The career of the director was ruined by the fiasco surrounding this silent film . The producer and leading actress Gloria Swanson also lost a lot of money and reputation through this project. The existing material from Queen Kelly is still considered a masterpiece in film history.

action

In the fictional kingdom of Kronberg, Prince Wolfram has excessive fun with prostitutes and plenty of alcohol. He savored his life, because in the near future he has to marry his fiancée, Queen Regina, whom he despises. She watches over the prince in pathological jealousy. After further nightly escapades, Regina orders that Wolfram patrols nearby with his regiment to clear his head for a surprise that she wants to tell him that evening.

During this ride, the soldiers meet a group of walking schoolgirls from the nearby monastery. Wolfram stands out among the girls Patricia Kelly and he is immediately on fire for the girl. When the schoolgirls curtsey to the prince , Kelly loses her panties. She throws it at Wolfram. For this she is punished with a month's curfew after returning to the monastery.

On the same evening Regina announced the date of the wedding with the prince: Tomorrow!

Wolfram kidnaps Kelly from the monastery that night and brings her to his rooms in the castle. He immediately begins to seduce Kelly, but is surprised by Regina. Kelly is chased out of the palace by the queen with lashes. Thereupon she tries to kill herself by jumping into the water, but is rescued by a police officer and brought back to the monastery. Regina has Wolfram arrested to force him to marry when he tells her that he loves Kelly.

At the monastery, Kelly learns that her aunt is dying in Africa and that she wants to see her. Kelly immediately sets off on the trip. The aunt is the owner of a run-down brothel and Kelly is supposed to inherit the establishment. The aunt wishes Kelly Jan, a completely degenerate and wealthy guest and patron of the brothel, to marry. It was also Jan who paid for Kelly's convent school. Kelly, who believes the beloved prince is lost forever, agrees and the aunt dies. Kelly and Jan's wedding takes place on the same day.

background

For various, partly unexplained reasons, the shooting was stopped after three months. The plot continued: Queen Regina is assassinated. Jan is killed in an argument. The Prince and Kelly can get married and Kelly is now called "Queen Kelly".

Stroheim was looking for work again after the fiasco surrounding his film The Wedding March, and that's how Gloria Swanson got him. She had heard of the problems he was filming, but believed she could control him on a project of her own. Gloria Swanson was one of the biggest Hollywood stars at the time and had just founded her own production company together with her then lover Joseph P. Kennedy , the father of the later US President John F. Kennedy , who was pushing into the film business.

Stroheim wrote a story called "The Swamp" and developed the script for Queen Kelly from it . Swanson did not appear to have objected to the story of the orphan girl inheriting a brothel and filming began. The problems were not long in coming, because Stroheim did not deviate from his way of working this time either. Expensive decorations, Stroheim's obsession with detail, and grueling repetition of the recordings raised the cost to about $ 800,000 from the private fortune of Swanson and Kennedy.

Over time Swanson realized that a film was being made here, the content of which would not pass the censorship of the time . Prostitution, brothels, nude scenes, excessive alcohol, degenerations and other topics that Stroheim wanted to show could at most be portrayed at most, if at all. The actresses of the prostitutes who accompany Prince Wolfram after his drinking tour to the palace in the opening sequence were apparently real. Stroheim allegedly had her fetched from a brothel in Los Angeles for this scene . "Here's a madman on the trigger!". With these words, Swanson is said to have complained to Kennedy. When Stroheim demanded from actor Tully Marshall in one scene that he should dribble tobacco juice from his mouth on Swanson's hand, Swanson demanded the interruption of the shooting and the dismissal of Stroheims. Another reason for the termination was probably that the triumphant advance of the sound film began during the shooting .

Gloria Swanson still tried to construct a self-contained film with a few additional scenes. She changed the plot so that Kelly dies and Wolfram takes his own life in the burial room . This version was only shown a few times and the film disappeared in the archives after Stroheim threatened legal action against this version.

After the African scenes, which were believed to be lost, reappeared , a version was premiered in 1985, supplemented by still photos , which most closely corresponded to Stroheim's intentions.

Stroheim then directed only once and soon found himself in the army of supporting actors . Until he moved to France , he received only a few significant roles as an actor.

With the advent of talkies, Swanson's career stalled and she only made one film between 1934 and 1950. It wasn't until 1950 that she made a short-term comeback on screen with Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder as the forgotten silent film diva Norma Desmond. In the course of the plot, Norma is shown in her private cinema by her butler - played by Stroheim - Queen Kelly and an excerpt from it can be seen in the film.

Awards

  • 1985 - Critics Award at the São Paulo International Film Festival for Donald Crimea

Web links

literature

  • Wolfgang Jacobsen, Helga Belach, Norbert Grob (eds.): Erich von Stroheim. Argon, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-87024-263-9 . (German)
  • Herman G. Weinberg: Stroheim: a pictorial record of his nine films. Dover Publications, New York 1975, ISBN 0-486-22723-5 . (English)