If this movie had been finished as it had been started, I would probably score it close to a 10 and not a 5. Unfortunately, Von Stroheim only got about one third of the footage shot before Gloria Swanson and Joseph Kennedy pulled the plug on the production. But what he filmed is luminously beautiful and over-the-top opulent. It's really a delightful treatment of a hackneyed theme... star-crossed lovers and the suffering their forbidden love imposes upon them.
Fortunately, Von Stroheim doesn't veer off much into some of the hyper-exaggerated overacting that mars some of his other movies. The later scenes where Kelly is in Africa do have a good bit of that, especially in the case of Jan, to whom Kelly is married in a shotgun wedding thanks to the emotional blackmail of her decrepit, crazy aunt. Von Stroheim has Jan lay it on so thick the whole thing nearly crashes to the ground, but his character's intrusion in this mangled masterpiece is mercifully brief.
Fortunately, Von Stroheim doesn't veer off much into some of the hyper-exaggerated overacting that mars some of his other movies. The later scenes where Kelly is in Africa do have a good bit of that, especially in the case of Jan, to whom Kelly is married in a shotgun wedding thanks to the emotional blackmail of her decrepit, crazy aunt. Von Stroheim has Jan lay it on so thick the whole thing nearly crashes to the ground, but his character's intrusion in this mangled masterpiece is mercifully brief.