User Reviews

I'd imagine that most people who would come to this page to read a review of Erich Von Stroheim's unfinished epic Queen Kelly already know something about it, but nonetheless it seems a little historical context is necessary before attempting to critique the fragment that remains. This was a deeply troubled project, memorably described by leading lady Gloria Swanson as a child that refused to be born. Set in a fictitious 'Middle European' kingdom, the first portion of Von Stroheim's screenplay tells a fairy tale-like story of an innocent convent girl, Patricia Kelly, who becomes involved with a wastrel Prince-- who, unbeknownst to her, is already betrothed to the Queen. At first the Prince wants only to toy with Kelly, but in the course of their one evening together he sincerely falls in love with her. Unfortunately, the mad Queen Regina learns of the affair and literally flogs Kelly out of the palace. Kelly attempts suicide, but is rescued and abruptly sent to German East Africa, where her dying aunt runs a brothel. She is forced to marry a syphilitic plantation owner and eventually winds up successfully running the brothel herself, under the ironic moniker "Queen Kelly."

As originally scripted this film might have run as long as five hours, so the portion available today represents barely one-third of the intended opus. The project marked the sole collaboration between writer/director Von Stroheim, star/producer Swanson, and co-producer Joseph P. Kennedy, patriarch of the political dynasty (who was also Swanson's lover at the time). Plans for this silent epic were launched at the end of 1927, but by the time shooting began in fall of 1928 the talkie revolution was sweeping Hollywood, and this would prove to be perhaps the biggest single factor that doomed the project to limbo. Three months into the filming Von Stroheim was fired, and for the next few years Swanson attempted to finish the movie in various ways, finally releasing a truncated version in Europe in 1932. In the 1960s about twenty minutes' worth of footage from the sequence set in Africa was discovered, and this material was reunited with the earlier portion in a restored version completed in 1985.

Given this history it seems almost unfair to critique what remains of Queen Kelly at all, but the restoration presents a rough idea of what the movie might have amounted to in its longer form. This is a fascinating fragment with both positive and negative aspects.

On the positive side, the film is beautiful to look at; Paul Ivano's gleaming cinematography ranks with the best work of the era. Practically every shot boasts features of striking interest, and the production design teems with the sort of character-revealing detail for which Von Stroheim was known. Befitting the unreal atmosphere, Seena Owen and Tully Marshall offer highly stylized character turns as Queen Regina and plantation owner Jan Vryheid. Owen's Mad Queen is unforgettable, lounging about the palace nude (while toting a strategically positioned white cat!), surrounded by erotic art and brandishing a riding crop. Marshall's scenes are limited to a few minutes in the recovered 'Africa' footage, but he etches a vivid portrait of creepy decadence.

On the debit side, however, is the central and insurmountable problem that Gloria Swanson was miscast in the title role: she simply isn't credible as the innocent convent girl the story demands. Kelly is supposed to be a sheltered girl who has never tasted champagne. Swanson was 31 years old when this film was made and, frankly, looked older. Even in films she made in her early 20s she comes off as a tough cookie who could handle anything, but here, alongside the actual girls who are supposed to be her contemporaries, Gloria looks like she should be playing the Mother Superior. Von Stroheim's leading lady from The Wedding March, 21 year-old Fay Wray, would have been perfect as Kelly, but once producer Swanson cast herself in the role the project was inherently flawed.

Another problem is that most of this material was edited together only after Von Stroheim had been fired and the production shut down, when Swanson was attempting to assemble a marketable feature-length movie out of the opening 'Middle Europe' section. Originally these scenes had been intended to serve as little more than a prologue to the Africa story, but since it was the only portion completed the editors were forced to extend what they had to pad the running time. There is much lingering over details and too many prolonged reaction shots, especially in the scenes between Kelly and the Prince. It's said that when Erich Von Stroheim saw this version of the film in later years he complained that the pace was far too slow, and so it appears today: sumptuously photographed but draggy, despite the occasional high points.

In sum, while I would call this film a must for silent movie buffs, I don't believe the average viewer would find much to enjoy in Queen Kelly. This is one of those legendary disasters with a "backstory" rather more interesting than what we see on screen. In that light I can especially recommend watching the recent DVD release with film scholar Richard Koszarski's commentary accompanying the visuals, to help make sense of it all.

Eric Von Stroheim (1885-1957) was among the silent era's most visionary, artistically ambitious directors; Gloria Swanson (1897-1983) was among the screen's first "divas" and one of the silent era's greatest stars. With Swanson's lover Joe Kennedy (father of John, Robert and Ted) acting as money man, Von Stroheim and Swanson teamed to create a film that both believed would be crowing achievement of their careers: QUEEN KELLY.

Less than a third of the script was filmed when Swanson called Kennedy and demanded that Von Stroheim be fired. He was, and in his absence Swanson filmed several scenes intended to round out the story line and make the film fit for release. In doing so she reckoned with Von Stroheim, who had cannily held copyright and who flatly refused to permit distribution--and as the battle wore on sound began to roar, making the film less commercially viable with every passing day. Swanson was eventually able to release QUEEN KELLY in Europe, but it generated little interest and was soon withdrawn. It would not be seen in America until after Von Stroheim's death. It would be Von Stroheim's last major work as a director and it would effectively end Swanson's film career for a decade or more.

In the interval the reputation of QUEEN KELLY began to grow. It was, many declared, a lost masterpiece much like Von Stroheim's legendary GREED. And when it at last became widely available it leaped onto every critic and buff's short list of "important" silent movies. But time has a way of smoothing out peaks and valleys. Seen today, QUEEN KELLY is interesting--but only for what it might have been, not for what it actually is.

The story is distinctly odd. Prince Wolfram (Walter Byron) is betrothed to Queen Regina (Seena Owen), a vicious, half-mad, and intensely despot he despises. While riding in the country he comes upon a group of orphans that includes Kitty Kelly (Gloria Swanson), who makes an impression on him by loosing her bloomers and then angrily throwing them in his face when he laughs at her. Determined to see her again, the Prince stages a fire in the convent and under cover of smoke kidnaps Kitty and takes her to the palace, where she soon surrenders to his charms. But there is hell to pay when Queen Regina discovers the girl, and before you know it Prince Wolfram is in the dungeon and Kitty has, of all things, inherited a brothel in Africa. Will they find each other again? It is basically at this point that the film footage ends. The Kino release attempts to finish out the story with a handful of stills and title cards, and true enough we do learn the outcome of the story--but it is a very academic proposition, to say the very least, and although it seems to have a certain promise it is very hard to say what Stroheim might have done with the rest of the story. Hopefully more than he was able to do with the first third! For while the existing footage is not bad, it hardly compares with either Stroheim or Swanson at their finest.

Indeed, Swanson seems extremely miscast in the title role. It is utterly impossible to accept her as an innocent orphan raised in a convent. Much more interesting is Seena Owen as the evil Queen Regina, who is sullen, dangerous, and utterly fascinating; in the film's most memorable scene, in which Kitty is chased through the palace by the whip-wielding Queen, it is Owen who dominates the scene, not Swanson. As for Von Stroheim, he is clearly building a series of visual motifs that reference sex, most notably in his use of candles, fires, and smoke--but with the film suddenly unfinished it is very difficult to know to what end he intended it.

This is really a film for silent film connoisseurs, and even they may find it frustrating to the point of annoyance. The Kino print is very good, but there is no getting around the fact that the film itself ends at the very point at which our interest in both plot and characters begins to build. Recommended, but as a curiosity only. Trivia: some twenty years later Swanson and Von Stroheim co-starred in the legendary SUNSET BLVD--and the film that silent star Norma Desmond watches is none other QUEEN KELLY.

Gary F. Taylor (aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer)

This is Director Eric Von Stroheim's last film, produced by it's star, Gloria Swanson. There is much to be learned from the commentaries and additional features on the deluxe Kino DVD of this silent film. The film itself is a wonderful lesson in film-making of its period. Von Stroheim loved to take shots of all the props and costume details of a character – believing that this focus on detail told you more about the character than the actor alone could convey. This technique was later perfected by Hitchcock, where details shots are followed by reaction shots to move the story and emotional life along.

QUEEN KELLY is the story of a convent girl who falls in love with a dissipated prince who is promised to a debauched Queen. By today's standard, Seena Owen's performance as the queen is laughably over the top; she slithers and glowers and when she's really angry, she seems to have something stuck in her eye. Swanson herself was the prototype of today's tiny body, big head build favored in television. In her long shots her build looks almost like a pygmy, especially in comparison to Owen. But Swanson has that riveting face, and remains really a fine actress. The interview sections done as introductions to a television viewing of QUEEN KELLY show her to have retained those gorgeous and expressive eyes. This was considered her last film as a real ingénue - she was a bit long in the tooth to be playing a convent girl - but that was the style, bless them.

The original story was only about 1/3 completed when the production went way over budget and delved into areas that would never be approved by censors. Arguably, given Seena Owen's almost 100% nude (wearing either chiffon negligee, or a strategically held cat) performance, most of it may not have passed censors.

The restoration makes much ado of finding reels from the abandoned "African brothel" sequences, but when all is said and done, the "Swanson Ending" (the only way it was shown – after talkies had come in and silents were pretty much a done thing) is a very serviceable and good ending… evoking Shakespearian tragedy. Most silents were big on action, short on story, with fairly simple plots. Granted the original was supposed to have a happy, if rather suspicious, happy ending, but this makes total sense, and makes Queen Kelly seem very complete.

The only real loss of the Swanson ending is losing the believably sick (in both senses of the word) performance of Tully Marshall. Between Owen and Marshall, it is a lesson in why the production "code of decency" was developed in the first place. The irony is that, as much as she may have been considered heavy handed or intrusive for firing Von Stoheim, Swanson's ending demonstrates that Swanson really did know what she was doing as a producer. A memorable and informative trip into film history.

If you're not interested in film history or silent film, skip it.

My favorite Von Stroheim bio says the thing that killed this film is that it was begun smack in the middle of the industry-wide transition to sound. Swanson hired Von Stroheim for her independent producing company because she thought him the greatest director working at the time. The work continued on the film for a period under this condition: Behind the scenes, and unbeknownst to Von Stroheim, financier Joseph Kennedy and Gloria Swanson, concerned about the state of the market into which this film would be released eventually, started discussing ways to bail out the project vis a vis sound vs. silent film. They discussed adding a sound track, basically a music and effects track, after the fact; one plan was to film and insert some singing sequences to a basically silent film as The Jazz Singer had. In the end, it is supposedly Kennedy who nixed the whole thing saying no use throwing good money after bad.

Von Stroheim was troubled by this turn of events, but he didn't hate Swanson over it. Still, he did not see her or speak to her for another 21 years, and then only during the filming of Sunset Boulevard. (He despised this, probably his most high profile film role: "That damned butler role" he supposedly called it to the end of his days. He saw it as a crude burlesque, for an ignorant new generation, of a great silent director-- who just happened to be none other than Erich Von Stroheim.)

Queen Kelly shows modern viewers just how sophisticated the last silent films were visually. It is astonishing the fluid, second-nature communication that took place entirely without words. Title cards had become largely superfluous, a throwback to an earlier style of storytelling. And sound, rather than, as has so often been declared, selling out the developments in silent films, seems a natural outgrowth of these last silent years.

Erich von Stroheim's infamous final stab at direction (unfinished, when the plug was pulled by producer and star Gloria Swanson) is a sophisticated piece of silent cinema, wrapped in a camp plot and looking fabulous.

Gloria Swanson plays Patricia Kelly, a convent girl who meets the Prince of her dreams ('wild' Wolfram, played by Walter Byron) while she is out with the nuns. After a risqué scene concerning the soldiers and her bloomers, Gloria prays to the Holy Virgin to let her see the Prince again, while the Prince feels trapped in his engagement to the mad Queen Regina (a scene-chewing Seena Owen).

The first half of the film concerns how 'Kelly' and Wolfram come to meet up again, this time in the Palace where the jealous Queen loses no time in whipping Kelly out of doors and roaring that the Prince is 'Mine, MINE, MINE!'. The second half (unfinished) concerns Kelly's fortunes thereafter, called by her dying aunt to Africa where she finds herself in a brothel and betrothed to loathsome cripple drunk Jan Vryheid (a repellent and compelling performance from Tully Marshall), and eventually (and improbably) turns the situation round to get her happy ending, 'Queen Kelly' again.

Gloria Swanson looks absolutely gorgeous in the shimmering black and white close-ups, and her acting as Kelly is impeccable throughout - no one made better use of the 'look of horror' or the 'dipping of eyelashes' or the 'flirty smile'. Walter Byron is a moustachioed hero in the mould of John Gilbert and is an amusing second lead.

With the gaps plugged by wordy slides (in some prints, Kelly becomes Kitty in these explanatory bits, but never mind ...) and still photographs, 'Queen Kelly' is a boisterous and worthy final feature for its director. Many have seen a small bit of this film as part of Norma Desmond's home projections in 'Sunset Boulevard', but try to see the full thing - hugely enjoyable, and if not as mushily romantic as 'The Wedding March', its satirical splendor more than makes up for it!

In an ancient European kingdom, sultry Seena Owen (as Queen Regina V) lounges, awaiting her nuptials with dashing Walter Byron (as Prince Wolfram). Nearby, convent girl Gloria Swanson (as Patricia Kelly) encourages the Lord's wrath by sleeping with her photographs of the handsome Mr. Byron. While he is out riding one day, Ms. Swanson gets a chance to meet the idolized Prince, and embarrassingly loses her knickers! For Swanson and Byron, it's love at first sight. But, how can a simple convent girl get the Queen's stud?

Director Erich von Stroheim and actress Gloria Swanson, with their skills in full tilt excess, are a joy to behold. Yet, "Queen Kelly" emerges as a fairly strong film, despite its self-indulgence. Once considered a hopelessly unfinished work; the film has been restored, with great integrity, through intertitles, stills, and imagination. There is no doubt Swanson would have played the final reels expertly; but, there is no way to tell if Stroheim and Swanson would have re-shot some of her opening footage. Few convent girls looked as gorgeous as Gloria Swanson, with her amplified eyelashes. Though she isn't the first (or last) Hollywood convent inhabitant to look so ravishing, it would have been wise to tone down the look, until later in the film.

Flaws notwithstanding, "Queen Kelly" is full of great stuff. Tobacco-stained Tully Marshall (as Jan Vryheid) and whip-wielding Ms. Owen are delightfully outrageous. Byron, pocketing her knickers, is a thoroughly charming partner for Swanson. Stroheim, and photographers Gordon Pollock and Paul Ivano, are outstanding; a simple scene of Swanson praying, with candles dripping around her, is beautiful.

Ah, they had faces then

The restored version of "Queen Kelly' shown on TCM recently was a revelation to those of us who only knew Gloria Swanson from "Sunset Boulevard" in the '50's. Swanson in 1928 had incredibly large and luminous (?green?) eyes, as well as that curiously angular lower jaw still evident in "Boulevard". She seemed fairly tall and almost husky in "Kelly", compared to many women (and men) of the 20's to the 50's who were physically quite small, and looked it in their screen roles. She was lovely in a unique way.

More importantly, I thought Swanson was GREAT in the part. What an incredible range of facial and body expressiveness! Given the restrictions of the plot, and doubtless a domineering director, Swanson did a tremendous job in making her character seem believable. Yes, perhaps she did look older than 18, but in my opinion, she could pass for 21 or so. She certainly didn't look older than her 31 years, as another reviewer opines. Perhaps her sheer acting skill and range of motion were convincing enough to play 10 years younger than her true age. It's done all the time on the stage and screen, why wouldn't it be acceptable in this 1928 film?

I found Walter Byron gorgeous, and strangely modern in his good looks. Not of the now-hackneyed strong-profile leading man variety popular in early films. Instead, he was impeccably groomed and costumed, with short, straight, slicked-back hair. A beautiful sight to behold. He did a very good job within the constraints of silent acting. I'll be looking for more of his work.

The Jan VanHeidt character was almost too-disgusting to be credible, but archetypes were more pronounced in the silent genre. The actor did a very credible job, doubtless under the director's specific instructions about how to convey his debauched and depraved condition.

Perhaps it's because so much of the film was lost and/or cut, but Kelly's acquiescence to marrying the dissolute Jan seemed inexplicable to me. Von Stoheim went to a lot of trouble to give Swanson a L-O-N-G flashback while the wedding ceremony was being read which included the Prince's admonition to Kelly not to "forget him", "forsake him", or words to that effect. Yet she says yes anyway. You have to make a lot of assumptions about Kelly's character and personality to justify her decision, and rationalize in your own mind why on earth she didn't manifest some gumption and say after due consternation and anguish, "No, No, Never!".

This is a technically beautiful film. The lighting, sets, costumes, etc. are wonderful! Well worth seeing, even with the missing film and downbeat ending.

Erich von Stroheim was his own worst enemy. He was, reportedly, a sadist towards his actors (including Swanson), and a perfectionist in terms of his filmmaking so that he spent gobs of money that wasn't his to get details right that very, very few people would ever notice. This has worked against him so much that almost none of his films were taken by his producers or studios and cut heavily down to the point it becomes hard to figure out what he was trying to do because so much material is lost. Despite six of his films being "complete", really none of them are (maybe The Merry Widow, but probably not), and he honestly had no one else to blame other than himself. If he hadn't needed to exactly recreate Vienna in The Wedding March, maybe he could have saved enough money so that he wouldn't have been shut down after 9 months. Maybe he could have filmed everything he needed in nine months. If he hadn't been so mean to his actors, maybe Swanson would never have tried and successfully fired him from Queen Kelly. I bemoan that we have none of these "masterpieces" complete, but I don't blame MGM, Paramount, or Gloria Swanson for this. I blame Stroheim himself. He was an ass, and the rest of the world recognized it.

Anyway, Queen Kelly...

Prince Wolfram (Walter Byron) is the consort to the Queen Regina V (Seena Owen) of Kronberg, a central European country. She's a sex-fiend with unending appetites, and he's a sex-fiend who enjoys the company of lower women, especially when he pays them. He is due to marry her, but he's going to enjoy his final days of freedom no matter what, flagrantly showing off his independence no matter the cost. One day, on maneuvers with his regiment, he comes across a gaggle of nuns walking towards the convent and notices that one of them has their underpants around her ankles. This is Kitty Kelly (Swanson), and she takes the attention poorly, removing the underpants and throwing them at Wolfram who pockets the underpants in his saddlebag with a laugh. This is all kinds of shocking, and we get a delightful little scene (reminiscent of a similar one in The Wedding March) where Wolfram and Kelly communicate silently as they march side-by-side, leading to Wolfram giving back the underpants.

He's smitten by this girl (another reminiscence of The Wedding March) and decides that he must see her again, so, of course, he decides to sneak into the convent and start a fire so that everyone flees and he can steal Kelly away without anyone noticing. The absurdity of the plan is really amusing, to be honest. He gets her out of the convent and into the palace where he seduces her (genuinely, it seems), only to be found out by Queen Regina. Kelly, distraught at the news that Wolfram is due to marry Regina, throws herself off the castle into the water below, and this is where the movie splits. The original version takes her to Africa where she goes to a brothel run by her aunt. The aunt (Florence Gibson) is dying, and a moneyman, Jan (Tully Marshall) hears about this new, innocent woman, shows up, and convinces her to marry him, literally over the aunt's corpse where Kelly has a vision of Wolfram right until she accepts the marriage. Then, the intertitles and couple of still images take over because, reportedly, Stroheim had Marshall spit tobacco on Swanson as a joke and Swanson was so believably angry that that's when she had Stroheim fired (the "dance hall" ending up a brothel helped none at all).

The second version takes her from the water through a handful of very quick scenes ending with Wolfram finding Kelly's dead body in the convent, reportedly a suicide. It's a very quick way to end the film without spending a whole lot of money, but, you know what? It's actually an ending. The first version doesn't really have an ending. I don't see how Kelly marrying a random, creepy, old guy is an ending in her story because, honestly, it's not. It's a random place where production was brought to a screeching halt and the producers decided to cut their losses.

I don't really think either version works well enough to be called good, though. I prefer the first because we at least get hints of the story that the first hour was working towards, even if it's in an absurdly truncated form, but the second actually feels like an ending to the story of the first hour, even if it's too short and wouldn't exactly be what I call a good ending. That first hour, though, is Stroheim at his playful height.

Stroheim wasn't known for short, efficient scenes. He let scenes play out as far as he could take them, and he filled them with as much amusing action as he could. The stuff around Kelly's undergarments is slightly absurd but somewhat delightful, especially the interplay between Swanson and Byron. The whole ploy to get Kelly out of the nunnery being a huge fire is just so audacious in the best and most irresponsibly silent traditions.

Queen Kelly is easily von Stroheim's least successful film, but there's still a lot to admire and even enjoy across the bulk of its running time. That's largely a testament to von Stroheim's strengths as a filmmaker. I just wish he was less antagonistic and extravagant so that, maybe, he could have actually finished a movie once.

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!

Scandalous, characteristically grotesque parable of human degradation from director Eric Von Stroheim (Greed). Its original title was to be The Swamp, an appropriate description of the noxious mire in which the characters find themselves engulfed and (in this version anyway) overwhelmed. It is difficult to review this film given that approximately a third or so remains extant. The film was made over the final months of 1928 and early 1929, but production was halted at the request of star Gloria Swanson, whose production company was partly involved in its financing. The complete film was planned at some five hours running time. What remains is some seventy minutes of a complete first act and a lengthy fragment of a later bit of action set in East Africa which is included in the most recent restoration print (1985), along with production stills and intertitles which explain the main thrust of the missing pieces and the remainder of the story. As such what we have here is a work in progress, a segment of a complete work which makes any judgment upon its overall thematic coherence, direction, and execution speculative at best, moot at worst. Nonetheless students of film and film buffs in general will not want to miss an opportunity to see this fascinating bit of late twenties Hollywood history, not least of all because it was the last studio project for the much-maligned Von Stroheim. Having sat by and watched his masterpiece Greed torn apart by financiers and having the plug pulled on this one by none less than his own leading lady, he can't but have felt betrayed by the enchroacing commercialism in a medium of which he was proving a consummate artist. It is little wonder that Billy Wilder would cast him with gleeful sadism as the devoted butler to Swanson's decomposing harridan in Sunset Boulevard with all due historical irony, and perhaps it it even more fitting that Von Stroheim handled himself which such composure and dignity in the role.

Fortunately, Queen Kelly was shot in sequence, so the first seventy minutes or so is a coherent and well balanced bit of outrageous social hysteria. Set in a fictitious European kingdom of some sort, the events concern the pending engagement of mad Queen Seena Owen with the less than willing aristocratic playboy Walter Bryon, who prefers riding carriage horses to the hoots and hollers of female courtiers who bet their underwear on the outcome of the race. While the Queen strolls around her palace naked (strategically covered by well-placed objects, bits of scenery and a long-haired white cat), her eyes burning with paranoia and jealousy, Bryon encounters a young (Irish) convent girl (Swanson) with whom he falls instantly in love. Their meeting takes place one day whilst the prince is on manoeuvres with his regiment and the girl is out walking with her classmates under the supervision of nuns. Noticing that her bloomers have fallen around her ankles, the prince laughs and taunts her. Eventually seeing the funny side of it, the young lady returns his flirting glances, much to the shock of her protectors. The prince later conspires to meet her again by starting a fire in the convent (!), and 'rescues' her for an intimate dinner at the palace where Swanson is memorably framed by the burning flames of a roaring fire as Bryon devours and undresses her with his eyes.

The film exudes raw sexuality in almost every scene, concentrating on the hypocritical schizm between desire and propriety. Though romance and love seem to be in question, and Bryon makes an impassioned plea for his love for the young girl, there are few wholesome emotions on view here. From (literally) fire-fuelled lust and arrogant recklessness to enraged passion and sexual jealousy, the film teems with vileness. The world of the noble classes is opulent and packed with beautiful visual detail in typical Von Stroheim fashion, but is empty and evil in a way which makes all that follows an ever-darker descent into the nether regions of human degradation, climaxing with an extraordinary confrontation between Swanson and Owen where the Queen literally horse-whips her rival and drives her from the palace. In the version of the film released in 1931, it ends shortly after with Swanson throwing herself into the river and drowning, a fittingly melodramatic and damning end to a damned affair.

However, this was, as mentioned, merely the first act in a much longer and more layered study of the process of self-discovery and self-realisation, and intertitles explain that rather than perishing here, the girl is rescued and embarks on a wholly different adventure which takes her to German East Africa where her dying aunt runs a brothel. The story takes an increasingly bizarre turn as the old lady forces the girl into marriage with a loathsome, lecherous, beast of a man (played with festering glee by Tully Marshall). The restored footage (discovered in the 1960s) climaxes with an even more literal and disturbing rendition of the marriage/death scene from Greed, where literally over the dying body of her aunt, Swanson is married to Marshall, who is photographed to appear like a huge, white spider (an impression aided by the fact that he moves on wooden crutches and creeps like a predator sneaking up on prey) with soulless eyes and a body which seems to be decaying from inside, only gradually reaching the visible extremities as we meet him. Unfortunately, the footage ends at this point, and only scattered stills and intertitles briefly summarise what seems to have been a variant on the Marquis de Sade's Justine, where only by acknowledging and embracing one's basest nature can you rise and triumph over your enemies. Alas, without the benefit of the actual film to discuss, we can't really judge how successful a moral message this might have been.

As is, Queen Kelly is never less than fascinating. Von Stroheim's characteristic concerns are present, as is his penchant for grotesquerie and his explicit contempt for society, hypocrisy, and repression. It is wonderfully photographed by Gordon Pollock and Paul Ivano to enhance the richly venal world in which it is set. The original score by Adolph Tandler becomes repetitive, but this is as much because it has been added to the later sequences following its (re)discovery, and it, one presumes, like the film, is incomplete. It is certainly well worth seeing, though any conclusions as to its overall qualities are obviously tentative, as is any judgment of its potential contribution either to cinema on the whole, or a moral, parablistic cinema in particular.

What were Gloria Swanson and her financial backers, namely Joseph Kennedy (yes, the father of the future president), thinking when they selected Erich von Stroheim to direct her latest film? After all, nearly every production he helmed was over budget and overdue. The filming was just one-third finished to her 1929 "Queen Kelly" production when it moved to its next phase, the African setting. Swanson had submitted her script to the Will Hay's Office of Censorship detailing this particular locale as a nightclub. To spice things up, Stroheim transformed the studio stage to a bordello setting. To top off Swanson's disgust with her director, she became aware of his directive to actor Tully Marshall when Stroheim privately instructed him to dribble tobacco juice on the actress during the wedding scene. Swanson had enough. She ran to the nearest phone, dialed up Kennedy, the producer for the "Queen Kelly," and went into detail everything that was going wrong with Stroheim's direction.

"The experience of working with him was unlike any I had had in more than 50 pictures," Swanson remembered. "He was so painstaking and slow that I would lose all sense of time, hypnotized by the man's relentless perfectionism." Right after the call, the "Queen Kelly" production was stopped dead in its tracks. Hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, miles of shot film were processed, and an exhausted crew of actors and technicians were at its breaking point when "Queen Kelly" was placed on hiatus. Stroheim was given his walking papers. It became the last movie he ever directed by himself.

Two years later, Swanson and Kennedy came up with the idea to salvage the film. Hiring Richard Boleslawski and cameraman Gregg Toland, "Queen Kelly" was finished in what has been called the 'Swanson Ending.' This version was shown in Europe and South American, but never released in the United States. Distributors for American theaters didn't want to touch "Queen Kelly" because it was a silent movie whereas at least oversees theaters were still in the midst of converting over to sound. That fact as well as Stroheim had a clause in his contract that withheld the movie from United States distribution unless he signed off on it, which he never did, prevented the movie to be shown up to the late 1950s.

"Queen Kelly" pretty much was considered lost when a clip from the movie was shown in the 1950 Billy Wilder film "Sunset Boulevard." Swanson played the eccentric Norma Desmond, an aging silent movie star who is seen showing William Holden a clip from one of her old films. Her butler, Max, is played by Stroheim. In a 1970 Dick Cavett interview (with Janis Joplin), Swanson revealed she met with Stroheim twice since the "Queen Kelly" fiasco, one at a function and the second time on the movie set. Neither had hard feelings for one another while making the Wilder movie. In fact, Stroheim recommended to Billy Wilder to use a clip from "Queen Kelly." The scene rekindled interest in the 1929 incomplete move. When Stroheim died in 1957, the public was interested in seeing the pair's silent film, and it was released in the United States that year. The American Film Institute had nominated it as one of 400 films considered for the Top 100 Most Passionate Movies of All-Time.

Prince Wolfram (Walter Byron) falls in love with the convent girl Kitty Kelly (Gloria Swanson) when her underpants accidentally fall down.The problem in that relationship is that the Prince is doomed to marry the mad Queen Regina V (Seena Owen).Erich von Stroheim's Queen Kelly (1929) had some problems to be approved by censors.It may be harder to understand by modern viewers.Gloria Swanson makes this movie truly memorable.Gloria with her lovely dark hair and the seducing looks is really amazing.Byron and Owen and the other actors do also good work.This may not be silent movie at best but there is a lot of good in this feature.I must admit I'm a bigger fan of silent comedies but there's nothing wrong with a silent melodrama every now and then.Queen Kelly may not offer any laughs but other kind of feelings it does arouse.

Queen Kelly (1929) : Brief Review -

A glorious romance by Gloria Swanson, the Queen of Silence cinema, and it comes from the adultery specialist, Erich von Stroheim. Whoever has seen previous flicks by Stroheim knows his style of romance. It was never a regular romance. It was sexually attractive, sometimes too horny and explicit. Queen Kelly is again the same sexualized romance, but because it came late, it looks fine. This isn't highly vulgar; rather, it's cute, fascinating, and lovable. I have loved Stroheim's earlier films based on sex appeal and extramarital affairs, because in some films he tried to spread awareness to married couples. With Queen Kelly, he just tries to explore a sweet, longing tale of romance. It has that brothel reference, unnecessarily, but that's what Stroheim, the adultery specialist, is. The film is about a convent girl who is abducted and seduced by a prince before being sent off to a brothel in East Africa. The prince who was engaged to the Queen refuses to marry her and is sent to prison. Rest, you can predict easily, the happy reconciliation. When I read that this film had two endings, I found that the 1932 version was better, which I saw. That ultimate sad ending didn't make much sense, frankly. Talking about performances, the queen of the late silent era, Gloria Swanson, gave another glorious performance. Walter Byron reminded me of Erich von Stroheim, by looks and by attitude, but thankfully, he didn't play any evil there. His character was out-and-out romantic, something that can make girls go crazy. I loved the dialogues too. "Is he going to marry you? Asks Kelly. The queen answers, "I'm going to marry him." Wow! That was some ego and love clashing with each other. Even that underwear scene was so good. What a perfect pick-up scene for the lingering romance. Overall, another fine film from Stroheim, despite a couple of flaws in the climax. Nevertheless, it's worth a watch.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

'Queen Kelly' was shot in 1928 and after three months the production was shut down. It was about to become the last movie Erich von Stroheim ever directed. Two years later, Gloria Swanson hired Gregg Toland to shoot some additional scenes to release the movie in Europe. Erich von Stroheim, who owned part of the property, refused to release the new version in the US.

I watched the Kino restoration where through found footage, production stills, and additional title cards the original intended ending in East-Africa was recreated. The first half of the movie is a perfectly lavish camp with great buildup for an epic love story. The fact that Gloria Swanson, who besides being the star of the movie was also the producer, fired Erich von Stroheim, but later still wanted the movie to get released, means that it was good material. Well, it was. It was fantastic, well the parts that had been shot. Well, Gloria Swanson was beautiful too and her performance was great. I am sure that she regretted the decision to cancel the production.

Erich von Stroheim was that director who always fell victim to the studios and producers. Some of that blame can be placed on himself. So, now we can watch only six 'complete' von Stroheim pictures. 'Queen Kelly' is the most incomplete of them, but still worth watching, because in here von Stroheim seemed to be perfected his skill to build the mysterious Middle-European Kingdom where Royal traditions are held high and Cinderella fairy tales (in more sinister tones, of course) are possible. 'Queen Kelly' could have been von Stroheim's biggest masterpiece after the 'Greed'.

In Kronberg, capital of an old State of Central Europe ,a mad queen dominates a feudal kingdom of a violent dynasty. Queen V is vain, intolerant, cruel; she knows no laws but only her wishes. She has a morbid passion for her boyfriend, Prince Wolfram, who has made one of his rare escapades with a woman he does not love. The queen wants to surprise her boyfriend and orders him to move away to train the army. On the way known among the orphans who walk Patricia Kelly. The queen wants to surprise her boyfriend and orders him to move away to train the army. On the way known among the orphans walking Patricia Kelly, who lost her underwear. The prince points this out to everyone who laughs at it .Afterwards, in the convent, Patricia Kelly is subjected to a sort of trial, where she defends herself by saying that her underwear has fallen out of emotion and asks the reverend mother that she would have done it if that happened, making everyone laugh. A strong provocation against moral and religious bigotry that have no basis and that, as in the movie, make you laugh in relation to the truth of experiencing pleasure without rancor because physical pleasure completes the spirit. For punishment Patricia Kelly can not go out for a month and that night she goes to bed without eating to stay on your knees before the cross to pray to be far from earthly thoughts. When she is alone in front of the sacred images, Patricia prays to see the prince again. The surprise of Queen V is the announcement that the wedding will be the following day. The prince wants to see Kelly again and with an accomplice enters the convent and causes a fire, causing all the nuns and the orphans to wake up. In the general chaotic movement, the prince sees her and takes her in her arms. The prince takes her to the palace of the queen and tells her that she tried to set the convent on fire to see her again. He is convinced that this was a great idea and that he was clever. Patricia laughs at all this and thinks what the reverend mother could say. After they eat together and in front of a mirror, which doubles the image, the prince kisses Kelly, who is in a nightgown with the Prince 's coat on. They continue to flirt in a flowered veranda in the moonlight. The queen finds them in bed and with a club tries to hit them but the prince defends him and Kelly. The queen talks about marriage and Kelly walks away crying followed by the queen who repeatedly beats her up to the exit while a guard mocks her. Kelly sees the guard who mocks her and then the prince in superimposition on the water. Kelly throws herself into the water and arrives the prince who follows her. The queen tells the prince that if he does not accept the marriage with her, he will be sent to prison.The prince goes to see Kelly in the convent and finds her dead. He draws the sword to kill himself. Thus the prince emerges from narcissism and self-centeredness to open himself to his beloved. As in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" the lovers die but the dramaturgical engine is not revenge like in Shakespeare but it is the search for true love.

Queen Kelly (1929)

*** (out of 4)

I think it's safe to say that von Stroheim's directing career was over when Gloria Swanson threw him a bone to direct this picture, which was originally intended to be a five-hour epic. Soon, as was always the case with the director, the thing was way over budget, he was fired and the film was never completed, although a few years later Swanson went back and filmed an alternate ending, which is included on the DVD. The film, as presented on the DVD, runs around 100-minutes and I'd say about ten-minutes are made up from stills and title cards explaining the missing footage.

The film tells the story of Kitty Kelly (Swanson), a convent girl who gets swept off her feet by Prince Wolfram (Walter Byron) but she does know that he's set to marry Queen Regina (Seena Owen) the following day. Kelly runs away in shame and finds herself in South Africa where her dying aunt turns over her brothel, which Kelly will now run. The love at first site plot isn't the most original out there but von Stroheim adds enough weirdness that makes this film worth sitting through. You can tell that this was meant to be an epic because of the 90-minutes worth of footage the first seventy-minutes are pretty much dealing with the love story. I'm guessing Kelly's rise in the brothel was originally meant to be much longer than what's shown here but I guess we'll never know as the footage is long gone and what stills are available really don't tell us too much. There are many flaws in this film but for the most part I found it very enjoyable. I thought the opening fifteen-minutes were a tad bit stiff but things really start to heat up around the thirty-minute mark. The sadistic side of von Stroheim comes through when the Queen learns that her man has been unfaithful and the whipping sequence she puts on Kelly is marvelously done and is without question one of the most beautiful shots in the director's career. You can also easily see where the budget went and the incredibly banquet scene is just a real beauty on the eyes. Swanson turns in a very good performance as she perfectly captures the spirit of the young, naive girl, although at the same time she's way too old for the part. I thought she handled the role very nicely but we never really get to see her as the brothel queen. Both Byron and especially Owen eat up their scenes and help keep the film moving. As is, QUEEN KELLY is certainly flawed but it's hard to judge the film too much simply because most of it is incomplete. The "Swanson" ending that's included on the DVD really doesn't work either so in the end we're just left with a "what if..." situation.

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.