La reina Kelly

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.