Sinfonia nuziale

Leaving MGM (and Irving Thalberg) behind and joining Paramount, Erich von Stroheim worked with his co-writer Harry Carr to come up with a tale set in Stroheim's native Vienna, a tale as large and expansive as anything he had told. The production ran on for nine months after having essentially recreated a large section of 1914 Vienna on the Paramount backlot until the studio shut down production and forced Stroheim to cut a film with what he had. He ended up producing two films, The Wedding March and its now lost sequel The Honeymoon, and the first half (well, perhaps the first third, there was apparently talk of a third entry) feels truncated. The films were also victims of the transition to sound, getting left behind in the mad dash for talkies that Paramount was obviously not willing to give money to Stroheim to reshoot in order to accomplish. The end result is a nice film with a surprisingly hard edged finale that really feels like it was going to feed into something more but manages to stand well enough on its own.

Prince Nicki (Stroheim) is the only son of an old Viennese family that is running low on funds. He spends his nights pursuing expensive women and gambling, getting himself into financial holes that his father, Prince Ottokar (George Fawcett), refuses to help with the problem while his mother, Princess Maria (Maude George), helps him paper over the problems, but she extracts from him a promise that he will marry money, a woman of her choosing. He happily accepts, and in the tradition of these sorts of romantic operettas, Nicki instantly discovers the woman he actually loves, a common girl named Mitzi (Fay Wray), the daughter of an innkeeper who is purportedly betrothed to Schani (Matthew Betz), a butcher.

The movie is built out of extended sequences, the first of which is really where Nicki meets Mitzi, and it's where the film is at its most charming. Nicki is part of a military parade on Corpus Christi, stationed to the side as the Emperor Franz-Josef enters the cathedral. Nicki and Mitzi catch each other's eyes, and it's just a series of small, playful bits of mostly wordless banter between the two as things happen around them, mostly Mitzi's father (Cesare Gravina) and mother (Dale Fuller) engage with Schani, notice the flirting going on between their daughter and the notorious, penniless womanizer on the horse and in the uniform above them.

The romance between the two grows around a late night meeting where Nicki visits Mitzi at her window, taking her out to look at the beautiful Blue Danube River, but this happens while Prince Ottokar meets with the rich industrialist Fortunat Schweisser (George Nichols) to arrange the marriage of Nicki to Schweisser's daughter Cecelia (ZaSu Pitts). I mean...it was kind of predictable that Nicki's parents would figure out a less than ideal match (Cecelia has a limp) just when Nicki finds true love. It really is that kind of movie.

What this doesn't seem to be is the kind of movie where Nicki marries Cecelia, leaving Mitzi alone to try and save Nicki's life because Schani is so mad at what's going on that even though Nicki's marrying another woman, Schani can't take the shame and is planning on murdering Nicki as he walks out of his own wedding. This is either the most cynical ending of Stroheim's career outside of Greed, or it's essentially the second act turn that was going to get resolved in further story that probably would have been captured in The Honeymoon.

It's a largely nice look at Vienna in 1914, at ill-fated romance, and with a not entirely expected ending that sends our loving characters in vastly different directions. I wish The Honeymoon still existed in order to see how the story resolved (I imagine it's pretty standard romantic stuff and Nicki and Mitzi end up together), but this does feel like half of a story instead of something entirely completely. Still, the production design is impeccable (one of the film's cameramen got married on the set of the cathedral), enough so that when it was complete Stroheim reportedly declared that he was standing in the Vienna of his youth. The acting is good all around, and the romance is solidly built. Without the second half of the story, it feels like a trifle with an unexpected ending. Still, it's nice.

The plot and storyline of "The Wedding March" has been done before. Rich boy meets poor girl, rich boy gives up poor girl to marry rich girl - similar to "The Student Prince" without music. Erich von Stroheim looks very young as the prince, Fay Wray looks very pretty as the poor girl, and Zasu Pitts looks like Zasu Pitts as the rich girl. No bad acting performances in this picture as the cast are all very competent. I'm passing on a recap as every reviewer gives one.

What sets "The Wedding March" apart are the sets and the costumes. Scene after scene is meticulously staged for optimum effect, and apparently no expense was spared on either props or costumes. This is part of the reason von Stroheim ran into problems with the heads of several studios, as he usually went way over budget, incurring the wrath of many producers. It is rumored that, for instance, he would insist that extras wear underwear with a royal monogram in his period pieces so that all concerned would feel intimately connected to the production!

Von Stroheim stars as Austrian nobleman Nickolas von Wildeliebe-Rauffenberg. His family wants him to marry Cecelia Schweisser (Zasu Pitts), the crippled daughter of a wealthy business magnate. But Nicki meets the beautiful Mitzi (Fay Wray), a farm girl and harp player of low birth. Mitzi is being pursued by the loutish butcher Schani (Matthew Betz), but her heart pines for the dashing Nicki. Can their love survive the pullback from society?

Stroheim lavishes the screen with ornate costumes and settings that threaten to overwhelm the meager narrative. There's even a lengthy Technicolor segment showing a parade full of pomp and majesty. Wray is very good, sensual yet innocent at the same time. Pitts also manages to elicit pathos from a role that could easily have been a one-note villain. Stroheim encountered his usual post-production problems, and multiple editors were brought in to work on the film, including Josef von Sternberg. Some consider this a masterpiece, whereas I found it good, though not exceptionally so.

"Let others make films about gay old Vienna," announced filmmaker Erich Von Stroheim, "I will make films about sad old Vienna, not because Vienna is sadder than any other city but because the world is sad." During his brilliant, erratic, maddening career as a director in Hollywood Stroheim twice attempted to make a movie about the city where he was born, a city devastated and changed forever by the Great War of 1914-18. His first attempt, Merry-Go-Round, was taken out of his hands and finished by studio hacks, whereas production on the second, The Wedding March, was halted before filming was complete. The film we see today is only a portion of the epic he planned. Still, it's a beautiful and stirring piece of work that conveys at least a glimmer of what its creator intended: an elegiac work that is, paradoxically, both nostalgic for a lost world yet unsentimental about that world's injustices.

Given the man's grandiose and tragic vision, his belief in the power of cinematic art and his uncompromising temperament, it's no surprise that Stroheim ran into so much difficulty with the moguls who controlled Hollywood, who fired him repeatedly and butchered his work; what's surprising is that he was ever granted any creative leeway at all. Then as now, Hollywood preferred escapism, straightforward plotting and happy endings. There was little tolerance for such an exacting artist as Stroheim, who wrote, directed and usually acted in downbeat and sometimes sordid films that were unlike those of anyone else. Still, for almost ten years beginning in 1919 he was permitted a limited amount of artistic freedom and was able to give the world a tantalizing hint of his talent in a handful of dramatic features, although not one of them survives in the form he intended. In 1926, fresh from the box office success of his biggest hit, The Merry Widow, Stroheim worked out a deal with producer Pat Powers to produce an epic set in Vienna just before the First World War. Stroheim believed he could complete the film for $300,000, a reasonable budget for the time and only slightly more than his previous film had cost.

The Wedding March as it survives today tells only about one-third of the story Stroheim wrote. The action takes place during the spring and summer of 1914, and concerns a "noble" family, the Wildeliebe-Rauffenbergs, who have a title, property, servants, and a dissolute son -- but no money. Stroheim does not bother with nuanced characterizations in this film, preferring to draw his figures with broad strokes. Our first sight of the parents, awakening to face the new day, is appalling: the Princess Maria wears a chin strap and her face is slathered with cold cream, while Prince Ottokar is bleary-eyed and obese. They bicker immediately. Their son Prince Nicki (played by the director) at first seems little better, stealing kisses from the servants and hitting up his parents for cash. Nicki appears to be the debauched product of a decadent line, itself the product of a decadent society. But today marks a turning point for the wastrel heir: it's Corpus Christi, a major holiday of religious and political significance, and while he is on maneuvers with the other soldiers at the Cathedral Nicki sees a beautiful girl in the crowd who has a profound impact on him.

The girl is Mitzi, played by 19 year-old Fay Wray in her first major role, and it's easy to see why she turns his head. (Seen here with her natural brunette hair, Fay Wray is as pretty as any woman who ever graced the screen.) Mitzi comes from a working class background and is being forced by her mother into a relationship with a coarse butcher, Schani, who she detests. The flirtation between Nicki and Mitzi quickly grows into a genuine passion. Unbeknownst to Nicki, his own parents are meanwhile arranging a match for him with a shy, club- footed girl, Cecelia (ZaSu Pitts), heiress to a corn-plaster fortune, a match as inappropriate as the one Mitzi is resisting. Both sets of parents care only about money, while Mitzi and Nicki seem to be the last persons in Vienna who believe in love. Ultimately, they are each forced to abandon the relationship and marry against their wishes.

It's not the story but the manner of its telling that makes all the difference. In bare outline the plot sounds as melodramatic as a paperback romance, but what makes the movie special are the director's bold and beautifully stylized flourishes: the ornate detail of the Wildeliebe-Rauffenberg town house; the pageantry of the Corpus Christi processional, filmed partly in two-strip Technicolor; the abandoned carriage where Nicki and Mitzi meet for their assignations, and where a steady supply of apple blossoms tumble onto their shoulders. These love scenes, certainly the most romantic the director ever made, are brutally inter-cut with the wildest orgy sequence of the silent cinema. And only this director could get away with such motifs as the mythic Iron Man who carries off "maenads" from the Danube (a vision said to portend tragedy), or the unforgettable sight of the organist's hands turning skeletal at the keyboard as Nicki and his club-footed bride, Cecilia, make their way down the aisle at their grim wedding.

This last image was meant to foreshadow events in the second part, The Honeymoon, but this portion of the story was never completed and no longer exists in any form. After seven months of filming Stroheim had spent almost $700,000 and wasn't done yet. Producer Powers pulled the plug and had the many hours of footage winnowed down to the film that now remains. Once again, Stroheim's vision was thwarted, but at least the fragment that survives tells a complete story and concludes on a satisfying albeit painfully dark note. Even in truncated form The Wedding March is a triumph, one of the great silent dramas and a testament to the unique talent of its creator.

History paints Erich Von Stroheim as the great misunderstood genius, the `footage fetishist' whose grandiose films were too ahead of their time & too ambitious for producers with their `nickel and dime' mentalities. Irving Thalberg emerges as a major villain in this saga, sacking him first from Universal in the midst of shooting Merry Go Round, then hacking apart his masterpiece Greed over at MGM before sacking him again from The Merry Widow. By 26/7 Von Stroheim was running out of major studios to work for. Fortunately Merry Widow was a hit and he won backing from Pat Powers at Paramount for a two part epic critique of royalty. Only the first part survives, an executive changeover at Paramount occurred and new boss, B.P. Schulberg, took fright at the expense and failure of Part 1 and quickly dumped Part 2 on the European market where it vanished permanently. Von Stroheim was ostracized by the major studios and after two further abortive projects (Queen Kelly and Walking Down Broadway) he never directed again.

Whilst it's impossible not to feel sympathy with a man whose vision was too much for the industry of his time, the films themselves are often overloaded with details and appear stiff and pedantic when compared with the contemporary work of Vidor, Murnau, Lubitsch, Von Sternberg or DeMille. A good example of this is the scene where Fay Wray first sees Von Stroheim's prince. Partly filmed in 2-color Technicolor, this is a pleasure on the eyes, but an incident which should play out in 3 or 4 minutes is here stretched out to about 15. That would be fine if it was an isolated incidence or a dramatic high point, but this is the pacing Von Stroheim employs throughout. Whilst the result is impressive and strangely hypnotic, `Von Stroheim' time feels much slower than real time and the two hours of this film felt closer to three. Mannered as this is in a silent film, this style would've been painful indeed if attempted in sound.

Von Stroheim's direction reminds me of the theatrical producer Gordon Craig who in the early 20th century attempted to reproduce realism on stage with fully plumbed and working interior sets, real trees, gravel and soil for outside settings etc, even utilising giant tanks of water in which to stage shipboard scenes. Real objects are on stage, yes. but doesn't this miss the point of an audience engaging with players and text to create their own realism? Another result of this is an oddly dehumanizing one, as our attention is distracted from the interplay of characters by the piling on of detail. That for me is the basic problem with Von Stroheim Not to say Von Stroheim wasn't a great film maker, as Greed definitely proves. But I can't help feeling the cutting helped Greed more than hurt it. The recent TCM restoration, while fascinating and something to be grateful for, only serves to illustrate this, and in Wedding March we see just how indulgent the Von could become.

Choosing himself as leading man didn't help either. In The Merry Widow, John Gilbert was able to engage the audience through his charm and charisma. However here, Von Stroheim's impoverished Prince looks rather villainous and appears both cold hearted and kinky - not an endearing combination. He mostly gives a statue-like performance and only Fay Wray, vibrantly fresh and beautiful, engages us emotionally.

Admittedly the story becomes more gripping in the last half hour or so, and the ending (a surprisingly bitter one) made me wish the 2nd Part had survived.

It's definitely worth seeing, both as cinema and for what it tells us of this fascinating figure, but once is enough.