Queen Kelly (1929)

 Previously I was most familiar with 'Queen Kelly' from a bit of trivia, it was a clip from this film that we see the butler Max show to Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis in the classic 1950 film 'Sunset Boulevard'. The use of that clip was some meta commentary purportedly suggested by Erich von Stroheim who played Max in the film, more then twenty years before he had directed the actress playing Norma, Gloria Swanson in 'Queen Kelly'.

A late silent film from that brief period in the late 20's when major studios were releassing both silent and talking films. The movie was produced by Joseph P. Kennedy who at the time was having an affair with Ms. Swanson, setting a pattern for the affairs with Hollywood actresses had by his presidental son. Written and directed by von Stroheim 'Queen Kelly' is the story of a convent girl (Swanson, 29 playing a teenager) who is loved by a prince betrothed to marry a wicked queen. Fairytale type story had a then contemporary setting, first in a fictional central European country and then in colonial Africa where Kelly is exiled. Or at least that was the intended story.

The epic film was to run around 5 hours, von Stroheim, a free spending perfectionist, had completed only around a 3rd of the picture when he was fired 3 months into shooting. There followed a long production hiatus.

Originally intended for release in late 1929 or early 1930, Swanson managed to get a highly truncuated cut, minus all the Africa stuff, into theaters in 1932. Not American theaters however which by this point were playing only sound films. The movie ran in parts of Europe and Latin America. Swanson retained her rights to the thing and it would be showen at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and on television in the 50's and 60's. After Swanson's death a more complete version of the film, including some of the African scenes would be put together and releassed in 1985, that is the version I watched.

It's kind of hard to judge it as a complete film because it really isn't one. There is a real sumptousness to the production, the story a heightened and often melodramtic one. I mostly liked what was there, the tonel shift once the action moves to Africa is  intriguing, orignally most of the film was to take place there, in this cut around 20 of 90-odd minutes is all that does. **1/2