Queen Kelly

Erich von Stroheim's 1929 film is an unfinished production. In an imaginary European kingdom Prince Wolfram is to be married to the queen; he becomes infatuated with Kelly, an orphan he sees at a convent, and abducts her to the palace. When the queen learns of it she whips the girl and drives her out. The footage that exists reaches this point; the second part, set in Africa, was never completed. Gloria Swanson, who produced and starred, stopped the shoot over Stroheim's spending and his increasingly outlandish scenes and dismissed him. What is watched today is a version assembled afterwards. The design and the convent sequences are counted among the most sumptuous in silent cinema. Swanson appears years later in Sunset Boulevard watching a passage from this film. Who it's for: viewers curious about silent cinema and the unfinished works of film history. Who it's not for: anyone expecting a complete narrative; the film was left half made.