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Merry-Go-Round |
List Price: $24.99
Your Price: $22.49 |
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Description:
Erich von Stroheim's credit doesn't appear on Merry-Go-Round, though he wrote the story--about a caddish Count (Norman Kerry) in Old Vienna falling in love with a virginal commoner (Mary Philbin)--and began directing the film. "Von"'s obsessive, budget-busting methods had already tried producer Irving Thalberg's patience, and after a few weeks' shooting, Stroheim became the first director in history to be fired from a picture. Some of his footage survives, including an eerie suicide leap from a bridge and the Count's introduction in his absurdly grandiose bedchamber, but Rupert Julian, the undistinguished replacement director, shot the majority of the film. It shows. Stroheim's attempts to place his story within a textured portrait of Austrian society were scrapped, as was a final, deus ex machina suicide. Still, certain grotesque details and perverse twists could only have come from Stroheim's script--e.g., the devoted friendship of a hunchback and an orangutan. --Richard T. Jameson
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