Known today mostly for his heartbreaking servile turn in Sunset Boulevard, people forget how close that role hit home for Erich von Stroheim, as he really WAS a former director of the silent era, with The Wedding March as one of his greatest triumphs.
The film is far more humorous and light than I had expected, at least initially. von Stroheim was a director I had mostly associated with tragedy and cosmic irony in films like Greed, not comedy, so for the opening scenes to be as funny as they were was surprising. In fact, the entire tone of the opening reels is one of bemused cynicism. But that bemusement quickly turns to righteous anger as our money-starved aristocrat (played by von Stroheim himself) is forbidden to marry Mitzi, the lowly innkeeper's daughter that he loves, and informed that he is going to be wed to the affluent and respectable Cecelia Schweisser (Zasu Pitts), leaving Mitzi to attempt to fend off the advances of the savage scoundrel Schani (Matthew Betz).
As an actor, Von Stroheim is surprisingly tender and perfectly awkward as our protagonist, and has a charmingly lumpish chemistry with Fay Wray. Wray garners points simply by being in a silent film, as my only familiarity with her work resulted in a desire to forcibly remove her voice box. The rest of the cast is adept and agile as well: Matthew Betz oozes brutish sleaziness, and Zasu Pitts affects the perfect sort of aloof cultured cluelessness necessary for the role, as we instantly sympathize with von Stroheim's dilemma.
The film manages to be fairly melodramatic and remain wonderfully successful because the melodrama emerges naturally out of the scene. Is there anything more melodramatic than young forbidden love, especially for the participants involved? Their predicament is heartbreakingly inevitable, and the film's final scene is devastating in its realism, and really just knocked me out, forcing me to postpone another film I was going to watch for several hours just to be able to recover.
I've now seen a preposterous FOURTEEN films from 1928, as I seemingly keep running into films from this year only (until 1932, the closest year to its output is 1927, with a whopping seven. Something about 1928 made all the pieces come together, and The Wedding March stands among its greatest simple triumphs.
{Grade: 8.75/10 (A-/B+) / #4 (of 14) of 1928}
The film is far more humorous and light than I had expected, at least initially. von Stroheim was a director I had mostly associated with tragedy and cosmic irony in films like Greed, not comedy, so for the opening scenes to be as funny as they were was surprising. In fact, the entire tone of the opening reels is one of bemused cynicism. But that bemusement quickly turns to righteous anger as our money-starved aristocrat (played by von Stroheim himself) is forbidden to marry Mitzi, the lowly innkeeper's daughter that he loves, and informed that he is going to be wed to the affluent and respectable Cecelia Schweisser (Zasu Pitts), leaving Mitzi to attempt to fend off the advances of the savage scoundrel Schani (Matthew Betz).
As an actor, Von Stroheim is surprisingly tender and perfectly awkward as our protagonist, and has a charmingly lumpish chemistry with Fay Wray. Wray garners points simply by being in a silent film, as my only familiarity with her work resulted in a desire to forcibly remove her voice box. The rest of the cast is adept and agile as well: Matthew Betz oozes brutish sleaziness, and Zasu Pitts affects the perfect sort of aloof cultured cluelessness necessary for the role, as we instantly sympathize with von Stroheim's dilemma.
The film manages to be fairly melodramatic and remain wonderfully successful because the melodrama emerges naturally out of the scene. Is there anything more melodramatic than young forbidden love, especially for the participants involved? Their predicament is heartbreakingly inevitable, and the film's final scene is devastating in its realism, and really just knocked me out, forcing me to postpone another film I was going to watch for several hours just to be able to recover.
I've now seen a preposterous FOURTEEN films from 1928, as I seemingly keep running into films from this year only (until 1932, the closest year to its output is 1927, with a whopping seven. Something about 1928 made all the pieces come together, and The Wedding March stands among its greatest simple triumphs.
{Grade: 8.75/10 (A-/B+) / #4 (of 14) of 1928}