I'll be right up-front in admitting this review is not about Fay Wray. Yes, she's in the movie; yes, she's good; yes, she's innocent and glowing and sexy. And Von Stroheim is fairly convincing as the prince, although he's not "classically handsome" at all. And it's slightly over-acted, but all silent movies seem to be, so that's okay. Not being a student of film, I can only guess it is because they can't use vocal tones so they have to go on gestures and expressions. Oddly, Von Stroheim is the only one who DOESN'T overact, since all his caricature roles are usually overacted horribly.
I originally wanted to see this, not knowing much about it, because when I read the summary about an Austrian prince, a loveless marriage, and an illicit love affair, I thought it was an early treatment of the Mayerling incident, which was a real-life story of an Austrian prince, a loveless marriage, and an illicit love affair, ending in a murder-suicide and contributing to the myriad causes of World War I. Of course I was wrong in this assumption, although there do seem to be some commonalities.
But the thing that ended up striking me most was not the acting, the actors, or the story. Or even the story behind the story (that it was supposed to be part I of a trilogy, etc.). What struck me was the music. This is not the film's original music, but a re-created score "Created by Carl Davis, based on themes of the Viennese Masters" according to the credits. And it does seem like most of the music is either a Strauss waltz or Schubert; I know I caught Ave Maria and I think I heard a little touch of Staendchen. But the weirdest part of all is the constant recurrence of "Deutschland uber Alles." Apparently nobody told Davis that Germany and Austria are two different countries, always have been, and despite occasionally having been allies, they didn't even like each other much. They were ruled by two different imperial dynasties; they fought each other; they didn't cross-pollinate. Austria's national anthem in 1914 would have been Land der Berge, Land am Strome, and the tune was by Haydn. A very weird choice for the score. Maybe Davis thought people wouldn't recognize Haydn, and he's probably right. But we do recognize the German national anthem, and some of us even know it's not the same as Austria's, and so it comes across as ignorant. For that alone I'd drop half a star, so this one gets 6.5 in my book, but of course IMDb doesn't allow halves.
I originally wanted to see this, not knowing much about it, because when I read the summary about an Austrian prince, a loveless marriage, and an illicit love affair, I thought it was an early treatment of the Mayerling incident, which was a real-life story of an Austrian prince, a loveless marriage, and an illicit love affair, ending in a murder-suicide and contributing to the myriad causes of World War I. Of course I was wrong in this assumption, although there do seem to be some commonalities.
But the thing that ended up striking me most was not the acting, the actors, or the story. Or even the story behind the story (that it was supposed to be part I of a trilogy, etc.). What struck me was the music. This is not the film's original music, but a re-created score "Created by Carl Davis, based on themes of the Viennese Masters" according to the credits. And it does seem like most of the music is either a Strauss waltz or Schubert; I know I caught Ave Maria and I think I heard a little touch of Staendchen. But the weirdest part of all is the constant recurrence of "Deutschland uber Alles." Apparently nobody told Davis that Germany and Austria are two different countries, always have been, and despite occasionally having been allies, they didn't even like each other much. They were ruled by two different imperial dynasties; they fought each other; they didn't cross-pollinate. Austria's national anthem in 1914 would have been Land der Berge, Land am Strome, and the tune was by Haydn. A very weird choice for the score. Maybe Davis thought people wouldn't recognize Haydn, and he's probably right. But we do recognize the German national anthem, and some of us even know it's not the same as Austria's, and so it comes across as ignorant. For that alone I'd drop half a star, so this one gets 6.5 in my book, but of course IMDb doesn't allow halves.