Merry-Go-Round (1923)

Director:

Rupert Julian

Writers:

Finis Fox (writer)
Harvey Gates (story)

Release Date:

3 September 1923 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A nobleman, posing as a necktie salesman, falls in love with the daughter of a circus puppeteer, even though he is already married to the daughter of his country's war minister. |

Cast

Norman Kerry	...	Count Franz Maximilian Von Hohenegg
Mary Philbin	...	Agnes Urban
Dale Fuller	...	Marianka Huber
Maude George	...	Madame Elvira
Cesare Gravina	...	Sylvester Urban
George Hackathorne	...	Bartholomew Gruber
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
George Siegmann	...	Schani Huber
Lillian Sylvester	...	Mrs. Aurora Rossreiter
Anton Vaverka	...	Emperor Francis Joseph
Dorothy Wallace	...	Countess Gisella Von Steinbruck
Edith Yorke	...	Ursula Urban

Also Known As:

Amores de un príncipe o El carrusel de la vida, Los (Spain) [es]
Carrocel da Vida, O (Portugal) [pt]
Donne viennesi (Italy) [it]

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color (tinted)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

A Super Jewel Production. Universal, lacking a proprietary theater chain, used a 3-tiered branding system to market its feature product to independent theater owners: Red Feather (low-budget programmers), Bluebird (mainstream releases) and Jewel (prestige productions). As one of the few "Super Jewels", this film was virtually assured special treatment by exhibitors who would normally demand higher roadshow ticket prices. Universal would cease to brand its films by late 1929.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Opera Ghost: A Phantom Unmasked (2000) (V)

Soundtrack:

THE MERRY GO ROUND WALTZ

Mary Philbin shines in Von Stroheim melodrama

Although Rupert Julian is given directorial credit for this, it was Von Stroheim's film - Julian was pulled in to finish it after Thalberg fired him. It is Von Stroheim all the way - thematically and texturally. Several themes are begun here and developed in later Von Stroheim vehicles. The nobleman roue slated for a marriage of state who falls in love with a commoner - later used as the crux for THE WEDDING MARCH. The abject cruelty of the man who dominates the fragile common girl's life (echoed in both GREED and in THE WEDDING MARCH).

Count Franz fools around although he is engaged to marry a Countess. He dallies with the impressionable carousel organ grinder at a local fair. The fair is run by a brute of a sadist, who dominates her life and that of her father, a puppeteer - refusing to allow them to stop work to attend to their dying mother/wife, destroying the doll given her by the Count, stepping on her foot and ordering her to smile while grinding the organ (GREED again), and finally pushing a plant from a height onto her father to kill him (he fails). Finally an observant and vengeful orangutan puts an end to the sadist's life.

The second part of the film finds the disillusioned girl nursing her father to health, having confronted the Count (with his new wife) as a liar and cheat. The war intervenes, conveniently killing her father and his wife and at war's end, laying open the path to their reunion, albeit at the tearful renunciation of marriage with the loyal hunchback who has loved her from afar.

The film is quite solidly made and both grabs and sustains interest though many of the plot twists (especially the orangutan) are hardly plausible or believable. This should be sought out by all those interested in Von Stroheim's work. Unlike the earlier films (BLIND HUSBANDS, FOOLISH WIVES) which are experimental and uncertain, this emerges as Von Stroheim's first clear vision of where he wants to go and what he wants to do in film.

Mary Philbin's fine performance and the photoplay are deserving of award consideration. Under the main title and at various transition points we see Mephistopheles standing at the center of a carousel and laughing at the antics of the human race - well done.