Trivia for
Queen Kelly (1929) More at IMDbPro »

• Gloria Swanson hosted a US television broadcast of the film in 1966. The version that aired featured the European ending.
  
  
• In 1931, Gloria Swanson hired Gregg Toland to shoot some additional scenes for release in Europe in 1932. These consisted of Prince Wolfram seeing Kelly's drowned body and committing suicide himself. That scene (in the Force Video alternate version) is not in the 1985 Kino restored version, which continues on to African scenes.
  
  
• According to crew members, the girls who accompany Wolfram to the palace gates were played by real prostitutes from one of the best brothels in Hollywood.
  
  
• Gordon Pollock was replaced with Paul Ivano after the first day of shooting after some costume tests photographed by Ivano proved to be much more satisfactory than the scenes (from the Kambach Road sequence) that Pollock had taken.
  
  
• The first scenes for the film were the meeting between Kelly and Wolfram on Kambach Road.
  
  
• After shooting only one-third of the picture (four hours), director Erich von Stroheim was fired by producer-star Gloria Swanson. Two years later, additional footage was shot to complete the picture. Since von Stroheim owned part of the property, he refused to grant releasing rights in the U.S. and elsewhere for this bastardized version. It was not exhibited in the U.S. until after Sunset Blvd. (1950), when it received minor theatrical release and a showing on television in 1966.
  
  
• When Tully Marshall dribbled tobacco juice on Gloria Swanson's hand during the wedding sequence and explained that director Erich von Stroheim ordered him to do it, it was the final straw. She called producer Joseph P. Kennedy and demanded that von Stroheim be fired. He was, effectively shutting down the production.
  
  
• It has been suggested by film historians that Erich von Stroheim's first choice for Wolfram was Norman Kerry, with whom he had worked in Merry-Go-Round (1923). Walter Byron was producer-star Gloria Swanson's choice for the role, but von Stroheim claimed to have been dissatisfied with Byron's performance.
  
  
• If the film had been shot as Erich von Stroheim had originally intended, its running time would have been about four hours.
  
  

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