Merry-Go-Round
About Merry-Go-Round
Count Franz Maximilian von Hohenegg, attached to the court of Franz Joseph, is ordered by the emperor to marry Gisella, the war minister’s daughter, whom he does not love. At a Viennese amusement park he meets Agnes Urban, who works an organ and does not know he is a noble. The court wedding goes ahead. Agnes thinks he has left her. War is declared and he goes to the front. Gisella dies during the war. He comes back, gives up the title, and marries Agnes.
Cast & crew
More about Merry-Go-Round
Carl Laemmle’s Universal started the film on 25 August 1922 with Erich von Stroheim, who also wrote it. On 6 October, after about six weeks, Irving Thalberg had him removed for insubordination, cost, and delays. Rupert Julian finished the shoot on 8 January 1923 with most of the same crew. Accounts differ on how much Stroheim had in the can: about a quarter, or 271 scenes, and little of that stayed. William H. Daniels, Charles Kaufman, and Ben Reynolds photographed. Universal released it on 3 September 1923. Norman Kerry is the count. Mary Philbin is Agnes.
Themes
Background
The plot uses Franz Joseph’s court and the outbreak of war, the same Vienna Stroheim kept returning to. The film that reached theaters is Julian’s finish of that script.
Making
Thalberg’s firing is the production story that stuck: six weeks, then Julian, who followed the script and did not keep most of what Stroheim had already shot. The orangutan hunt is one of the delays Hum wrote down.
Look
William H. Daniels, Charles Kaufman, and Ben Reynolds shot the Prater amusement park, the court betrothal, and the return from the front.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A print is held in an archive collection.
Notes
- The unit manager James Winnard Hum, acting for Thalberg, logged a derailed prop streetcar, an electrical overload from night shooting, a drunk Norman Kerry, unhappy extras, and a search for an orangutan.
- Anton Vaverka plays Franz Joseph. Dorothy Wallace is Countess Gisella. Spottiswoode Aitken is her father, the war minister.
- George Siegmann is Schani Huber. Cesare Gravina and Edith Yorke are Agnes’s parents, Sylvester and Ursula Urban. Dale Fuller is Marianka Huber.
- George Hackathorne is Bartholomew Gruber. Albert Conti is Rudi, Baron von Leightsinn.
- Stroheim’s name is not on the directing credit. Julian’s is.
Scenes
- Franz Joseph’s order binds the count to Gisella.
- He meets Agnes at the amusement park, and she takes him for an ordinary man.
- The court wedding goes on without her knowledge of who he is.
- After Gisella’s death he drops the title and marries Agnes.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Merry-Go-Round (1923).webm)
