ORIGINAL 2003 REVIEW
MERRY-GO-ROUND was one of those silent films which was more talked about than actually seen. This was the movie in which producer Irving Thalberg fired director Erich von Stroheim halfway through the shooting. Rupert Julian (PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) replaced him as director and was given sole credit. Thalberg would leave Universal following MERRY-GO-Round and go to MGM where 2 years later he’d cut Stroheim’s most famous film, GREED, down to a running time of a bit over 2 hours, eliminating over an hour. In MERRY-GO-ROUND, approximately 15 minutes (3 scenes) of Stroheim’s actual footage remains out of the 2 hour version which was released. Although the rest of the picture was done by Julian, he stuck closely to Stroheim’s original outline in order to save money and complete the picture on schedule. M-G-R was a big success at the box office.
Stroheim’s hand is still very much in evidence, from the opulent settings to the use of two members of his stock company, Dale Fuller and Cesare Gravina. The real revelation is Mary Philbin, best known for PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Here she demonstrates a greater acting ability then in any other of her surviving films. She does get melodramatic near the end of the film, the fault of director Julian who according to Lon Chaney encouraged his performers to overact in PHANTOM. Norman Kerry, a dependable leading man from the silent era, gives his usual solid performance but the acting honors go to to veteran silent film villain George Siegmann who replaced Wallace Beery as the sadistic carnival barker and little known George Hackathorne as the hunchback Bartholomew. The story of an Austrian nobleman who falls in love with a woman outside his social class would be remade by von Stroheim in 1928 as THE WEDDING MARCH with himself in the leading role.
This Image DVD transfer, which was supervised by Film Preservation Associates’ David Shepard, comes from two surviving 16mm prints in the Blackhawk Films collection which include sepia color tints and the elaborately illustrated original title cards. Considering the source material the image quality is excellent. I’ve never seen a 16mm transfer look this good before. The new musical accompaniment by Brian Benison is taken from the film’s 1923 cue sheets and provides an ideal accompaniment. If you’re a fan of Erich von Stroheim or silent films in general then you’ll want to take a ride on this MERRY-GO-ROUND.
UPDATE 2025:
Silent film specialists Flicker Alley have released a new restoration of MERRY-GO-ROUND. This version restores the movie to its full 123 minutes which is 10 minutes longer than the 2003 Image DVD. Flicker Alley utilizes several different prints including a lot of 35 mm material which gives us a better defined picture. The largest amount of footage comes from Austrian archives. Not only is it 35mm, but it is both tinted and toned which provides additional highlights especially during the fairground scenes. Unlike the American print which is sepia tinted, this print alternates between B&W and a light blue tint. It keeps the illustrated title cards from the previous release as that is all that was available. A new orchestral soundtrack was composed and conducted by Robert Israel.
As is always the case with Flicker Alley, this home video edition comes loaded with a number of informative extras. The new release features a full length commentary from von Stroheim scholar Richard Koszarski who could have provided more information about the movie. For example what is the significance of the Satyr figure who crops up from time to time. There is an excellent short feature from Lobster Films’ Serge Bromberg on the restoration which explains the difference between tinting and toning , vintage footage of Vienna ca.1914-1918, plus a not restored presentation from 1915 of the first version of OLD HEIDELBERG (the source for the operetta THE STUDENT PRINCE) with Wallace Reid and Dorothy Gish. Definitely THE version of MERRY-GO-ROUND to own although I will always have a soft spot for the 2003 version.
The Capsule Critic 