Erich Von Stroheim will always have his champions - there was a great artist in him. When I reviewed the fragments of "Queen Kelly" a few days back, I said that his method is time consuming compared to what a normal film editing/directing job is like, but it does hold one's attention closely. "Queen Kelly" had a melodramatic, impossible script. But "Foolish Wives", "The Merry Widow", and "Greed" had good scripts.
After "Queen Kelly" folded Stroheim had to find another job because he had a family to support (a wife and son). He had, originally, been an actor. In fact his early roles in World War I and post 1918 films was as "the man you love to hate" - the perfect German militarist swine, who while raping some French woman would silence that squawking brat of hers by flinging it out the window. He carried this into his own films: His fake rake-Russian Prince in "Foolish Wives" (gleefully looking through his pocket mirror at a woman undressing in back of him), or his German noble in "Blind Husbands", who plans to cuckold a fellow traveler. He did these actions with commendable panache (imagine throwing a baby out the window with style!). So he could act. In fact, in his later career, given a great director (Jean Renoir, Billy Wilder) Von Stroheim was superb as an actor.
So he returned to acting, and "The Great Gabbo" was the result. The criticisms on this thread are sensible. Anyone turning to "The Great Gabbo" to see the artistry of early talking picture musicals will run screaming from the room. To me the best songs are those dealing with Gabbo and his dummy "Otto". "Otto" singing any tune is a stunt, and one is willing to accept it as such. One is not listening to his tunes to recall them for later humming or singing purposes of one's own.
Instead, the dominating force of "The Great Gabbo" is the masterful, high strung, egomaniac Von Stroheim. He does make himself the world's greatest ventriloquist, and rises to head a show. But the man has serious emotional flaws, and one senses they are not entirely his own fault. He cannot relate easily to people, even Betty Compson (who did care for him) because he can't trust them. They are flawed or they fail him at critical moments. One wonders what caused him to become this way, but it is a flaw of the script that it is never explained.
That he dismissed Compson due to an error on her part is true, but he still carries a strong desire for her. But she's found another, and it sends him into a tailspin.
"The Great Gabbo" saved Von Stroheim. Aside from a talkie disaster he directed ("Walking Down Broadway", a.k.a. "Hello Sister!") he never directed any film again. He did have some affect in some of his B-features in the 1940s, such as "The Mask Of Dijon", where some critics have noted his touch in various scenes. But it wasn't directing. When he tried to suggest ideas for "Max Von Mayerling" in "Sunset Boulevard", Billy Wilder listened respectfully but did not use them.
Instead he would be an actor for the rest of his career. And he would turn in "Von Rauffenstein" in "Le Grande Illusion", "Field Marshall Erwin Rommel" in "Five Graves To Cairo", and "Max" in "Sunset Boulevard". Not a bad final reckoning for the loss of a great directorial career. And it was "Gabbo" that started it.
After "Queen Kelly" folded Stroheim had to find another job because he had a family to support (a wife and son). He had, originally, been an actor. In fact his early roles in World War I and post 1918 films was as "the man you love to hate" - the perfect German militarist swine, who while raping some French woman would silence that squawking brat of hers by flinging it out the window. He carried this into his own films: His fake rake-Russian Prince in "Foolish Wives" (gleefully looking through his pocket mirror at a woman undressing in back of him), or his German noble in "Blind Husbands", who plans to cuckold a fellow traveler. He did these actions with commendable panache (imagine throwing a baby out the window with style!). So he could act. In fact, in his later career, given a great director (Jean Renoir, Billy Wilder) Von Stroheim was superb as an actor.
So he returned to acting, and "The Great Gabbo" was the result. The criticisms on this thread are sensible. Anyone turning to "The Great Gabbo" to see the artistry of early talking picture musicals will run screaming from the room. To me the best songs are those dealing with Gabbo and his dummy "Otto". "Otto" singing any tune is a stunt, and one is willing to accept it as such. One is not listening to his tunes to recall them for later humming or singing purposes of one's own.
Instead, the dominating force of "The Great Gabbo" is the masterful, high strung, egomaniac Von Stroheim. He does make himself the world's greatest ventriloquist, and rises to head a show. But the man has serious emotional flaws, and one senses they are not entirely his own fault. He cannot relate easily to people, even Betty Compson (who did care for him) because he can't trust them. They are flawed or they fail him at critical moments. One wonders what caused him to become this way, but it is a flaw of the script that it is never explained.
That he dismissed Compson due to an error on her part is true, but he still carries a strong desire for her. But she's found another, and it sends him into a tailspin.
"The Great Gabbo" saved Von Stroheim. Aside from a talkie disaster he directed ("Walking Down Broadway", a.k.a. "Hello Sister!") he never directed any film again. He did have some affect in some of his B-features in the 1940s, such as "The Mask Of Dijon", where some critics have noted his touch in various scenes. But it wasn't directing. When he tried to suggest ideas for "Max Von Mayerling" in "Sunset Boulevard", Billy Wilder listened respectfully but did not use them.
Instead he would be an actor for the rest of his career. And he would turn in "Von Rauffenstein" in "Le Grande Illusion", "Field Marshall Erwin Rommel" in "Five Graves To Cairo", and "Max" in "Sunset Boulevard". Not a bad final reckoning for the loss of a great directorial career. And it was "Gabbo" that started it.