Now showing
The Merry Widow (1925)
About this film
I've been researching newly public domain films from 1929 and earlier, along with other pictures of the era that I find interesting, so I'm uploading the best possible copies that I can find. Erich von Stroheim's final fully silent picture, The Merry Widow was a massive critical and financial hit upon release. In fact, it was his most successful film, which was quite a boon to his reputation after the box office failure of Greed just one year earlier. The story follows two rival princes who both fall in love with the same girl, a theater performer, and their attempts to woo her. Even as an overwhelming success, the studio refused to work with Stroheim again due to the sexually explicit scenes and tonal changes he had made to the original story. I've uploaded two versions of the film here. One has a quaint but dated soundtrack. The other has a much improved soundtrack, but a shorter runtime, and also has French subtitles "burnt-in" to the intertitle cards.
Directors & creators
Erich Von Stroheim, Benjamin Glazer
Subjects
Film, Silent, Romance, Drama, Black Comedy