Legendary silent director Erich von Stroheim and legendary silent movie star Gloria Swanson made almost one movie together. Production on the ill fated Queen Kelly was halted only one third of the way through the script. The sudden popularity of talkies added to the mounting expenses caused by the extravagance of the eccentric filmmaker led the producers, Joseph Kennedy and Swanson herself, to abandon the project midway.

What remains today is an incomplete masterpiece. The attention to lavish detail is truly amazing. Like other von Stroheim vehicles this one would have run very long, nearly five hours in fact. Only about 100 minutes of film exist today.

Queen Kelly tells the story of a young convent girl who meets Prince Wolfram von Hohenberg Falsenstein the consort of the mad Queen Regina V of Kronberg. He meets her walking along a country rode with the other nuns in the convent. When he points out, with a laugh, that her unmentionables have fallen around her ankles, she angrily takes them off and throws them in his face. He is instantly smitten by her charms. So much so that later that night, after the Queen has announced that their wedding shall take place the very next day, he sneaks out of the castle, goes to the convent, abducts the sleeping girl and stupidly, brings her back to the palace. In the midst of falling in love they are interrupted by the Queen. In a rage she sends the Prince to prison and mercilessly whips the young girl with a riding crop.

From here the story jumps to Kelly being sent to Africa to take care of her dying Aunt. Kelly quickly learns that 'missionary' was just a front for 'whorehouse' and that she is now in the clutches of wicked people. Only a small bit of this section of the movie was completed. Through sub-titles we learn that the Prince eventually gets out of prison, learns of Kelly's whereabouts and comes to her rescue. By now she is the ruling Madame, known as Queen Kelly because of her regal arrogance (Alas, no actual film survives of Gloria in her whore get-up, only a few stills). In a Hollywood twist the Prince forgives her and when they learn that the Queen has been assassinated they return together in glory to take over the throne.

When Norma Desmond says her famous line "We had faces then." in Sunset Boulevard it is a scene from Queen Kelly that she is watching. Even more ironically, von Stroheim as Max is running the movie projector.

Thankfully today we have at least part of this flawed yet intriguing movie in a newly restored version.

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