The Wedding March

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DanTheMan 2 My first film from the self-titled Man You Love to Hate, The Wedding March is a gloriously lavish, painfully incomplete vanity project, which sees Erich von Stroheim showcase an astonishing portrait of decadent Imperial Austria with extravagance and wickedly ironic melodrama. Given von Stroheim's uncompromising attitude to filmmaking means that none of his films ever released exactly how he wanted and it's no different here, vastly over budget, vastly behind schedule and vastly self-indulgent, including the use of thousands of litres of real champagne and locking his cast on a sealed set to shoot an orgy... Silent film directors are insane. It's tragic to remember that even with everything going for The Wedding March, it's barely one-third of von Stroheim's original vision, as the majority of his original edit was massively truncated and the second half of the film he shot, The Honeymoon, is now lost to time. That alone is painfully frustrating. The Wedding March is not the masterpiece it could have been but stands as a testament to Erich von Stroheim's incredible filmmaking talent to this day. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 05/11/24 Full Review Audience Member A simple love triangle in Vienna elevated considerably by director Erich von Stroheim via his biting commentary on men and marriage. Fay Wray plays an innkeeper's daugher who is dating a crude butcher when she sees and begins flirting with a cavalry officer. Unfortunately the officer is from a family with financial troubles. There is a dark cynicism that runs through the film, with the nobleman clearly having affairs with multiple women, his parents openly despising each other and the butcher having the manners of a Cro-Magnon and attempting to rape the young woman. There is also a wild party featuring exotic African and Asian women, von Stroheim emphasizing the bacchanalia with some clever overlays. I also like the special effect of the skeleton hands playing the piano and the mythology of the iron man statue in the city which frame the story. Unfortunately von Stroheim gets carried away in trying to create a grand epic, belaboring scenese which should have been shorter and including things like processions which were unnecessary. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review Audience Member The best romance movie ever made! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member gr8 cast makes this 1 go Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Audience Member The earlier scenes with Wray and Stroheim are exquisite. The rest, less so. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member another epic from the mad genius von stroheim, who seems to like to cast himself as a dashing ladies' man. this film comes in at under 2 hours, which surprised me til i learned it was split in two parts, the second called 'the honeymoon'. sadly, the second half has been lost but what remains is the charming tale of a hapsburg prince who loves the ladies, especially a beautiful peasant played by fay wray. however the prince is a wastrel and his aristocratic parents are broke so they give him a choice: marry money or shoot himself! this is on internet archive, with some scenes in early technicolor Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Wedding March

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