Erich Von Stroheim Plays Aladdin… (1926) 🇺🇸

March 06, 2023

Erich Von Stroheim, with an Aladdin-like gesture, has rubbed the magic lamp for one of Hollywood's young players. And, in the subsequent flare, we see Fay Wray really for the first time.

by Katherine Lipke

Before Von Stroheim chose her recklessly, without even a screen test, for the role of the lovely heroine in his new picture, The Wedding March, Fay Wray was just one of many pretty girls playing in pictures. Her long brown curls, which she always wore down her back, distinguished her only slightly from others in an industry addicted to pretty girls. And also, she was a 1926 Wampas Star.

But aside from these small points of variation, Fay was just one of the crowd. She had played in Hal Roach comedies and in Universal Westerns, and hoped that some day she would emerge into the realm of deeper drama. But all the rest were hoping also.

Now, Fay Wray is seen in a different light. She is Von Stroheim's leading lady. Nay, she is much more than that. She is the girl on whom he has banked to a great extent, the success of his new picture — a girl who was chosen with the impetuous finality so characteristic of Von Stroheim.

Where others saw Fay Wray as just a pretty girl with a wealth of fluffy curls, he glimpsed what he calls the perfect combination of "spirituality and sensuousness." He saw a woman on the eve of awakening to life and to love. In the slightly immature, face of an eighteen-year old girl he discovered his ideal for the role of Mitzi, the little Viennese harpist in The Wedding March, who loves Prince Nicki, played by Von Stroheim.

With such an extravagant recommendation as this, Fay immediately becomes a person of interest. Von Stroheim's tongue may be turbulent, but his hunches are apt to be uncannily correct. It was he who saw in Mary Philbin the sensitive, spiritual type for "Merry-go-round." And well do we know how, in the midst of the thunder and lightning of conflicting temperaments, he brought forth a vision of Mae Murray for The Merry Widow such as had not been seen of her on the screen before.

Not long ago, out at old Selig Park, where Kathlyn Williams used to film her serials, I watched Von Stroheim film the wine-garden love scenes for The Wedding March.

There was witchery afoot. An orchard of apple trees in full bloom was glistening under the high-powered lights. The blossoms, five hundred thousand of them, were hand made and dipped in wax. The trees were also of the "made in Hollywood" variety. Yet, under the pale glow of the summer moon and the concentrated glare of the lights, those gnarled trees appeared to have been sending roots down into the ground for a century or so.

However, there was other witchery present than a hand-made apple orchard. Beneath a tree, which bent under its weight of blossoms, sat Prince Nicki, an Austrian officer, making love to Mitzi, a little harpist in a Viennese wine garden, illumined by an inner light of love.

Gone was the pretty little girl called Fay Wray. In her place was a fragile, lovely creature with curls piled high on her head. In her ears were quaint coral earrings. She wore a white muslin dress with a blue sash. Draped over her shoulders was the white military cloak of Prince Nicki, with its crimson lining sending a wealth of color up to warm her face. Each time Von Stroheim touched her hand, the light leaped to her eyes and gave onlookers a thrill.

The immaturity of appearance which had seemed heretofore to characterize Fay Wray was completely lost in a revelation of awakening womanhood. While acting with Von Stroheim, the girl seemed lifted out of herself, and was indeed an Old World heroine of that period when Germany was urging Austria to join her in making war.

This far the revelation went — but no further. When the scene was over and Miss Wray picked up her skirts to come over to where I sat, the illusion was lost. By the time she had reached me. little Fay Wray, one of Hollywood's many pretty girls, was again present, and Mitzi, frail and intangible in her charm, was gone.

She talked like an eighteen-year-old girl upon whom life had made but few demands. She was afraid to speak frankly on any subject for fear it might not be the correct thing to do. She was amazingly certain that from now on, life was going to be a perfect unfoldment of a dream. No more worry about being a failure, no more struggle for success. This much faith she put in Von Stroheim.

It is a fair exchange, for the fact that he had faith enough in her to choose her without once having seen her on the screen is probably the most perfect thing that has happened in the uneventful life of Fay Wray. She has always had a Von Stroheim complex. She has dreamed that he would direct her. And so, when she walked into his office and expressed her desire to play the heroine in The Wedding March, she was hoping the role might possibly be given her. But not even she was prepared for the instant decision which gave it to her without further preliminaries. Von Stroheim asked about her previous pictures. She told him that he wouldn't like them. "Then I won't see them," he announced — and that was that.

Is it any wonder that Fay Wray expects that this film with Von Stroheim will open all doors to her? Of course, she is more or less right. If she responds to the opportunity which is hers in The Wedding March, undoubtedly many interesting things will be offered her.

However, being discovered by Von Stroheim isn't the sure step toward fame which it should be. Though he can look at a girl and see something in her which others overlook and though he is able to bring that something forth into fulfillment, other directors are apparently not able to take the same material and do likewise. Players discovered by Von Stroheim seem to lapse into comparative mediocrity, under the direction of others. The Von Stroheim spark is not contagious.

Although Rupert Julian completed "Merry-go-round," it was Von Stroheim who commenced it and who visioned and developed Mary Philbin in the role which brought her fame. But where since, in the career of Mary Philbin, has there been another "Merry-go-round?" Mae Murray is still vainly hoping to appear as lovely again as she was in The Merry Widow, vet every one but Miss Murray seems to concede that it is a vain hope. Will Fay Wray have the same fate? That, of course, is a question for the future to decide.

A cathedral was built out at Selig Park, to form the background for the Corpus Christi procession in Vienna, the most elaborate scene in the picture. Three hundred and fifty men in uniform took part. This was for the wedding of Prince Nicki to the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer. The cathedral was filled with people. Grandeur everywhere — barren grandeur, however, for the heart of Prince Nicki was in the wine garden with Mitzi.

In this scene the title figures for the first time. It figures again at the close, when Mitzi and the man she loves stand alone in the same cathedral. The grandeur is gone. Nothing but love remains. They have just been married, and the guns, as Austria goes to war, sound out their wedding march.

The bride, frail and with an intangible charm, is none other than Fay Wray. Fay, one of Hollywood's many pretty girls, who has been aroused from an uneventful eighteen years of living to respond to the hunch of Von Stroheim, who saw her as the perfect heroine for his new picture.

Though Miss Wray, when off the set. appears to be just one of Hollywood's many pretty girls, she acquires, under the influence of Von Stroheim, a strange and thrilling spirituality.

Photo by: Roman Freulich (1898–1974)