The Wedding March (1928 film)
A 1928 synchronized sound romantic drama by Erich von Stroheim.
The Wedding March is a 1928 synchronized sound romantic drama film written and directed by Erich von Stroheim. It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 2003 and entered the public domain in the United States in 2024. The film is notable for its elaborate production and for being re-edited from footage that also produced the now-lost film The Honeymoon.
Quick Facts
- Director
- Erich von Stroheim
- Producer
- Jesse L. Lasky
- Pat Powers
- Adolph Zukor
- Writer
- Harry Carr
- Starring
- Erich von Stroheim
- Fay Wray
- George Fawcett
- George Nichols
- ZaSu Pitts
- Maude George
- Music
- Louis De Francesco
- Adolph Deutsch
- Vernon Duke
- J. S. Zamecnik
- Cinematography
- Roy H. Klaffki
- Ray Rennahan
- William C. McGann
- Hal Mohr
- Ben F. Reynolds
- Buster Sorenson
- Harris Thorpe
- Editing
- Frank E. Hull; Josef von Sternberg
- Distributor
- Paramount Pictures
Facts from the source article.
Plot
In 1914 Vienna, Prince Nicki leads a cavalry unit and comes from a noble family that has fallen on hard times. During a parade near St. Stephen's Cathedral, he spots Mitzi, an innkeeper's daughter, eating with her family. Her fiancé, a butcher named Schani, spits rudely and humiliates her. Nicki and Mitzi exchange flirtatious looks. When a gun salute spooks Nicki's horse, it injures Mitzi, sending her to the hospital. Nicki also has Schani arrested. He visits Mitzi at the hospital and later at the pub where she plays the harp. They start dating and fall in love. Aware that his family is broke, Nicki is offered a deal by a rich factory owner: marry his daughter Cecelia in exchange for a noble title. Nicki turns it down at first but eventually agrees. Once released from prison, Schani learns of the romance and shows Mitzi a newspaper story about Nicki's upcoming marriage. Mitzi stays composed, tells Schani she hates him, and insists she still loves Nicki. Furious, Schani attempts to rape her, but his father stops him. Schani then plots to kill Nicki after the wedding. At the church, Mitzi appears and vows to marry Schani if he spares Nicki. Nicki and Cecelia leave in a coach. The honeymoon segment shows Nicki and Cecelia in the Alps, alongside the wedding of Mitzi and Schani. Mitzi still loves Nicki, and a jealous Schani shoots at him. Cecelia leaps in front of Nicki and takes the bullet. Schani flees and goes into hiding. Nicki and Mitzi meet one last time; she tells him she will enter a convent. Nicki heads off to war and is killed.
Production
After a difficult stint at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer following The Merry Widow, Erich von Stroheim pitched his next project to independent producer Pat Powers, who agreed to fund it. Stroheim finished the 154-page script in March 1926, though the surviving film only covers the first 67 pages. True to his reputation for obsessive historical accuracy, Stroheim constructed massive sets: a replica of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, its surrounding streets, lavish palace interiors, and an apple orchard where thousands of blossoms were hand-tied to the trees. He defended the extravagance by saying he was finally offering beauty instead of the sewers and dead cats critics expected. Filming started in June 1926 and ran until Powers pulled the plug in January 1927. A journalist on set described Stroheim’s relentless perfectionism and disregard for budgets; the director once told his crew they would shoot 24,000 takes of a single scene if needed. Over six months, he exposed more than 200,000 feet of film. The initial budget of $300,000 ballooned to $1,250,000 by the time production was halted.
Reception
The film debuted in October 1928, with its sequel, The Honeymoon, appearing only in Europe and South America months later. It failed at the box office, arriving as silent films lost ground to talkies. Variety dismissed it as “a ponderous, slow moving production.” Critic Hanns G. Lustig called it “a colored fairy tale. But the colors are poisonous. Stroheim is a hard man. But his toughness shows the memory of the tender falsehood of dreams. And his melancholy revenge for their existence is brutal cartoons. A unique, exciting event.”
Legacy
In 1950, Henri Langlois from the Cinémathèque Française let Stroheim recut The Wedding March and The Honeymoon using prints Langlois owned. Stroheim put in sound effects and moved scenes back to his intended sequence. The final surviving print of The Honeymoon burned in a Cinémathèque Française fire on July 10, 1959; Langlois said the film had "died voluntarily." After Stroheim passed away, The Wedding March's standing rose. Langlois showed it at Lincoln Center in 1965, describing it as "like a torso without a head." It played at the 3rd New York Film Festival, getting mostly positive reviews, though Bosley Crowther found it "disappointing." Another Lincoln Center screening in 1970 earned a standing ovation. Paramount put out the first VHS release in 1987, but swapped J. S. Zamecnik's full orchestral score for a new pipe organ one.
More in Cultural Depictions of Franz Joseph I of Austria
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced