Tag Archives: inspiration

Instant Expert: Queen Kelly

Name: Queen Kelly

Age: Somewhere from 92 to 96 years old. Or brand new, maybe?

Appearance: Decadent visions of dissipated European royalty in palatial grandeur, and seedy expat iniquity in East Africa. Erich von Stroheim directed this film, so every frame bursts with expensive vices, exposed flesh, outlandish costumes, drifts of spring blossom or swags of velvet and the occasional splash of bodily fluids. Not to mention more candles than Barry Lyndon, more or less. Gloria Swanson is the star…

Continue reading Instant Expert: Queen Kelly

Book news: The Curse of Queen Kelly

People, I have been busy. Book news, and a cat picture, below…

But first… has anyone here seen Queen Kelly? This is the legendary collaboration between Erich von Stroheim, Gloria Swanson and Joseph P. Kennedy: an epic film set in two continents, an illicit romance, a story of innocence and experience. Notoriously, the film was never completed. The cameras began turning in 1928, Stroheim was fired in 1929, and the project was eventually dropped in 1930…

Continue reading Book news: The Curse of Queen Kelly

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 4

Last night I dreamt I went to East Lynne again… Ellen Wood is directing my subconscious now. I love this mini melodrama strand and I really enjoyed today’s instalment, which was the lavish 1925 Fox adaptation, East Lynne (Emmett Flynn), scripted by Lenore Coffee and starring Edmund Lowe as Carlyle and Alma Rubens as Lady Isabel – a very handsome pair and just right for this ill-starred pair.

Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 4