Tag Archives: Milestone Film & Video

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…

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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…

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