Starring Norman Kerry, Mary Philbin and Dale Fuller
Produced by Universal Pictures
A count in pre-WWI Vienna enjoys the easy life. He has servants that awaken him (though he is as eager to get out of bed as a teenager on the first day of school). He has his bath drawn and his meals brought to him. He has a carefree attitude that allows him to joke around with his staff. Everything is going well...
...except he is getting married and isn't thrilled about it. He's not against the idea; he'd just like to put it off. Unfortunately, the Emperor decrees that the union will happen and happen soon and the count has to go with it.
That doesn't stop him from enjoying life. One night he goes out with his friends to a carnival where he impresses with his marksmanship in a rifle game, but he soon catches the eye a lowly (but beautiful) organ grinder. It's her job to keep the music playing as the merry-go-round spins. He strikes up a conversation with her and the mutual attraction is obvious. He lies to her about his background and claims to be a necktie salesman. Their flirting is soon interrupted by Huber, the tyrant who runs the carnival and wants to see the organ grinder grind.
The pair see each other socially and the count meets the girl's father, a kind man who distrusts the aristocracy. The count tries to get out of his upcoming nuptials, but once the emperor makes a decree, it's hard to get out of it.
The girl has her own problems. Huber has designs on her and when she rebuffs him, she is beaten by the villain. This is interrupted by her father who stabs Huber in the shoulder. Unfortunately, the police only see the father's transgression and not Huber's so off to jail with the innocent man!
Who will the count marry? What will become of the organ grinder and her father? And how do World War I, a flower pot and an orangutan come into play?
So, the movie begins and I am completely captivated. The count is a great character. He's aristocratic, but you can see that while he enjoys the trappings of his social status, he's not taking them too seriously. He likes his job as one of the emperor's confidantes, but he can take or leave the life he has. He's geting married because... well, that's what counts do, right?
So when he meets the organ grinder, you can feel the attraction. Their initial flirtation is well-played and the "meet cute" gets you invested in the outcome. They also have set up the perfect obstacles to their relationship: the crushing expectations of the count's aristocratic life and the maniacal overlord of the carnival who wants to keep the girl for himself.
So how does such an awesome set up go so spectacularly off the rails?
First, the count becomes melancholy about his predicament which strips all of the life out of what was a very interesting character. He spends the entire movie looking sad or ashamed about his every action. Where the count in the first third commanded the screen, he shrunk into the background for most of the rest.
Beyond that, the movie begins to take find its drama not in the character's central conflict, but in a parade of escalating melodramatic incidents, each one more ridiculous then the first. SPOILERS AHEAD! After the father is released from prison, he and his daughter go to work for a rival carnival. Huber crashes the carnival and drops a flower pot onto the father from a couple of stories up. The orangutan that performs in the rival carnival is so incensed by this that it sneaks out of its cage, climbs through Huber's window, kills him and sneaks back into his cage. Huber's death is never referenced again.
The silliness of the story wastes some fantastic production design and camera work. The carnival sets are spectacular and give the viewer a great sense of place. And the count's world is appropriately lavish. There are also individual scenes in here that are so well shot that I couldn't believe the detail I was seeing on the screen. Gorgeous.
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| Seriously, this dude keeps showing up for no reason. |
Merry-Go-Round would be better titled as Roller Coaster. It takes you up to see how great it could have been, but, just as you get a glimpse, it hurtles to the ground. I liked the first third which made the bitterness of the rest that much harder to take.
**1/2 out of *****
NOTE: The film was primarily directed by Erich von Stroheim, who is one of the most important directors of the next twenty years (though I have not seen his work yet). Von Stroheim was fired toward the end of production and replaced by Julian. I haven't a great sense of how much of what's on screen is von Stroheim versus Julian.
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