#594 Erich von Stroheim

Thirty years on from the premiere
of The Merry Widow, a silent movie
directed by Erich von Stroheim,
come these two caricatures. One
is a take on the roles he played in
films after being a director was
made too difficult for him. The
other an invitation to the anniver-
sary of that first showing of the
only movie of his that could be
considered a box office success.


Left like that, it seems a compact
story spread over three decades.
Left like that, it leaves so much
out. Time is a series of triggers &
outcomes; but an outcome can
also be a trigger. The first trigger
in this sequence is Attaché d'am-
bassade, (Embassy Attaché), a com-
edy written in 1861 by Henri
Meilhac, an opera librettist &
playwright. The outcome, some
44 years later, is an operetta, Die
lustige Witwe, with the music by
Franz Lehár & a libretto based on
Neilhac's play. & that, in turn, is
not just the trigger for von Stro-
heim's film & six later versions
by various directors but also an
earlier one made in Hungary by
Mihály Kertész who later moved
to the U.S., changed hus name to
Michael Curtiz, & made films as
diverse as Captain Blood, Casa-
blanca, & Yankee Doodle Dandy.


From those outcomes spread many
branch lines of varying length &
importance. Amongst the uncredited
extras in von Stroheim's movie were
Joan Crawford & Clark Gable. von
Stroheim's acting career included an
Oscar nomination for his performance
in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard,  The
castle tower that protrudes from the
bald skull of von Stroheim in Magritte's
Hommage is reprised as a unicorn's horn
in a number of paintings. & so it goes on,
present company hopefully included.