Stroheim

9. The Merry Widow

9 The /ffeffY«[idow lIIhtn ,8trohtim mas firtd from Merry-Go-Round in the fall of1922, the Goldwyn Company was in the process ofpurchasing the rights to Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow, which had proved an extraordinary success since its 1905 premiere in Vienna. With a logic peculiar to Hollywood, the studio seemed to regard the operetta as having the potential of becoming a profitable silent film because of its familiar title and its music, which could be used as a background score, even though the lyrics, of course, would be lost. In early 1923, the studio announced proudly that The Merry Widow would be Stroheim's next picture after Greed. The Austrian appeared to know more about continental matters than anyone else and seemed to be an ideal choice, with his penchant for detail and obvious expertise at creating a believable milieu. Furthermore, he was a writer as well and could draw upon his European background to flesh out the operetta's flimsy plot. As a result of the Goldwyn Company's merger with Metro in April 1924, the new firm-now called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer-inherited the Merry Widow property. Despite violent arguments over the severe cutting of Greed, Irving Thalberg, now the company's production chief, believed that Stroheim had great talent and that he could, if properly constrained, direct the film, as the Goldwyn Company had 221 222 STROHEIM previously planned. Stroheim's coffers were exhausted after his twoyear stint with Creed, and Thalberg suspected that the director might accept this piece of Ruritanian fluff without too much argument. Stroheim, however, was still obsessed with the tale ofan aristocrat falling in love with a commoner and so was not excited by The Merry Widow's feeble plot. Thalberg also recognized that the story needed elaboration and so agreed to have Stroheim rewrite it, as long as he kept the waltz and the scene at Maxim's. At the same time, Thalberg recalled Stroheim's impressive but much too long script for Merry-CoRound and vowed not to make the same error again.There would be no lengthy tome this time. Having lived through the nightmares of Foolish Wives and Merry-Co-Round, he knew that he would have to force Stroheim to bring the film in on schedule, on budget, and at a reasonable length. The reason that Stroheim agreed to this project at all can be found in an interview Stroheim granted to the German Film Kurrier. When he saw how his Creed was mutilated, a film he made with his "own heart," he said: "I abandoned all my ideals to create real art pictures and made pictures to order from now on. My film The Merry Widow proved that this kind ofpicture is liked by the public, but I am far from being proud of it and I do not want to be identified at all with socalled box-office attractions. So I have quit realism entirely....When you ask me why I do such pictures I am not ashamed to tell you the true reason: only because I do not want my family to starve."! Stroheim salved his conscience because he had been given a relatively free hand in the writing (with only the slightest assistance from Benjamin Glazer) and managed to transfer some of the romantic aspects ofhis Merry-Co-Round story into the first two-thirds ofthe new script. Then he hooked on the musical's plot for the last third, but he did so reluctantly. Stroheim was not opposed to filming the waltz, despite what has often been written, but he did not want the story to be bogged down by a giant dancing scene. He wanted the episode to be revelatory of character, not merely an exhibition of fancy footwork . Stroheim sought to impose his mordant views onto the relatively innocent operetta, but Thalberg did not want such a bleak vision. He simply wished to have Stroheim create a marketable commodity. Stroheim, always in love with tragedy, wanted his hero to be killed in The Merry Widow 223 a duel, but this depressing conclusion was vetoed.The film had to cater to the public's desire for happy endings, the kind that MGM knew would make them a profit. Furthermore, the picture should have actors the public wanted to see. Already not entirely pleased to use even part of The Merry Widow story, Stroheim was especially...