Stroheim Henry has done work with this wonderful and very complete reconstruction of the masterpiece by Franz Lehar. All the background from which arise the three acts of Widow and with them and for them the river of music that has delighted the world for fifteen years, has closed three bars in the beginning of the first act Cospodina Kromow , where the worthy lady as the goodness to inform qualmente Glàvari Anna is the widow of the banker and baron Glàvari, magnate of Pontevedra, the small kingdom fantastico... fino ad un certo punto, sebbene oggi non esista più nemmeno come espressione geografica. Quindi Nigrus nella sua breve scena con l'Ambasciatore, l'Ambasciatore nella scenetta con Danilo in funzione di cantina ambulante, e quindi Anna e Danilo nella bellissima scena della sfida (che precede il famosissimo Venite orsù sirene della danza) ci erudiscono. E l'azione procede senza più inciampi, senza più riallacciarsi al passato; e si svolgono, piane, avvincenti, prepotenti le pagine del gran concerto della Vilja, il duetto comico dello sciocco cavalier, il duetto Rossillon-Valentina del chiosco (ricordate: Là nella dolce oscurità e Io sono una donna onesta?), il dodicimino degli uomini è scabroso le donne studiar, the magnificent final seconds of granitic texture, with the unforgettable footage of Maxim and the tale of Daniel, and in the third act, the beautiful dance of sinners ... Maxim imported from the authentic and the waltz to the final third, the famous waltz that has been around the world:
silent lip
I love you!
- says the violin -
his notes, all of them, they say thou hast
to love! Of the close
man clearly said to me!
Yes! It 's true! You love me! Yes!
You love me ... 'Tis true!
Verses certainly not worthy the pen of Dante - poetry, let us say, stupid enough, although there consuls thought to know that the original Germans surrender idiocy nothing to the Italian version. But who cares who sings the verses and sung and returns to sing the reasons for the great Franz? But if thou hast of love from the regulator had written Tatar-tara nothing would go down the drain of the waltz, because in those notes, "there is that there is" - and a few bad words are not enough so that adaptation to rhythmic destroy its contents.
The same is true of Vilja: Vilja One lived in a forest - and more beautiful if she had none! - One day, passing by, he saw a hunter - she suddenly kindled in love! And in the second stanza: But at last satiated with kisses, the Nymph odd ... Vilja! O Vilja! O Nymph of the forest - I give you my heart - you give me your love! Vilja O Vilja! you want to be me? Langi of love for you! Words ..... poor things (and we hope that publishers will follow those of operetta film in requiring reductions Italian ,.... good paying course) but if you notice that when a 'lehariana orchestra and a choir of sixty voices harmonized beautifully and counterpoint are viewers see and hear the leafy woods, the scent of the forest flowers, the murmur of the brook, the nymphs white ..... fleeing naked in the trunk and leaves, Vilja capricciosissima, hunter fan? In the final seconds
Danilo sings the resumption of Maxim: Maxim
Vo
even assiduous patrons! I'm
con le dame, là.
in piena intimità!
Clo-Clo - Margot - Fru-fru,
Lo-lò - Dodò - Jou-jou,
la cara patria mia
dimenticar mi fan!
Sono gli stessi versi del primo atto, sulla stessa musica, ma... Ma un tratto di penna di Lehar ha passato un contrappunto ai corni, uno al fagotto, un terzo, infine, alle trombe in sordina. E quello ch'era un motivo allegrissimo di ubriaco, cantato da un ubriaco allegrissimo nel primo atto, diventa uno scoppio di disperato dolore al finale secondo, ed il tenore che ha riso un'ora prima di tutte le donne e di tutti gli amici, ora singhiozza per quella sola che ama con tutta l'anima — e che sente di non poter ottenere più mai.
Come all this mean? How to express this infinite wealth of music, mood and technique, profuse profusely from a composer at all scialacquone and treasurer of his genius? Certainly not the conductor can stop his team and tell the public: Be careful here. There is this to be admired, for these reasons. And the whole complex perfect harmonious beauty of the score runs like a raging torrent that overwhelms and conquers the listener more to suggestion than by persuasion. The success of the widow, full, absolute, undeniable, it can be called an episode of bullying, an intellectual of all.
It admires the widow because she is beautiful, it is going to suffer because they like it, enjoy, excited. But because she is beautiful because it is fun, because it moves, because like, nobody could say it before.
Before now, because now Stroheim told us, with its Merry Widow.
And - what I am made all masters - the company must not have been very difficult to implement for an artist like Stroheim, who has given us, with Wiwes Foolish (Leave Her to Heaven) the its capabilities. With passion and precision of interpreter-creator set out to make everything cinematically Lehar said musically. and, with his talent, even for the media Fantastic made available by the Metro-Galdwyn-Mayer for the ingenious collaboration of Murray, Gilbert D'Arcv. Marsh's (operator, this high-class) is fully successful. Example
. The official teutonicizzata era, is it not admirably described by the song of the election in the first act (Anna and choir men).
And well, if you intend to cast my vote
Be it so: will the election ...
and men in unison in response:
with shaking,
propagating ... Lady
my program
here it is!
Vote for ...
- Cascada!
Vote for ...
- Saint Brioche! The tune
the vote, you could say one of the best ... Fathers fox Trott, seems to see them pull out the officers in white jacket and red pants, boots, slicked spurred, fragrant incaramellati, and crowding around a rich and beautiful young woman, anxious to possess all the treasures ... The
Vilja. It 's the Pontevedra you sing, are its mountains, its forests, its rivers, its women, its pastors who seem to draw on the seabed. formed by sound waves. And Stroheim was able to give us a Pontevedra with everything we had done our imagination to think of us: and then the magical landscapes of beauty, grace sweetest of women, types of delicious mountain glittering parade on the screen. And so, everything is musically cinegraficamehte said operetta is done by Stroheim.
Murrav Mae is in his position: first, beautiful woman, beautiful statue of flesh in the second place, and then master of elegance, charm carries doll clothes so beautiful that ... almost ask them not to undress the mannequin delicious, actress, perfect and complete, deep, spasmodically Slavic, as is Anna Glàvari as Franz Lehar wanted to create it. A close-up scene in the dressing room, between Anna and Danilo, an involuntary smile to the determination of Daniel to sleep where he is and how it is only because, he says. is tired, it is sufficient to classify glans of the most actresses of cinema. The scenes of the first night of marriage with the old Glàvari, those of his vain resistance, and no less vain escape in the rainy night he is and is not prey to Danilo, are significant of expression and feeling. We mention this not because they are especially superior to others - that all the interpretations, leading to the last generation, is very homogeneous - but to name a few.
John Gilbert is a revelation in this film. Correct, elegant, full measure and good taste will be more victims in the weak hearts of Valentino women. Roy d'Arcy is superb in his part of the civilized cannibal, and succeeds in full view to become obnoxious, which, for an actor specialized in bad part, is a magnificent success. Tully Marshall in the old Glàvari, Fawcett in the old King, they are excellent. All other worthy of all praise. The
photography, Olier Marsh, excellent.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer can be proud, and good Curioni can with every right to put on a little air of sufficiency, because films like The Merry Widow one sees very few in America.
Conclusion: Happy Lehar not remains to satisfy anyone else. Yet many are and will be happy: Stroheim first, then its funders, then then the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Italian- Curioni the dynamic.
await the verdict of the visitors, but we are sure to Prognostic for Merry Widow film a success rate higher than the Merry Widow operetta.
And sorry if it is little.
Guglielmo Giannini (Widow llegra - Metro Goldwyn Mayer - Victor Leon and Lee Stein - Franz Lehar - Eric Von Stroheim, Mae Murray - John Gilbert - Roy d'Arcy - Oliver Marsh-In private screening in Rome, Kines, October 14, 1926)
