Silent Cinema

Queen Kelly

+ intro by film critic and historian Pamela Hutchinson

Reimagining of Gloria Swanson’s Queen Kelly finally released, nearly 100 years late.

  • Director

    Erich von Stroheim

  • With

    Gloria Swanson, Walter Byron, Seena Owen, Tully Marshall

  • USA 1929. 105min

  • Digital 4K (restoration)

  • With live accompaniment

Gloria Swanson, wishing to produce her own films, took a gamble on unmanageable genius Erich von Stroheim. This romantic tale of the terrible consequences following a convent girl’s encounter with a Prince, became one of cinema’s most famous production disasters. The long-awaited restoration and reconstruction of the surviving nitrate reels of Queen Kelly, based on von Stroheim’s original scripts, with added stills and titles, was undertaken by longtime friends of the BFI: Dennis Doros and Amy Heller of Milestone Films.

Reconstruction by Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, Milestone Film & Video. Nitrate materials and stills courtesy of The George Eastman Museum. 4K digital stabilisation, timing and cleanup by Metropolis Post. Supervised by Milestone Films.