The Merry Widow
Prince Danilo falls in love with dancer Sally O'Hara. However, his uncle, King Nikita I of Monteblanco, forbids the marriage due to her being a commoner. Thinking she's been jilted by her prince, Sally marries lecherous old Baron Sadoja, whose wealth has kept the kingdom afloat. When he suddenly dies, Sally must be wooed all over again by Danilo.
From the archive
I've been researching newly public domain films from 1929 and earlier, along with other pictures of the era that I find interesting, so I'm uploading the best possible copies that I can find. Erich von Stroheim's final fully silent picture, The Merry Widow was a massive critical and financial hit upon release. In fact, it was his most successful film, which was quite a boon to his reputation after the box office failure of Greed just one year earlier. The story follows two rival princes who both fall in love with the same girl, a theater performer, and their attempts to woo her. Even as an overwhelming success, the studio refused to work with Stroheim again due to the sexually explicit scenes and tonal changes he had made to the original story. I've uploaded two versions of the film here. One has a quaint but dated soundtrack. The other has a much improved soundtrack, but a shorter runtime, and also has French subtitles "burnt-in" to the intertitle cards.
Why this is free to watch
The Merry Widow (1926) is hosted by the Internet Archive as a public-domain or openly licensed work, which means its copyright has expired, lapsed, or was released by the rights holder. The uploader declared an explicit licence, linked in the source panel. Nitrate streams the file directly from the Archive and hosts no video itself.
- Director
- Erich von Stroheim
- Starring
- Mae Murray, John Gilbert, Roy D'Arcy, Josephine Crowell, George Fawcett, Tully Marshall, Edward Connelly, Joan Crawford
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