Queen Kelly

“We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces!” So goes the myth of the silent movie star, avowed by the once-famous Norma Desmond. As one of the most important faces in pre-talkie Hollywood, it’s ironic that Swanson is remembered most for her many one-liners in Sunset Boulevard (also starring von Stroheim). Twenty years prior, the two worked with – and against – one another on their most ambitious and extravagant film to date: Queen Kelly. After a chance flirtation, young convent girl Kelly begins a verboten love affair with Queen Regina’s betrothed Prince Wolfram. A victim of the censorious Hays Code, the delirious Queen Kelly was never completed. Now restored in 4K, von Stroheim’s crown jewel is finally staging a comeback.