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Erich von Stroheim’s THE WEDDING MARCH released in 1928, was that troubled director’s seventh film, and arguably his best. GREED (1924) may be his most powerful work, but THE WEDDING MARCH is surely his most romantic directorial effort containing his most sensitive performance as well. This emotional story of ill-fated love between a Viennese nobleman and an innocent peasant girl began shooting in June of 1926, on a series of 36 meticulously detailed sets.

After an intensive nine months of shooting, the original $300,000 budget had soared to $1,125,000, and production was halted by the producer, Pat Powers. In an effort to recoup the considerable investment, and also to reduce the film’s running time to a manageable commercial length two separate features were culled from the enormous amount of footage shot, much against Erich von Stroheim’s wishes; THE WEDDING MARCH, running 113 minutes, and THE HONEYMOON, a 70-minute feature that recapitulated the plot of THE WEDDING MARCH, and then concluded the story. Prepared for South American and European distribution only, THE HONEYMOON no longer exists, but fortunately, the events of THE WEDDING MARCH do reach a conclusion of sorts, and the picture can stand alone a as self-contained work.

For his leading lady in THE WEDDING MARCH, von Stroheim cast Fay Wray, and his lovely 19 year-old actress who had appeared in Hal Roach shorts (“Mostly I posed for publicity photos,” she told this writer), and was then under contract to Universal. In her, von Stroheim saw a I gentle, honest emotional quality that is apparent, to varying degrees, in all of her film in work. It was von Stroheim, though, who brought that unique quality to the surface and emphasized it as no other director ever would, and it was in response to his understanding direction that she gave what was her finest performance.

Today, having completed her autobiography, On The Other Hand (St. Martin’s Press), as well as a play, The Meadow/ark, Fay Wray graciously acknowledges her extensive film career after THE WEDDING MARCH, but admits she has felt unfulfilled by the lesser quality evident in many of those later films. She does express a sincere fondness for her more famous role in King Kong. “King Kong is my friend. He’s been my public relations man for years,” she told me. “It was an extraordinarily good role, but the richness of the role that I had in THE WEDDING MARCH appealed to me more, and that’s very understandable, I think, since there weren’t many nuances in the King Kong role. That was a fantasy, and there was a broadness to it that seemed unreal.”

Here, in her own words, Miss Wray recalls how she was cast in THE WEDDING MARCH, and shares her memories of Erich von Stroheim.

This interview was conducted on August 21, 1988.

“I was at Universal Studios, under contract there, doing two-reel westerns, and even one five-reel western. It was a wonderful training experience, but I didn’t feel that that was the ultimate, by any means. I had met a lady who was an agent for writers who came into the studio one day and remembered me. (We had met when doing errands one day.) She stopped and told me about the film that von Stroheim was going to make, and I suppose I’d heard of it too. She said, ‘You know, I think you’d be wonderful for it. Would you like to go see him?’, and I said, ‘Of course, my goodness!.’ He was, to my mind, the most exciting director there was in Hollywood. But it never occurred to me that I was under contract to Universal. That never crossed my mind, I was so eager to have the opportunity to be considered for that film. So we made arrangements to go to the studio and we went to have a meeting with the president of the organization which had been formed just to make THE WEDDING MARCH.

“He was a Frenchman, and when he saw me he said, ‘Oh no, you would not do, you just would not do! Von Stroheim is not tall I think you are too tall, von Stroheim is brunette, he would need a blonde, it is impossible, no?’ I just knew in my heart and soul that that part was going to be mine and I could not take ‘no’ from him. I realized that I had on high heels for one thing and that although I very often wore my hair down in curls, on this occasion I had built it up very high on top, to look more grown up, the way a leading lady should. I said ‘Let me come back tomorrow, and I will look different,’ and I was thinking, ‘He must say yes, he must say yes,’ and he said ‘Well yes, yes, come back tomorrow,’ and that was the only change I made. I just put on flat shoes and let my hair down. I went back with the lady agent the next day and he showed us the way to the little bungalow where von Stroheim’s office was.

“It was a very hot day. There was no air conditioning at that time. I say that because he was dressed in the most casual way. He was wearing a beautiful white linen shirt, with a very cut-down neck, and no sleeves at all, but he looked elegant at the same time. He asked us to come in and told me to sit down across the desk from him, the agent at the far end of the desk. Von Stroheim began to talk, and tell the story of THE WEDDING MARCH. He appeared to be talking to the agent, but he kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye to see how this was affecting me. He paced up and down, too, and he would stop in front of me and look at me. Suddenly he offered his hand to me. I stood up and he said, ‘Goodbye, Mitzi,’ and that was it, as though he had already decided. How simple, but how beautiful. I was very much affected and I burst into tears. He found that very exciting, I think, and he said to the agent ‘Oh, I can work with her, I can work with her!,’ then he said, ‘Let’s go see Mr. (Emil) Offeman (the company president).’ They left me there in the office. I don’t remember anything after that. I just sat there realizing that a perfectly wonderful thing had happened.

“During the time that he had been talking and watching me, he saw something in me that he liked, and I certainly saw something in him that I felt so in tune with, and it was as if something was sealed between us, it was quite remarkable. Also, I think it was very interesting that he did recognize what he called a spiritual quality, because I think I’ve always felt that about myself, and I’ve never been a church person. I find that just an element of understanding that makes me feel good, that doesn’t require going into any kind of organized religion whatsoever. I don’t set myself up as any special person. I guess I’m an appreciator. I appreciate life, and I appreciate so many things, that that’s sort of my heartbeat. That was lovely, that was lovely first meeting, absolutely marvelous. And what is it, that makes a moment so good you can trust it? It was wonderful. And he didn’t want to make a test of me, he just felt certain, he felt comfortable about me.

“But then, I had to get out of my contract at Universal. Mr. Offeman said that it was up to me to do that, that they could not ask Universal to loan me, because they’d want too much money. ‘It’s up to you,’ he said ‘even if you have to lie.’ On the way home, I knew what I was going to do. I was certainly not going to lie, because this was too beautiful a moment to mess up with lies and I knew that there was someone at the studio, a casting director there who I felt could really go and talk to, and tell him openly just what had happened, and that he would know and understand. And you know he did? That was marvelous. So then he took the responsibility of telling Mr Laemmle that he thought they should really let me go. Not for THE WEDDING MARCH-just let me go! They were not developing me very much, and it seemed best not to keep me under contract. Wasn’t that wonderful? It was just simply the most wonderful thing that he did. I don’t know who else in the world would have done that at that time. I went with him to meet Mr. Laemmle. I’d never met Mr. Laemmle except on that occasion. The man’s name was Paul Kohner, and he became a terrific agent. He knew von Stroheim and cared a lot about him, and he had good feelings about me. He felt that it was the right thing to do, to make it as simple as possible for me and the whole situation. So that is really unforgettable, just unforgettable.

“The shooting of THE WEDDING MARCH went so well! There were times that were difficult, but then von Stroheim wanted them to be difficult, and I understood that, understood him instinctively. I knew that whatever he wanted to do, if he wanted to be wild and difficult, then that was what he would do. The first scene that we did together had to be done at night. Towards the morning, when the sun was rising, we rushed to finish because the light was spoiling the night effect. Of course we had the dialogue that von Stroheim had written, and even though it was a silent film the dialogue had to be just right and letter perfect. He forgot his lines and I was able, because I felt so much in the scene and was relating to him, to throw him cues that didn’t spoil the scene, we kept going. Well, he was astonished, he was just so astonished that I could do that, and then excited, very excited, so there was a rapport between us that was wonderful.”

“Sometimes he’d get a little unreasonable and want me to cry, even in rehearsal. I thought that was unfair. I learned how to cry on that film, I think. But there were a lot of lovely moments, and they all seemed so real, everything was so real, I never felt there was any acting going on. When I took the string off the box of candy, von Stroheim said ‘When you do that, put it around your neck like you’re saving it,’ and I thought that was a brilliant little thing to do, because if she’s a peasant girl she would think of that, and would save the string, every bit of it would be important to her. That was a sweet scene.

“There were some wonderful things in the second part, The Honeymoon. There were scenes that we shot high up in the Sierras and then we went back to the studio where they built a set to look like mountain scenery for closer shots. That was where we did our farewell scene. I was going to return home to Vienna, and von Stroheim was to say goodbye to me. That really turned out to be goodbye between Erich von Stroheim and Fay Wray. At that point I didn’t know, and maybe he didn’t know either, that they were going to shut production down, because it was over budget, and there was an enormous amount of film to be cut, so that was truly our farewell scene.

“I didn’t see von Stroheim again until several years later when he was playing in a stage version of Arsenic And Old Lace. I did not go to see the play, but a friend who was in the cast told me that von Stroheim hoped I would come to see him between scenes at a matinee. I went to his dressing room and he had this beautiful French girl (Denise Vernac) with him who was his companion for about 18 years. That meeting seemed fairly unreal. I was glad to see him again, and I’m sure he was glad to see me, or he wouldn’t have asked that come. But the meeting didn’t have very much animation, it was just kind of matter of fact. I didn’t know how to shape it into anything else, particularly, and we just pretty much sort of stared at each other. The French girl stared at me and I stared a her. Von Stroheim and I said we were happy to see each other. Cliché things. I saw him one time after that, when he came to Hollywood and Willie Wyler gave a dinner party. Then, only a few years ago someone came to see me here, at von Stroheim’s request. I thought this was extraordinary. Not too long before von Stroheim had died, this man had been his friend. When he came, I thought surely if he came to talk to me about von Stroheim it was because he wanted to write down my memories of von Stroheim. And so we talked on that basis for a while, and then just before he was to go I said, ‘Will you be writing this, will you be writing about von Stroheim? He said, ‘Oh, no, no. I have just come because he said if you ever go to the United States, will you please go to see her.’ And I was absolutely choked up as said goodbye to him. I was very touched by that, very touched that he would ask this man to come and see me. He didn’t give him any particular message for me so it was a sweet and lovely gesture on his part like a message of wonderful good feeling to me. I took it that way and I have to take it that way. It was beautiful, just beautiful.

“I saw at least one of his lesser films on television, in which he acted and I thought, he is the only thing I’m seeing this picture for or care about, and I’m sure that was true of the average viewer, because he’s so compelling. I remember in SUNSET BOULEVARD when he was playing the servant to Gloria Swanson, there was a scene when she was performing and he wanted her to be so good that you could see that in him, that he was giving her all her strength. He didn’t say a thing, as I remember, but he watched her with that wonderfully supportive look.

“When I first went to Paramount, it was during the transitional period from silent to sound, and the burden of that was pretty heavy on the studio, I think, and they hardly knew how to deal with it. That reflected on a great many of us who were there, and I found circumstances very uncomfortable. I felt I was restricted by very circumscribed stories, and put into things that didn’t suit me and I didn’t suit. It went both ways. I think LEGION OF THE CONDEMNED had certain elements that were good for me. That was my first film at Paramount. There were some good things about STREET OF SIN, but they were cut out. And then I did POINTED HEELS. I didn’t belong in that. I don’t think I belonged as a gangster’s moll in THUNDERBOLT. They were pretty clichéd stories, and it was kind of impersonal.”

“I did see DOCTOR X in preview, but at that point I was not liking anything I was in very much because they were stereotypical roles, nothing very human about it, and I felt stuck in those things. Michael Curtiz was very excitable and impatient. In the unmasking scene for MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM, they only had two masks, so they could only film the scene twice. I wasn’t allowed to see Atwill’s make-up before the scene was shot, and when I first cracked the mask and saw that make-up, I stopped and backed away, which is what I felt a real person would actually do. But Curtiz wanted me to break away the entire mask and ordered the scene reshot. I really didn’t know Lionel Atwill well. I made three films with him, but we never had an extended conversation. He was polite enough, but seemed more interested in checking to see if his profile was correct.

“To have had THE WEDDING MARCH for my first important film was extraordinary. If I could have gone on and done two or three or four pictures with von Stroheim, it would have made a very different kind of career for me. I would have liked to have had that happen, but failing that, I think it was beautiful to have had that opportunity at that point in my life. To be appreciated by von Stroheim was marvelous. None of the quality I had in THE WEDDING MARCH and none of the freedoms that were allowed me in THE WEDDING MARCH ever came my way again.

“There was so much tragedy around von Stroheim. There had been so much tragedy. And he was always looked upon, by many I think, as a self-indulgent, difficult director. Many people admired his work and many people criticized him, and those who did that, I think, would have been lucky to have had some of his talent, because I certainly recognized it, and I never again worked with anyone who could touch that. I admired him. I really admired him.”

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