Among the handful of films directed by Erich von Stroheim, the finest individual performance may be that of Fay Wray in The Wedding March. A young Viennese prince, Nicki von Wildeliebe-Rauffenburg (von Stroheim) falls in love with Mitzi (Wray), the daughter of an innkeeper. With his family fortune depleted, Nicki is forced to marry a wealthy commoner and is resigned to the life of a loveless marriage. Mitzi agrees to marry Schani (Matthew Betz), the brutal and uncouth butcher she hates, when he threatens to murder the prince out of jealousy. Imperial Austria is on full display in a beautifully placed two-color Technicolor sequence of the military procession where Nicki and Mitzi first meet amid the red tunics and white horses. When the prince seeks Mitzi out he finds her playing a harp in her family's beer garden amid the apple trees. This setting is the singly most significant of the film. Covered with blossoms, the swaying branches seem to glow against a dark background as the prince climbs a ladder to Mitzi's room for a midnight rendezvous. The scene is among the most beautiful in all of silent film. As the two lovers kiss on an old buggy, apple blossoms fill the air, a drowsy owl hoots and the moonlight peeks through the passing clouds. Mitzi's torment and misery in the final scene is heartbreaking as her tears mix with the rain while Schani laughs. Wray's performance of a sweet young girl consumed by love, menaced by a suitor she despises and destroyed by the tragic outcome defines sorrow itself.
Review of The Wedding March
