“Erich von Stroheim's career at Universal was abruptly terminated during the early shooting stages of Merry-Go-Round when Irving Thalberg, then head of production, dismissed the ‘homme terrible' and placed Rupert Julian on the set. Nevertheless, Merry-Go-Round bears the luxuriant stamp of a Stroheim work.

“In this tale of romance transgressing the stringent class boundaries of pre-World War I Vienna, a dandified count finds himself betrothed to the war minister's daughter but in love with the virtuous daughter of a fairgrounds puppeteer. In spite of the young count's efforts to break his engagement, the wedding takes place as scheduled; though devastated, the humble, devoted Mitzi continues to care for him. At the outbreak of the war, Mitzi bands together with people from her circus milieu, including a sympathetic hunchback secretly in love with her whose pet orangutan kills the sadistic boss. After the war, the count, now a widower stripped of his rank and fortune, returns in search of his true love....

“Merry-Go-Round's profusion of characters creates a complex structure wherein multiple subplots segue into one another. This enables Stroheim to show the disparity of lifestyles (a crumbling, decadent aristocracy contrasted with impoverished common folk), thus orchestrating the mood of Vienna's final gasps of grotesque splendor under the Hapsburg dynasty. (This preoccupation with a dying Viennese empire is a theme which would reappear in his later works.) Highly romantic and moral, Merry-Go-Round is a film offering swift action, a richness of epoch atmosphere, and an abundance of compelling (melo)drama.”