Merry-Go-Round
To start with, Merry-Go-Round was Erich von Stroheim's project: he conceived of the idea, wrote the story, helped design the sets, and planned to play the leading role. However, the studio nixed the last idea, and then, after filming had begun, removed Stroheim as director. The explanation offered was excessive spending, for which Stroheim with his obsessive attention to detail, was already known (although reports that the soldiers in the film wore monogrammed underwear were clearly exaggerations). Replaced by Rupert Julian, the film nonetheless has Stroheim's imprint.
Set in Vienna just before, during and after World War I, Merry-Go-Round was a rehearsal for The Wedding March. The story involves a count who ordered by his Emperor, Franz Joseph, to marry a woman from the court, falls in love with a pretty organ grinder in the circus. A hopeless, hapless love, the gulf between their lives widens as the luxurious high-life of the court is juxtaposed with the drudging poverty of the circus. Although economically disparate, both worlds are depicted as morally dissipated: beneath the glistening gold of the Hapsburg court, the aristocracy takes their last decadent breaths; beneath the tinsel lights of the Prater Amusement Park, brutality and cruelty are bred of poverty. Only Mitzi, the virtuous circus girl, comes through the film morally unscathed.