On 2009-08-08 calvinnme, Fredericksburg, Va wrote: It is odd that 1929´s ´Great Gabbo´ was a commercial flop during that year. Actually it stands up as one of the better and weirder films of that first year of talking pictures. It stars Erich Von Stroheim as an egomaniac ventriloquist, Gabbo, that has endowed his mannequin, Otto, with all of his good qualities. He has a live-in girlfriend, Mary, whom he verbally abuses until she leaves him. Two years later finds Gabbo a great success and the headliner of a Manhattan revue. However, now Gabbo is regretting his break-up with Mary and wants her back. He thinks he sees an opportunity when Mary shows up in the chorus in the same show as Gabbo. Besides the unusual storyline this film has some of the odder musical numbers you´ll ever see, including a number in which the stars, dressed as spiders, throw each other around on stage while having a lovers´ quarrel. Sadly, the technicolor scenes from this film are gone forever, but the restored version of this film is excellent and highly recommended.
´Blind Husbands´ is a film in which Von Stroheim both directed and acted. The story seems somewhat routine now, but was considered racy for its day. It concerns a rather bland American doctor and his neglected wife on vacation in the Alps who cross paths with Lieutenant Erich Von Steuben (Von Stroheim), a military man with an eye for the ladies. He pursues the doctor´s wife while the doctor is preoccupied with climbing the local mountains. Its main features are that the characters are well-developed compared with other films of the 1910´s and also that the running time is a mere 90 minutes compared with later Von Stroheim efforts where he wound up going wild and shooting hours of film.
The following are the extra features. Kino has always been known for sideways attempts at extra features, and this disc is no exception. However, they are still quite interesting if you take the time to go through them.
Excerpts from the original Blind Husbands pressbook;
Audio clips of Valerie Von Stroheim and Paul Kohner - This is odd that this is in audio form only because in fact these are audio excerpts from the documentary ´The Man You Love to Hate´ which is on the ´Foolish Wives´ DVD.
Dossier on the ill-fated 1929 remake of Blind Husbands;
´The High Command,´ a 1944 radio broadcast;
A note on The Great Gabbo by Erich Von Stroheim - Here Von Stroheim expresses his regret that people thought that the direction was really his and not James Cruze. Cruze was one of Von Stroheim´s friends and apparently this accusation hurt Cruze quite deeply.
Photo gallery;
Published Works: A Brief Survey - Von Stroheim was the author and coauthor of quite a few books.
Portrait gallery. And summed up by saying Great double feature with extra features. Currently Blind Husbands / The Great Gabbo has an overall rating of 8 over 10.
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