Kitty Kelly (Gloria Swanson) and Prince Wolfram (William Byron) can’t take their eyes off each other as their paths diverge. But the fictional pre-WWi country of Cobourg-Nassau is presumably a small one, and Kelly becomes Prince Wolfram’s new obsession. So he and his lackey and doorman (Wilson Benge and Sidney Bracey) burn down her convent. They do this to ‘rescue’ her. Because of or despite those circumstances, they fall in love, but Wolfram still has his engagement to Queen Regina V. Seena Owen plays the queen who is in her right to be mad about Wolfram falling in love with Kelly. Meanwhile, Kelly gets a telegram saying that she must care for her ailing Aunt (Sylvia Ashton) in German East Africa (contemporary Tanzania).

Milestone Films has produced a new gorgeous reconstruction of Queen Kelly using the original nitrate 35mm materials. Sure, a lot of this restoration showcases director Erich von Stroheim’s preferences towards a more ornate mise en scene. But he’s also capable in capturing the performance of his frenemy Gloria Swanson, who depicts Kelly as sympathetic. Any other actress would fumble a role by reducing Kelly as a wayward woman but not Swanson, who sees the good in Kelly. Von Stroheim also captures the tenderness between Kelly and Wolfram, even in scenes when the former is sleeping, post-fire. The same goes for Wolfram’s with his doorman and lackey communicating their rapport in a silent film with minimal inter titles.

Queen Kelly, like any film about a love triangle, has its shades of melodrama, a great entry point into von Stroheim’s filmography. He’s an ambitious director, someone who preferred his fairy tales even if the modern world is violently calling. This film captures beautiful contradictions, like characterizing Regina as a flapper girl than an evil queen that reads older. The first scene depicts her in her bedroom and the rest of the first act showcases Owen’s characterizations and expressions. Choosing for Regina to have a wonky eye is timeless, which she eventually gets under control unlike her emotions. Although despite whipping Kelly all over the palace, one can’t help but find sympathy for a woman who can’t have it all.

Von Stroheim is still a pre-code director, and with that, Queen Kelly delivers on the shocking aspects of sexual desire. After all, the supposedly lovely scene showing Kelly and Wolfram’s meet cute has her throwing her underwear at him. That shock value is present in the whipping scenes as well as the scenes in East Africa involving Kelly’s scuzzy ‘household’ (Rae Daggett, Robert Frazier). Milestone’s 105 minute restoration is the closest we’ll get to a full version, originally five hours had all gone right. I can only imagine another hour of this, maybe depicting a problematic version of Kelly’s ‘hellish’ queendom in a harem. Or a depiction of a prurient age, a rotten one where a woman finds her salvation through her prince’s return.

Queen Kelly is available to watch on one night engagements in select North American cities.