Queen Kelly (1929)
Directed by Erich von Stroheim
A convent girl is abducted and seduced by a prince before being sent off to a brothel in East Africa.
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What critics compared Queen Kelly to
There are deliberate echoes to Sunset Boulevard, too, and through Gloria Swanson to 1929's Queen Kelly.
When Desmond shows Gillis her old film it's Queen Kelly (1929), a real, although incomplete, film directed by Stroheim and starring Swanson.
In another case of art imitating life, Norma's former director-turned-butler is played by Erich von Stroheim, who directed Swanson in Queen Kelly, the film that ruined his career behind the camera.
The excerpt of a silent movie starring Norma Desmond that appears within the film was actually an excerpt from "Queen Kelly," a controversial silent picture starring Gloria Swanson and directed by none other than her co-star here, Erich von Stroheim.
There are unmistakable parallels with von Stroheim, who directed Swanson in "Queen Kelly” (1928), whose credits included " Greed " and "The Merry Widow,” but who directed only two sound films and was reduced to playing Nazi martinets and parodies of himself in other people's films.
In fact, the silent movie screened in the old mansion is Queen Kelly, directed by von Stroheim in 1929 and starring Gloria Swanson.
Norma's faithful butler, Max Von Mayerling, turns out to be one of her former silent film directors (and he was played by Erich von Stroheim, who really was a silent film director and had really directed Swanson in a silent movie called Queen Kelly, a clip of which is featured in Sunset Blvd.).