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* ImpoverishedPatrician: The von Rauffenburgs are low on cash, which is why the marriage to Cecelia is arranged.

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* ImpoverishedPatrician: The von Rauffenburgs Wildeliebe-Rauffenburgs are low on cash, which is why the marriage to Cecelia is arranged.
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''The Wedding March'' is a 1928 film written by, directed by, and starring Creator/ErichVonStroheim. It features 19-year-old Creator/FayWray (''[[Film/KingKong1933 King Kong]]'') in her StarMakingRole.

Vienna, summer 1914 (in other words, right before the start of [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI The Great War]]). Prince Nickolas von Wildeliebe-Rauffenburg, aka "Nicki" (von Stroheim) is a cavalry officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, and a prince, the scion of a noble family that has seen better days. In fact, the von Rauffenburgs are pretty much broke. His money-hungry parents wind up arranging a marriage between Nicki and Cecelia Schweisser (played by [=ZaSu=] Pitts from von Stroheim's ''Film/{{Greed}}''), daughter of a nouveau riche magnate who has made a lot of money selling corn plasters.

While his parents are making this happen, however, Nicki the dissipated wastrel finds true love for the first time, in the person of Mitzi, a commoner (Wray). Mitzi has been promised in marriage as well, to a crude, boorish, brutish butcher named Schani. Mitzi and Nicki pledge eternal love to each other, but their families are determined to separate them.

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''The Wedding March'' is a 1928 silent drama film written by, directed by, and starring Creator/ErichVonStroheim. It also features 19-year-old Creator/FayWray (''[[Film/KingKong1933 King Kong]]'') in her StarMakingRole.

Vienna, in the summer of 1914 (in other words, right before the start of [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI The Great War]]). War]]): Prince Nickolas von Wildeliebe-Rauffenburg, aka "Nicki" (von Stroheim) Stroheim), is a cavalry officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, and a prince, the scion of a noble family that has seen better days. In fact, the von Rauffenburgs Wildeliebe-Rauffenburgs are pretty much broke. His money-hungry parents wind up arranging a marriage between Nicki and Cecelia Schweisser (played by [=ZaSu=] Pitts ([=ZaSu=] Pitts, from von Stroheim's ''Film/{{Greed}}''), the daughter of a nouveau riche magnate who has made a lot of money selling corn plasters.

While his parents are making this happen, however, Nicki the dissipated wastrel finds true love for the first time, in the person of Mitzi, Mitzi (Wray), a commoner (Wray). commoner. Mitzi has been promised in marriage as well, to a crude, boorish, brutish butcher named Schani.Schani (Matthew Betz). Mitzi and Nicki pledge eternal love to each other, but their families are determined to separate them.
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''The Wedding March'' is a 1928 film written by, directed by, and starring Creator/ErichVonStroheim. It features 19-year-old Fay Wray (''[[Film/KingKong1933 King Kong]]'') in her StarMakingRole.

to:

''The Wedding March'' is a 1928 film written by, directed by, and starring Creator/ErichVonStroheim. It features 19-year-old Fay Wray Creator/FayWray (''[[Film/KingKong1933 King Kong]]'') in her StarMakingRole.
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Vienna, summer 1914 (in other words, right before the start of [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI The Great War]]). Prince Nickolas von Wildeliebe-Rauffenburg, aka "Nicki" (von Stroheim) is a cavalry officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, and a prince, the scion of a noble family that has seen better days. In fact, the von Rauffenburgs are pretty much broke. His money-hungry parents wind up arranging a marriage between Nicki and Cecelia Schweisser (played by [=ZaSu=] Pitts from von Stroheim's ''Film/{{Greed}}'', daughter of a nouveau riche magnate who has made a lot of money selling corn plasters.

to:

Vienna, summer 1914 (in other words, right before the start of [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI The Great War]]). Prince Nickolas von Wildeliebe-Rauffenburg, aka "Nicki" (von Stroheim) is a cavalry officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, and a prince, the scion of a noble family that has seen better days. In fact, the von Rauffenburgs are pretty much broke. His money-hungry parents wind up arranging a marriage between Nicki and Cecelia Schweisser (played by [=ZaSu=] Pitts from von Stroheim's ''Film/{{Greed}}'', ''Film/{{Greed}}''), daughter of a nouveau riche magnate who has made a lot of money selling corn plasters.
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[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/this_is_theweddingmarch_original.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Apple blossoms]]
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Added DiffLines:

''The Wedding March'' is a 1928 film written by, directed by, and starring Creator/ErichVonStroheim. It features 19-year-old Fay Wray (''[[Film/KingKong1933 King Kong]]'') in her StarMakingRole.

Vienna, summer 1914 (in other words, right before the start of [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI The Great War]]). Prince Nickolas von Wildeliebe-Rauffenburg, aka "Nicki" (von Stroheim) is a cavalry officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, and a prince, the scion of a noble family that has seen better days. In fact, the von Rauffenburgs are pretty much broke. His money-hungry parents wind up arranging a marriage between Nicki and Cecelia Schweisser (played by [=ZaSu=] Pitts from von Stroheim's ''Film/{{Greed}}'', daughter of a nouveau riche magnate who has made a lot of money selling corn plasters.

While his parents are making this happen, however, Nicki the dissipated wastrel finds true love for the first time, in the person of Mitzi, a commoner (Wray). Mitzi has been promised in marriage as well, to a crude, boorish, brutish butcher named Schani. Mitzi and Nicki pledge eternal love to each other, but their families are determined to separate them.

Like every other film in von Stroheim's career, ''The Wedding March'' was a TroubledProduction. Shooting lasted from June 1926 until January 1927 and cost over a million dollars, a huge investment in both time and money for the 1920s. Editing lasted another year, at which point von Stroheim had managed to cut his mountain of footage to six hours. Paramount Pictures took the footage from von Stroheim and gave it to Creator/JosefVonSternberg, who edited it down further. The footage was cut into two films, ''The Wedding March'' and a sequel, ''The Honeymoon''. Unfortunately ''The Honeymoon'' is a lost film, the only known copy having burned up in a Paris fire not long after von Stroheim's death.

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!!Tropes:

* AbhorrentAdmirer: Schani, Mitzi's mean, crude, boorish admirer. He spits constantly. Mitzi is repulsed by him, but her mother, herself an awful monster, wants Mitzi married off.
* ArrangedMarriage: Nicki's parents push him into marrying Cecelia sight unseen.
* AttemptedRape: Schani is about to rape Mitzi when his father, who is much gentler, enters the room and saves her.
* AwfulWeddedLife: Maria and Ottokar hate each other's guts. Ottokar can only laugh when Nicki brings up the idea of marrying for love.
* CavalryOfficer: Nicki is every inch the proud cavalry officer while on duty, but he likes wine, women, and song when he isn't.
* CutShort: Well, it wasn't supposed to be, but the loss of ''The Honeymoon'' leaves the story like this. ''The Wedding March'' ends with Mitzi agreeing to marry Schani in order to stop him from murdering Nicki, but with a heavy sense of foreboding, like when the hands of the organ player dissolve to a skeleton's hands.
** ''The Honeymoon'' took the story into full DownerEnding territory. Schani goes hunting for Nicki after all, only for Cecelia to save her husband's life by TakingTheBullet. It doesn't do much good, though, as Nicki is killed in World War I not long after. Mitzi becomes a nun.
* EatingTheEyeCandy: Mitzi is very obviously taken when she first sees Nicki on horseback in his full dress uniform. The camera follows her eyes as she takes him in, from his polished boots to his buzzcut head.
* EmpathicEnvironment: The rain pours down in buckets for Nicki and Cecelia's melancholy wedding day.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: In his first scene Nicki is sleeping late, and fully dressed. He wakes up with a case of HangoverSensitivity. Women's clothing is scattered around his room. The maid picks up a woman's stocking, only for Nicki to pull her in for a kiss which she willingly returns. Nicki is fully established as a hard-partying libertine.
* HaveAGayOldTime: "If you think you can touch me, forget it," says Ottokar to his son. No, they don't have some weird gay incest thing going. In those times "touch" or "put the touch on" was slang for asking to borrow money.
* HighClassGlass: Von Stroheim always wore one, because he was almost always playing some Germanic officer, as he is here.
* ImpoverishedPatrician: The von Rauffenburgs are low on cash, which is why the marriage to Cecelia is arranged.
* LohengrinAndMendelssohn: Appropriately enough, in the restored soundtrack, Mendelssohn's "The Wedding March" is a motif throughout.
* NouveauRiche: Cecelia's father the corn plaster salesman is gauche and crass in the typical manner. He brusquely offers Ottokar a dowry of a million kronen, which Ottokar is only too thrilled to accept.
* APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy: Nicki's and Cecelia's fathers seal the deal during a party at a fancy whorehouse that devolves into an orgy. This scene, with half-naked prostitutes rolling around on the floor, is typical of how von Stroheim pushed the boundaries of censorship.
* RomComJob: It isn't a comedy, but nevertheless--Nicki is a dashing cavalry officer while Mitzi plays the harp at a Vienna pub.
* {{Sideboob}}: Seen from a scantily clad prostitute in the brothel scene, emblematic of the {{Fanservice}} often found in von Stroheim films.
* SleepingSingle: Nicki's parents Maria and Ottokar, mainly because they loathe each other.
* SplashOfColor: The royal procession is presented in early Technicolor. This lavish scene, which included a golden carriage that actually belonged to the real Emperor Franz Joseph, was typical of the spare-no-expense style that always got von Stroheim in trouble with his producers.
* TitleDrop: When Maria first raises the idea of Nicki marrying Cecelia Nicki says that she can march him down the aisle "to the Wedding March--tomorrow." This is before he meets Mitzi.

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