Merry-Go-Round is a 1923 American feature film directed by Erich von Stroheim (uncredited) and Rupert Julian, starring Norman Kerry and Mary Philbin, and released by Universal Pictures.

Having by chance met the innocent little organ-grinder Agnes (Philbin), a peasant toiling in Vienna’s amusement park, representing a type of womanhood with which he is totally unfamiliar, he experiences a strong attraction.

A story began to take shape with the central themes built around the Prater, Vienna’s world-famous amusement park and its main attraction, the Merry-Go-Round, from which the film’s title is taken.

The production, from the beginning, was fraught with internecine struggles pitting Universal executives against Von Stroheim and his technical assistants over content, scheduling and budgetary control of the film.

[10] Von Stroheim felt confident that an appeal to Universal president Carl Laemmle would resolve the matter in his favor, curbing Thalberg’s authority, an expectation of which he was quickly disabused.

Biographer Richard Koszarski offers an excerpt from Thalberg’s notification to von Stohiem:[12] “The fact that more productions have not been completed is due largely to your totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination, your extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice in the slightest particular, repeated an unnecessary delays occasioned by your attitude in arguing against practically every instruction that has been given you in good faith, and by your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you...you have time and again demonstrated your disloyalty to our company, encouraged and fostered discontent, distrust and disrespect in the minds of your fellow employees, and have attempted to create an organization loyal to yourself , rather than the company you are employed to serve...”[13]Upon von Stroheim’s departure, Universal instantly replaced him with Rupert Julian.

Heroine Agnes Urban’s (Mary Philbin) emotional struggles are examined with empathy, marking the first time von Stroheim creates “a dramatically successful female, an indication of a general shift in his interest.”[16] Von Stroheim's nostalgic recreation of Vienna's Belle Époque serves as a sentimental tribute to the Habsburg monarchy and its ancien regime, both of which suffered social and economic collapse during World War I.

[17] Despite the fact that von Stroheim’s name had been expunged from the credits, viewers who attended the premiere at New York’s Rivoli Theater were well aware that he had conceived, if not executed, Merry-Go-Round.