Foolish Wives (1922)
Directed by Erich von Stroheim

Film Review

After his first two directorial offerings had proven to be notable successes, both with critics and audiences, Erich von Stroheim was considered a safe bet by his bosses at Universal for their next prestige production, Foolish Wives.  Carl Laemmle, Universal's top man, should have known better.   Von Stroheim had overspent on his previous two films and, true to form, he ended up overshooting the 250,000 dollar budget Universal had allotted him by at least a factor of four on his next film.  When Foolish Wives was finally released Universal made great capital of the fact that it was the first 'million dollar picture' but von Stroheim's relationship with the studio was already on the wane. 

The director's profligacy was the stuff of legend.  He squandered a small fortune building a full-size replica of the Monte Carlo setting on Universal's back lot and incredibly detailed interiors of casinos and luxury hotels.  The cast were pumped with champagne and caviar so they could authentically portray the decadent lifestyle of the idle rich in the millionaires' favourite resort.  The film took almost a year to shoot, employed around 15,000 extras and took six months to edit.  As head of production, 20-year-old Irving Thalberg had an impossible job trying to reign in von Stroheim's wild excesses and, in the end, neither got what they wanted.  Setting a pattern that would be repeated several times before Hollywood finally gave up on von Stroheim, the ten hour epic that the director had set out to make ended up being hacked back to just over two hours.

Not for the first or last time in his career, von Stroheim cast himself in the role of the bogus aristocrat, just as he had attempted to do in real life.  On his arrival in America, he had passed himself off as a descendent of the Austrian nobility, whereas in fact his father was a modest Jewish hat-maker.  It was a deception that von Stroheim stuck to and he certainly cut an imposing figure on and off screen, expecting to get his way by force of personality and who he claimed to be.   The outright fraud that he portrays so admirably in Foolish Wives is perhaps nearer to the real von Stroheim than he would dare admit.

In common with many of von Stroheim's films, Foolish Wives is a dark and cruel satire on the morality of it time, mocking the tendency of affluent Americans to set greater store by surface impressions of respectability than by nobler, deeper qualities founded on true virtue.  It is this failing which the main character and villain of the piece exploits so mercilessly, by draping himself in robes of nobility that barely conceal the manipulative, heartless fiend within.  Karamzin is one of von Stroheim's most loathsome and complex creations - not an over-the-top caricature as in his early films in which he played an assortment of nasty German officers, but a far more convincing representation of a thoroughly evil man.  In the film's grimmest sequence, he leers with lecherous intent at a mentally impaired young woman.  He can barely hide his contempt as he tries to keep his maid sweet so that he can extort from her her life's savings - notice how casually he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand after she has kissed him.  To him, women are no more than objects of gratification or sources of income.  We shed no tears when he meets his grim end at the hands of one of his victims, having narrowly been burned alive by another.  The fact that we find the character so engaging says something - evil is so much more alluring than goodness.  Maybe it is because we learn far more about ourselves by watching villains.

Von Stroheim's keen visual sense is what makes the film so interesting, presaging the extravagant masterpieces he would soon go on to make.  It was no doubt his brief apprenticeship to D.W. Griffith that gave him his love of spectacle and the technical competence to achieve this on the big screen.   Foolish Wives includes two of his greatest set-pieces - a violent storm in which Karamzin attempts to have his way with his American victim and the fire sequence in which both characters are almost burned alive.  In the latter scene, the director skilfully uses Griffith's technique of aggressive crosscutting to add drama and excitement, building it to an almost unbearable crescendo.  More subtle examples of brilliance abound in this film.  In one scene, the camera slowly zooms in on the maid, ending with a huge close up of her face.  As we watch the frozen visage we witness the most terrifying of transformations as the woman who had previously succumbed to a fit of self-pitying despair suddenly becomes consumed by murderous jealousy.  This is assuredly one of the most chilling scenes in von Stroheim's oeuvre, and a tantalising insight into the man himself.  Von Stroheim was not only a genius filmmaker, he was also someone with a remarkably astute understanding of human nature at its most abject.  Foolish Wives was a major achievement for its time but the director's best work was yet to come.

Film Synopsis

In Monte Carlo of the early 1920s, Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin is a con artist who makes a dishonest living by posing as a member of the Russian nobility, along with his beautiful cousins Olga and Vera.  When his pockets are not stuffed with counterfeit banknotes provided by the forger Cesare Ventucci, Karamzin has an easy time persuading rich women who succumb to his charms to part with their cash.  His latest victim is Helen Hughes, the wife of the American ambassador Andrew Hughes.  His first attempt at seduction, in the midst of a violent rainstorm, fails, but Karamzin is undeterred.  When Helen wins a small fortune at the roulette wheel the soi-disant count sees his opportunity.  Unfortunately, his maid Maruschka cannot stand by and watch another woman be taken in as she once was by the persuasive scoundrel.  Realising that she is just one in a long line of conquests, the maid acts to take her revenge...