Foolish Wives (1922)

Director:

Erich von Stroheim

Writers:

Marian Ainslee (titles)
Walter Anthony (titles)

Release Date:

11 January 1922 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

The first real MILLION DOLLAR PICTURE

Plot:

"Count" Karanzim, a Don Juan is with his cousins in Monte Carlo, living from faked money and the money he gets from rich ladies...

Plot Keywords:

Melodrama | Society | Partially Lost Film

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Rudolph Christians	...	Andrew J. Hughes (U.S. Special-Envoy to Monaco)
Miss DuPont	...	Helen Hughes, his wife
Maude George	...	Her Highness Olga Petchnikoff
Mae Busch	...	Princess Vera Petchnikoff
Erich von Stroheim	...	Their Cousin, Count Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin (Capt. 3rd Hussars Imper. Russian Army)
Dale Fuller	...	Maruschka, a Maid
Al Edmundsen	...	Pavel Pavlich, a Butler
Cesare Gravina	...	Cesare Ventucci, a Counterfeiter
Malvina Polo	...	Marietta, his half-witted daughter (as Malvine Polo)
C.J. Allen	...	Albert 1., Prince of Monaco

Also Known As:

Esposas Levianas (Portugal) [pt]
Esposas frívolas (Spain) [es]
Femmine folli (Italy) [it]
Folies de femmes (France) [fr]
Hupsut vaimot (Finland) (video title) [fi]
Järjettömiä naisia (Finland) [fi]
Närrische Frauen (Austria) [de]
Närrische Weiber (Germany) [de]
Oi anoites gynaikes (Greece) (reissue title) [el]
Rouletten (Denmark) [da]
Szalone zony (Poland) [pl]
Törichte Frauen (Germany) [de]
Tolle Weiber (Austria) [de]
Trelles gynaikon (Greece) [el]

Runtime:

117 min | Sweden:384 min | Canada:140 min (Ontario)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Canada:G (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Backlot, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company:

Universal Film Manufacturing Company

Trivia:

A Super Jewel Production. Universal, not owning a proprietary theater chain, devised a 3-tiered branding system in order to market its feature product to independent theater owners: Red Feather (low budget programmers), Bluebird (mainstream releases) and Jewel (prestige pictures produced to draw higher roadshow ticket prices). At $1.104 million, this production was so costly that the studio wanted to differentiate it from even it's Jewel releases, branding this a "Super" Jewel, ensuring it special promotion and premium admission prices. Although the film made a nice profit, Erich von Stroheim (acting as producer as well as director) was rapidly becoming unemployable due to his flagrant excesses which enraged Carl Laemmle.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the original actor playing Mr. Hughes died in the middle of filming, he was replaced by a double, who completed his scenes with his back mostly to the camera. Apparently, however, nobody noticed that the original actor had significantly darker hair than his replacement. Therefore, Mr. Hughes's hair turns white in several scenes, including the sequence where his wife says goodbye to him in the casino, and his confrontation with the count at the villa.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

von $$$troheim

This(and not Greed) is the beginning of Erich von Stroheim's slide out of the director's chair. Because of cost overruns, a lengthy shooting schedule and stroheim's temperament, the managers at Universal City had to reign in their home grown genius. When Irving Thalberg questioned Stroheim concerning these over runs, the director said something to the effect that he couldn't fire him because he(Stroheim) was also the star of the picture... Since the film was midway through production the New York office bit the bullet. On the next film they wouldn't let Stroheim act in it and fired him about a third of the way through. When Thalberg and L.B. Mayer were put in charge of the Goldwyn lot after the merge between Goldwyn and Metro, Stroheim was on location shooting Greed. At that point stroheim's reputation was already shaky and Greed was the prverbial straw.

With all that said, Erich von Stroheim is not one of the best film directors of the "silent" era, he's one of the greatest director's of all time. And even in its truncated version - wives was supposed to run six hours - you still see a glimmer of what the man could achieve through the use of cinema. Check out the movie.