Foolish wives (1922)

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Foolish Wives (1922) was Erich von Stroheim’s third feature for Universal, serving as both film director and star in a classic silent drama comprised of seduction and extortion. Upon its release in 1922, the film was advertised as the “first million-dollar movie” and promised a legendary performance by von Stroheim, drawing fixated attention from American news outlets and audiences alike.

After a few years of being an assistant to D.W. Griffith and a portrayer of cruel Huns during the First World War, Erich von Stroheim talked Universal`s Carl Laemmle into letting him direct and act in his own film, Blind Husbands (1919). His second film, The Devil`s Passkey, was also successful, and von Stroheim was given a blank check for his first really big effort, Foolish Wives.

Von Stroheim wanted to depict the confused milieu of post-war Europe in a realistic fashion, tracing all through the actions of a bogus count and his seductive, corrupt ways. The plot concerns a Russian émigré adventurer and two of his mistresses posing as his cousins who lease a villa on the sea near Monte Carlo. When a special American envoy accompanied by his young wife comes to confer with the Prince of Monaco, the imposters are anxious to meet and cultivate them. The count very nearly seduces Mrs. Hughes, first in an old hut where they are forced to take refuge from a storm, and later in the tower of his villa. The tower is set on fire by his maid, whom he has also seduced, and as the count`s escapades begin to unravel, he prepares to flee. First, however, he pays a last visit to his counterfeiter, Ventucci, where he violates Ventucci`s feeble-minded daughter. She is his last victim for Ventucci kills the count and deposits his body in a sewer. The Hugheses are reconciled.