Foolish Wives (1922) on Netflix
In Monte Carlo, a con artist posing as Count Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin plans to charm and swindle wealthy women. His latest target is Helen Hughes, the unworldly wife of an American envoy.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb6.9/104,387 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Plot summary
A man calling himself Count Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin poses as a Russian aristocrat in Monte Carlo to seduce wealthy women and take their money. His accomplices, who pass as Princess Vera Petchnikoff and Her Highness Olga Petchnikoff, are his cousins. He turns his latest scheme on Helen Hughes, the unworldly wife of an American envoy, while her husband Andrew is nearby. Karamzin works to charm Helen, intending to fleece her, and she is quickly impressed by his fake aristocratic glamor. He also views a hotel maid, Maruschka, and Marietta, the mentally disabled daughter of a criminal associate, as easy sexual targets.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Foolish Wives (1922)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For the Monte Carlo casino sequences, von Stroheim had facsimile 1000 franc notes made by photoengraving, a counterfeiting method. Treasury Department officials were alerted, took von Stroheim and the engravers into custody, then released them; the matter was settled after protracted litigation.
- Rudolph Christians, who played U.S. Special-Envoy Andrew J. Hughes, died during production. Robert Edeson replaced him in the role and was filmed entirely from the back.
- Carl Laemmle made the 20-year-old producer Irving Thalberg head of production to rein in von Stroheim's spending. Von Stroheim defied him, "Remove me as the director and you remove me as the star, and you don't have a picture", and resumed filming on his own terms.
- Von Stroheim wanted Foolish Wives to run six to ten hours and be shown over two evenings, but Universal executives opposed the idea and the studio bosses cut the film drastically before its release date.
- On its 1922 release, Foolish Wives was the most expensive film made to that time, and Universal Studios billed it as the "first million-dollar movie" to come out of Hollywood.
- Fearing the Fatty Arbuckle scandal would link the film to lurid tabloid stories, Universal bused censors to the Beverly Hills Hotel for an all-night rough-cut screening on 18 August 1921. When von Stroheim protested, Universal removed him from the editing entirely.
- To meet the 11 January 1922 premiere, Universal had a special train carriage fitted with cutting apparatus so a team of editors could finish cutting the film on the journey from Hollywood to New York.
- Von Stroheim began editing 326,000 feet of footage; stripping out retakes, duplicates and damaged film left him about 150,000 feet with which to craft his story.
