For a film with such a condescending title, this film certainly spends most of its time excoriating its callous male protagonist. Though the female characters don't fare so well, either, they are shown to be victims of an uncaring conman who uses fake tears, blatant lies, and cons-within-cons to make himself rich. His undoing lies in the disregard he shows for his victims, his hubristic belief that just because he can fool them the pain he causes won't come back on him.

I have a feeling that if this were remade today, Count Karamzin would be a debonair, lovable rogue, and that in the end, he would fall for his primary victim and live happily ever after. Thankfully, this was made when films had a certain morality to them rather than an overarching need to give the audience a happy ending.

Silent Summer

Foolish Wives is an impressive filmmaking exercise. Monte Carlo is recreated in Hollywood and looks marvellous, capturing the wealth, luxury, and excess of the characters. The intertitles are poetically written and the entire piece feels very high art. The story follows a con man seeking to be seen as great and respectable, but ending up with an ironic, unceremonious fate. Foolish Wives is full of seductive moments and sexual undertones, giving it an edge over some more conservative silent films. This is a very well made picture and a fascinating piece overall.

Innovation and exploitation, creation and destruction: building the biggest, most beautiful set in the world, and burning it down. Totally unbelievable - dismantling European modernism as soon as it had merely started, and dismantling codified modes of cinematic representation before it had even settled in.

Adult cinema, possibly the first truly mature work the medium had to offer.

An extravagant exploration of the hideousness found in the overlap of sex, money, and romance. Erich von Stroheim and his team masterfully recreate Monte Carlo — some of the film’s best moments come in the form of wide shots and establishing details that highlight the setting. This was cut down from a supposedly much-longer film, and it shows: the pacing zips along without much rumination on any particular event, and it definitely feels like something is missing.

Feared the worst with a title like this but its quite good. This is the first Stroheim for me and he seems to be as sophisticated and detailed as Griffith with a greater sense of milieu to boot, though I found the film rather technically deficient even for its time. Very intertitle heavy it allows for morally and emotionally complex characters weaving a much more interesting narrative than others of this era I've been watching.

Would recommend.

What was it with Erich von Stroheim that always wanted to make this 6-8hr long features?
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A con man looking to reach the high status on society goes around trying to fool this rich girls. But things will soon spiral out of control.

Not gonna lie, I'm being respectful with my rating here. Mostly because the story and some of the dialogue are very interesting and witty.

There are some good cinematography as well, which makes many of the scenes and characters look pretty macabre.

Unfortunately the copy that I found had no even a score so all the dead silence played against the feature for me. Also I couldn't fully connect with the film. Plus for an erotic drama, there's almost zero erotism in it.

All in all, a conceptually interesting film that personally falls victim of its own limitation.

“Foolish” only for not listening to the warning slime that I could feel through the screen. This is probably one of the most self-indulgent films that I’ve seen that wasn’t experimental. There was some surprising sarcasm in the dialogue about the adulterous love letter and the fire scene was quite a spectacle, but there wasn’t really anything else that stood out for me. God only knows the levels of arrogance von Stroheim must have had to think anyone would have wanted to watch thirty reels of this. I tell you what would make a good film - a biopic of the making of Foolish Wives with Leo as von Stroheim and someone like, I don’t know, a more serious Hank Azaria as Laemmle.

Although far from the only director/star of the silent era, Stroheim seemed to have enjoyed the transportive qualities of cinema the most. He seems to revel in his costuming here and the role of playing a cad, which you’d have to be to make a six hour movie out of this story. Really makes him perfect casting for his role in Sunset Boulevard because he is such a personality even without dialogue.

Luis’ Essential Cinema Selections (The 1920s; Films #201 To #350)

Film #237: Foolish Wives

Why Is It Essential?: Arguably Pioneering Austrian Director Erich Von Stroheim's most infamous film, featuring his usual tale of men behaving badly and women being victims to their bad behavior. Also selected among the films you should watch before you die.

My Review: I'm admittedly mixed with Erich von Stroheim's work and this is just like all of them for me. He does great film making but I always feel like the storytelling itself leaves me feeling down and without much of anything happy to leave with. It all rounds out to a decent film that I just can't fall in love with.

Final Grade: B-

More On The List As A Whole:
letterboxd.com/authorlmendez/list/luis-essential-cinema-selections-the-start/

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Obviously butchered, impossible to judge, almost certainly more important than the loss of Greed.

Watched with 808s & Heartbreak and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. New money falling for old money, and old money is a vampire. But what if the only way to learn to see is falling for an image until you bump or burn into the real? What if the only way to kill a bloodsucking image is in the cut to birds taking flight from a rooftop, silhouetted against the dawn? The vampire disappears into the sewer.

The Holy Cup of Cinema is the name for the seven hours that were cut from the film by order of Eric himself, and he wasted a lot of his genius and wasted a lot of fun for us.

People keep telling me this was originally six hours long, so all I'm thinking is - what on earth did they cut?

A gloriously lavish film with spectacular photography and a villain for the ages. Although Foolish Wives was butchered just like Stroheim's Greed was, this tale of a malevolent conman is still striking, and Stroheim's direction is frankly incredible. It is also ridiculously entertaining.