Erich von Stroheim

Rudolph Christians

Miss DuPont

Maude George

Mae Busch

Dale Fuller

Cesare Gravina

Malvina Polo

Albert Edmondson

Mary Philbin

Nigel De Brulier

C.J. Allen

Robert Edeson

Agnes Emerson

Louise Emmons

Harrison Ford

Mrs. Kent

Edward Reinach

Louis K. Webb

William H. Daniels

Irving Thalberg

Edward Sowders

Louis Germonprez

Ben F. Reynolds

Arthur Ripley

Jack R. Proctor

Sigmund Romberg

James R. Sullivan

J. Frank Cork

George Williams

William Meyers

R.H. Cochrane

Julius Stern

Harry Joe Brown

Daniel Mandell

Van Alstein

Bob Roberts

Drama

Thriller

Foolish Wives

Universal Film Manufacturing Company

United States of America

CinemaSerf

It's a soap. Despite all the associated history of cuts, recuts and restoration it is still just a beautifully photographed soap opera. Erich von Stroheim did just about everything in this entertaining, if a little too cyclical, tale of a cad. That cad "Count Sergius Karanzim" (EVS) parades around the Côte D'Azur luring unsuspecting (wealthy) women to his rented villa in which he, with his two "cousins" (Maude George & Mae Busch as the Princesses "Petchnikoff") fleeces them relentlessly. For quite a while his charm, wit and guile provides them with a good living until he aims a little too high with the wife of an American diplomat in Monte Carlo. "Mrs. Hughes" (Miss Dupont) and her husband (Rudolph Christians) may well be about to put a spoke in the wheel of these confidence tricksters. It's good fun, this, with Von Stroheim eminently convincing as the con man and DuPont equally effective as his ditzy mark. The production is maybe a bit static, but at 100 years old, it is still delivered in a fashion that shows off the Mediterranean scenery whilst aiming one squarely between the eyes of the vacuous, riche, clientele who assumed their excesses of funds were adequate compensation for their gullibility, stupidity and naivety. It sags from time to time, so I am not hugely shocked that this original 21 reeler was scaled back somewhat. What we have here, though, still have flows well enough with succinct inter titles that are, at times, quite witty too. I am not sure I would ever bother to watch it again, but I am glad that I did. You can see here the template for so many films that followed.

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