Foolish Wives
“The first million-dollar movie”
About Foolish Wives
Count Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin, a fraud, works Monte Carlo with two women he presents as Princess Vera Petchnikoff and Her Highness Olga Petchnikoff. He courts Helen Hughes, wife of the American envoy Andrew J. Hughes, and also pursues the maid Maruschka and Marietta, the daughter of his counterfeiter associate Cesare Ventucci. Maruschka, abandoned, sets a fire that traps Karamzin and Helen; he jumps clear, and Hughes pulls his wife out. Shunned, Karamzin tries to seduce Marietta. Ventucci kills him and dumps the body in a sewer. The two "cousins" are arrested.
Cast & crew
More about Foolish Wives
Shooting ran from the summer of 1920 into June 1921. Universal built a Monte Carlo casino and hotel on the backlot and put a coastal set on the Monterey Peninsula. Rudolph Christians, who played Andrew Hughes, died on February 7, 1921. Robert Edeson finished the role and was photographed from behind.
Themes
Making
Carl Laemmle put Irving Thalberg over the production when the schedule and the negative pile kept growing. Von Stroheim told them that dropping him as director meant dropping him as the star. Editors kept cutting on the train east for the New York opening.
Reviews
Variety granted the Monte Carlo sets and called the film frankly salacious. Photoplay called it an insult to American ideals and womanhood.
Audiences
The premiere ran about three and a half hours. The picture did not earn back the cost Universal had advertised.
Look
William H. Daniels and Ben F. Reynolds shot the backlot casino and the Monterey coast. The New York premiere print hand-colored the flames in the villa fire.
Music
Sigmund Romberg is credited with the music. J. Frank Cork adapted and conducted the score at the premiere. Timothy Brock wrote a new orchestral score for the Flicker Alley Blu-ray.
Preservation
The uncut negative is gone. Universal's general release ran about 117 minutes. The Museum of Modern Art and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival later assembled a 147-minute version, with tinted passages and a hand-colored fire, from material at MoMA, the Library of Congress, and the Cineteca Italiana. That version opened the 2022 San Francisco Silent Film Festival on May 5.
Notes
- Universal billed the picture as the first million-dollar movie. Variety repeated the studio figure of $1,103,736.38.
- The working title was Monte Carlo.
- Arthur Ripley cut a print of about 14,000 feet for the January 11, 1922 premiere at New York's Central Theatre. After the New York censor board objected, the general-release version was about ten reels.
- A character is shown reading a novel titled Foolish Wives and credited to Erich von Stroheim.
- C. J. Allen plays Albert I, Prince of Monaco.
- In 2008 the Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry.
Scenes
- A storm traps Karamzin and Helen overnight in a hut, and an old monk's arrival stops him.
- Maruschka sets the building on fire; Karamzin jumps and leaves Helen inside.
- Ventucci kills Karamzin and throws the body into a sewer.
Also available
- Internet Archive (femminefolli1921)
- Flicker Alley Blu-ray (July 14, 2023)
- Kino Video DVD of the 2013 American Film Institute restoration
