Foolish Wives

Erich von Stroheim, Universal, 1922. He plays Count Karamzin, a fake Russian living off American women in Monte Carlo. Miss DuPont is the envoy’s wife; Maude George and Mae Busch are the cousins who work with him. Stroheim built a stretch of the Riviera on the lot and ran the budget past a million, a figure Universal advertised and then used against him. Irving Thalberg took the picture away and cut it from hours to a night’s program. What remains is a confidence man who believes the extras should wear silk. The count is the director’s idea of Europe.