Film Review
After his first two directorial offerings had proven to be notable
successes, both with critics and audiences, Erich von Stroheim was
considered a safe bet by his bosses at Universal for their next
prestige production,
Foolish Wives.
Carl Laemmle, Universal's top man, should have known
better. Von Stroheim had overspent on his previous two
films and, true to form, he ended up overshooting the 250,000 dollar budget
Universal had allotted him by at least a factor of four on his next
film. When
Foolish Wives
was finally released Universal made great capital of the fact that it
was the first 'million dollar picture' but von Stroheim's relationship
with the studio was already on the wane.
The director's profligacy was the stuff of legend. He squandered
a small fortune building a full-size replica of the Monte Carlo setting
on Universal's back lot and incredibly detailed interiors of casinos
and luxury hotels. The cast were pumped with champagne and caviar
so they could authentically portray the decadent lifestyle of the idle
rich in the millionaires' favourite resort. The film took almost
a year to shoot, employed around 15,000 extras and took six months to
edit. As head of production, 20-year-old Irving Thalberg had an
impossible job trying to reign in von Stroheim's wild excesses and, in
the end, neither got what they wanted. Setting a pattern that
would be repeated several times before Hollywood finally gave up on von
Stroheim, the ten hour epic that the director had set out to make ended
up being hacked back to just over two hours.
Not for the first or last time in his career, von Stroheim cast himself
in the role of the bogus aristocrat, just as he had attempted to do in
real life. On his arrival in America, he had passed himself off
as a descendent of the Austrian nobility, whereas in fact his father
was a modest Jewish hat-maker. It was a deception that von
Stroheim stuck to and he certainly cut an imposing figure on and off
screen, expecting to get his way by force of personality and who he
claimed to be. The outright fraud that he portrays so
admirably in
Foolish Wives is
perhaps nearer to the real von Stroheim than he would dare admit.
In common with many of von Stroheim's films,
Foolish Wives is a dark and cruel
satire on the morality of it time, mocking the tendency of affluent
Americans to set greater store by surface impressions of respectability
than by nobler, deeper qualities founded on true virtue. It is
this failing which the main character and villain of the piece exploits
so mercilessly, by draping himself in robes of nobility that barely
conceal the manipulative, heartless fiend within. Karamzin is one
of von Stroheim's most loathsome and complex creations - not an
over-the-top caricature as in his early films in which he played an
assortment of nasty German officers, but a far more convincing
representation of a thoroughly evil man. In the film's grimmest
sequence, he leers with lecherous intent at a mentally impaired young
woman. He can barely hide his contempt as he tries to keep
his maid sweet so that he can extort from her her life's savings -
notice how casually he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand after
she has kissed him. To him, women are no more than objects of
gratification or sources of income. We shed no tears when he
meets his grim end at the hands of one of his victims, having narrowly
been burned alive by another. The fact that we find the character
so engaging says something - evil is so much more alluring than
goodness. Maybe it is because we learn far more about ourselves by watching
villains.
Von Stroheim's keen visual sense is what makes the film so interesting,
presaging the extravagant masterpieces he would soon go on to
make. It was no doubt his brief apprenticeship to D.W. Griffith
that gave him his love of spectacle and the technical competence to
achieve this on the big screen.
Foolish Wives includes two of his
greatest set-pieces - a violent storm in which Karamzin attempts to
have his way with his American victim and the fire sequence in which both
characters are almost burned alive. In the latter scene, the
director skilfully uses Griffith's technique of aggressive crosscutting
to add drama and excitement, building it to an almost
unbearable crescendo. More subtle examples of brilliance abound
in this film. In one scene, the camera slowly zooms in on the
maid, ending with a huge close up of her face. As we watch the
frozen visage we witness the most terrifying of transformations as the
woman who had previously succumbed to a fit of self-pitying despair
suddenly becomes consumed by murderous jealousy. This is
assuredly one of the most chilling scenes in von Stroheim's oeuvre, and
a tantalising insight into the man himself. Von Stroheim was not
only a genius filmmaker, he was also someone with a remarkably astute
understanding of human nature at its most abject.
Foolish Wives was a major
achievement for its time but the director's best work was yet to come.
© James Travers 2014
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Next Erich von Stroheim film:
The Merry Widow (1925)
Film Synopsis
In Monte Carlo of the early 1920s, Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin is a con
artist who makes a dishonest living by posing as a member of the
Russian nobility, along with his beautiful cousins Olga and Vera.
When his pockets are not stuffed with counterfeit banknotes provided by
the forger Cesare Ventucci, Karamzin has an easy time persuading rich
women who succumb to his charms to part with their cash. His
latest victim is Helen Hughes, the wife of the American ambassador
Andrew Hughes. His first attempt at seduction, in the midst of a
violent rainstorm, fails, but Karamzin is undeterred. When Helen
wins a small fortune at the roulette wheel the soi-disant count sees
his opportunity. Unfortunately, his maid Maruschka cannot stand
by and watch another woman be taken in as she once was by the
persuasive scoundrel. Realising that she is just one in a long
line of conquests, the maid acts to take her revenge...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.