Three Russian aristocrats lease a villa from which they can luxuriously enjoy Monte Carlo. They are: maid-pinching Maude George (as Princess Olga Petchnikoff), blonde-wigged Mae Busch (as Princess Vera Petchnikoff), and monocled lady-killer Erich von Stroheim (as Count Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin). You should also keep an eye on their foolish maid, Dale Fuller (as Maruschka). Mr. von Stroheim is the film's star, director, and writer. It becomes obvious the trio are really counterfeiting con artists. The gang of three are intrigued by the notice of the arrival of American Envoy Rudolph Christians (as Andrew J. Hughes) and his wife Miss DuPont (as Helen); they decide to strike up a societal acquaintanceship with the Americans, to help provide cover for their swindling. Then, von Stroheim shows Ms. DuPont his stiff cane, and give her bare legs a leer…

Have a great laugh when Ms. DuPont, while applying her face cream, declares she is twenty-one years old; husband's reply he that is a sun-burned forty-one shows he can shave off years with the best of them. Mr. Christians died during the production, and his white-haired replacement, back to the camera, is obvious; with all the expense obviously spent on "Foolish Wives", it's difficult to understand why von Stroheim could not add a little bit of cheap shoe polish to Robert Edeson's head. There are other problems with the story, which was brutally cut down from a multi-hour epic. Still, the studio heads could not cut the neither the length of von Stroheim's cigarettes, nor the fact that his (vanity) production of "Foolish Wives" retains its spectacle.

Erich von Stroheim is most famous for writing and directing the film 'Greed' (1924), which originally clocked in at 9 hours in length (42 reels of film). Much mutilated and shortened by various editors, the copies that survive today are about 239 minutes. This earlier film, known as the first million dollar film in terms of initial cost, features Stroheim as writer, director and star. The finished version that he delivered to Universal was 8 hours long! It also suffered a similar butchering, but today we have a cobbled together version that is 146 minutes (about two and a half hours). The film tells the story of a con man, a fake Count Karamzin (Stroheim) and his accomplices: it is never boring, is full of extravagant sets, some rich set pieces and it makes great use of color tinting and quick dissolves.

Stroheim's style seems to have had two main aspects: extravagant production and design with authentic detail, and scenes and sequences that unfold and develop in their own sweet time. At Point Lobos in Southern California, Stroheim had an immense reconstruction of Monte Carlo built as one of the major settings for the story. The frames there are filled with activity, huge casts of people, even down to little accurate details. These scenes are on the scale of 'Intolerance' (1916) or 'Cabiria' (1914).

No wonder he'd wind up with 42 reels: sequences develop at their own pace and are almost set pieces in themselves. The first obvious example is the opening scene on the balcony, in which we are introduced to the key characters (the Count, his two 'cousins,' the maid, the counterfeiter, Ventucci, and his daughter, who all figure in the finale) during a leisurely breakfast. Another famous one is the Count's failed attempt to seduce the wife, Mrs. Hughes, in the old hag's cottage during an intensive rainstorm.

The color tinting is well done throughout the film: daytime interiors will be brown; night time interiors a light plum and night exteriors blue; but Mr. and Mrs. Hughes's suite is only always black and white; during the finale there are fast cuts between the orange-red fire and the blue night. The entire film is interesting to watch, with von Stroheim nicely telling us with eye, tongue, and facial movements his wicked intentions, feelings and duplicitous nature.

The musical score by Sigmund Romberg is listenable all by itself, but is not the greatest matching piano accompaniment. We also get Mae Busch as one of the con 'cousins.' Later featured in 'Our Gang' comedies, she was also a regular fixture in many Laurel and Hardy shorts. She was "Mrs. Hardy" in three of them, including the wonderful sitcom type feature 'Sons of the Desert' (1933) and as Ollie's crazed fiancée in 'Oliver the Eighth' (1934).

I'll give the film an 8 for its sumptuous design and rich development.

Erich Von Stroheim is a very, very odd character in the history of cinema. He made several films which nearly bankrupted the studios due to his insane insistence of complete realism--to the point of absurdity. In the cases of "Greed" and "Foolish Wives" he also delivered films which were impossibly long--so long that audiences of the day never would have sat through movies of six or more hours in length! According to many, he delighted in bankrupting the studios and had perhaps the most adversarial relationship with the studios of any filmmaker in history. As a result, the studios severely cut his films to the point where they were barely Von Stroheim projects...and for years people have been saying that his ORIGINAL films, uncut, were works of genius...though without having seen the original films (as only a tiny number of studio execs did), who's to say that he was right and the studios wrong?! It's one of those mysteries we'll never solve, as the films only exist in truncated versions...though the folks who restored "Foolish Wives" tried their best to restore the missing 2/3 of the film. The prologue admits that it was not entirely successful as too much of the movie simply no longer exists. So, they pieced together what they had and tried to re-assemble the missing portions as best they could. Keep this in mind when you're seeing the movie...it's not Von Stroheim's film but it's also not the general release either.

The film begins just after WWI and is set in Monte Carlo. Three worthless Russian nobles live there and they are thieves who live through stealing from others. But they maintain a very solid image...that of noble and virtuous folk. Sergius (Von Stroheim) is a cad and plans on using the American Ambassador's wife to make a fortune and a false sense of respectability...all in order to help his poor cousins, the Princesses, to live in luxury. How? Well, by hanging out with respectable folks, the assumption is that the forged money he and his cousins gamble with will be assumed to be real...and readily accepted by the casinos. Plus, Sergius plans on hitting up this woman for money...money that she will gladly give him after he seduces her. Is this all there is to his infamy...nope. Along the way, he seduces several women!

Overall, this is a very watchable film and generally didn't seem disjoint...at least until the ending. At this point, the film jumped about a bit and seemed to be pieced together. As a result, I'd give the film a 7--a very good film but one that suffered, a bit, from being too melodramatic at times as well as being a bit weak at the end.