IslandGuru Who payed the critics

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Jamie Ward When it comes to the world of cinema, there has never been and probably never will be a bigger villain to make an impact on the screen more than that of—cue ominous stinger—the studio executive. Our oft belittled and antagonised hero, the auteur-director-genius, fights for his art to survive the relentless scissors which hack and cut and simplify and malign his soul's innermost-visions, his heart's dismays and his head's vitriol at a world which sneers at the misunderstood, holier-than-thou artist. The villains play their part well, and live up to their reputations in more cases than not. However, when watching Foolish Wives, one can't help but feel that maybe roles have been reversed for a short while. Erich von Stroheim writes, directs and stars in his first "grand vision" of a film which somewhat fittingly focuses on a leading character with no likable qualities or redeeming features. In the majority of other films, he would be the villain. Unlike Lon Chaney in 1920s gangster flick The Penalty however, this doesn't make the rest of Stroheim's bloated film interesting or in any way enjoyable. Watching the movie now, with a mere 140 minutes of footage salvaged from the original six hours, it's plain to see why most of the movie was mercilessly cut to ribbons. Often laboriously indulging in his own elaborate sets and painfully uninteresting characters (with the exception of his own), the film goes on and on, only briefly doing something interesting before succumbing back to mundane trivialities that go nowhere slowly. Stroheim does a fair job at portraying his character as dutifully repugnant as was obviously his intent, and his cast of supporting actors and actresses hand in commanding performances when called upon. But in building this self-indulgent attack on what he saw as European hypocrisy, the director comes off as a bit of a sham himself; talking loudly and endlessly about next to nothing of any real significance other than as a means to stroke his own fragmented ego. The moral of the story? The cutting room floor isn't always where genius and art dies. Sometimes it's where overweight, needlessly self-important films go to heaven. There's probably a decent film here, but it was lost in the seventies, not in the twenties.

rgcustomer What can be said? This movie is a challenge of near-epic proportions.Today, we have killer food-eating contests (quantity, spiciness). But I think 1922 may have given us our first film endurance challenge that may actually have an impact on human health.Fifteen minutes in, you realize this is no entertainment. It's an assault on the mind. After having been told this film, slightly longer than 2 hours, was cut from a planned 6-10 hours, you contrast this information with the slow, plodding, drawn-out, pointless scenes. The maddening impossibility of it attacks logic, fries the brain.I believe a good many reviewers had to have access to a sharp stick, or perhaps some illegal speed-like drugs, to survive the ordeal. Even live piano accompaniment does nothing to diminish the strain of trying to remain awake, in a pleasant mood.I'm so glad it's over. You'd best avoid it. If you don't, remember I warned you.

hasosch Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957) was a man with many realities. He was born into a poor Jewish family in Vienna, tried to join the Habsburgian army but was rejected, flew to the United States and started as a swimming instructor and boat guide. How he managed to meet David Griffith is unclear, but finally Griffith appointed von Stroheim as assistant director for his "Intolerance" (1916). It is hard to imagine how such different characters like Griffith and von Stroheim could get along with one another, but I assume that the most important feature that they shared was their megalomania. Soon after, von Stroheim started his career as director and actor, although he had no education at all – not in theater, not in film business, not in literature. But this did not prevent him either to write screenplays.After his debut with Griffith, he changed his identity and invented a new one. He added the predicate "von" to his name, told everybody that he is the descendant of a family of Viennese nobles and had made a carrier as an imperial officer in the Habsburgian army. Von Stroheim trained so long, until he could perfectly imitate the behavior of all ranks from a colonel up to a general, from a prince up to a count. And these were the roles that he should play mostly during his whole life: counts, barons, captains, lieutenants, majors, generals. He played them until he believed that he was what he played: the borders between his seeming and his being became more and more fluid. It therefore would be a terrible mistake to assume that Erich von Stroheim was a liar, a cheater and a betrayer. Similar to Don Quixote, he constructed his own reality, including his identity – and believed in it himself.Strangely enough, although von Stroheim directed only about 10 movies, but acted in in 74, he is nowadays known mainly as a director. Once arrived in the United States, the Habsburgian monarchy was broken together already, so nobody could check if Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian noble, an officer or not. In his very personal way, von Stroheim took the famous passage of the Declaration of Independence more seriously than many other Americans or peoples who became Americans: the breaking-up of his own past and scooping out fully his chances in the land of unlimited possibilities. However, in creating his personal reality, he was obliged to maximal authenticity. So von Stroheim for example reconstructed meticulously the Casino of Monte Carlo for his movie "Foolish wives" (1922). Instead of using raspberry jam as imitation for caviar he had imported original Russian Beluga caviar – extremely expensive and hard to get so shortly after World War I. The movie was the hitherto most expensive film, it cost over one million of dollars. Von Stroheim's megalomania – caused by his obsession for authenticity in order to convince not only the public but mostly himself about his creations of reality – leaded finally to the end of his directing career in the United States – and also inaugurated much later his fame as the most extravagant film director ever.Married to Valérie Germonpréz, Erich von Stroheim met already in the United States his secretary and later life-mate Denise Vernac (1916-1984), who was 31 years younger than him. Although he never divorced from his wife, he finally left the U.S. after his failure as a director and lacking film roles. He settled to France in the castle of his girlfriend who enabled von Stroheim to continue his life of self-creation. He always wore his golden watch and bracelet, his stick with silver knob and dressed like a baron. Totally unaware that he could never reestablish himself as a film director, he continued writing screenplays that would never be filmed. His style of writing was so clumsy that he could not even publish the novels that he also wrote. He drew whole film scenarios that never would be put in scene. Meanwhile he appeared in main roles in French and again in American movies in which he played his usual roles in order to forget that he sat, as a director, unnoticed by the world in the castle of his girlfriend, writing letters of love to his wife, but fully depending financially on his girlfriend, his only public performances being his showing-ups in Paris' most expensive high-society restaurant "Maxims" where everybody knew him. In order to get there from Maurepas, where von Stroheim and Denise Vernac lived, they had to drive each evening a long way. Often, von Stroheim presented himself in the restaurant in the costumes of the barons and generals that he played on screen: the borders between reality and fantasy were abolished. However, he did not lack a special kind of self-irony, and this is shown best in "Foolish wives", where a girl is reading a book with the same title, allegedly written by Erich von Stroheim or in another movie where he played a megalomaniac film director. But nevertheless, he acted in real life, and his life of self-creation was doubtless his greatest role. In this context, is seems almost ironical that only a few days before his death the state of France appointed him knight of the honorary legion: Erich von Stroheim's only real award that was not created by himself.

Mike-764 Three Russian aristocrats soak up the decadence of Monte Carlo, despite the fact they are down to their last franc. In order to support their lavish lifestyle, the three use the services of a counterfeiter, and use the notes at the casinos, hoping to exchange the bogus currency for a jackpot. Andrew Hughes, a US envoy, arrives at Monaco with his wife Helen, and the three decide to make pals with the visitors, hoping for financial assistance. One of the three Russians, Count Sergius Karamzin, plans to go further, with continuous advance towards Helen, while disappointing the Count's maid, who loves Sergius. Eventually, circumstances play their hand against the three aristocrats. Its obvious that Von Stroheim was trying to convey a message (with the foolishness of American women and the improper behaviors of the aristocrats), rather than tell a story, and the film really can bore modern audiences, like me, easily by doing that. Even the acting, which is great in later EvS like Greed and the Wedding March, is just run of the mill here. The film could have used improvements on various levels. Rating, 3.