I found this silent film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, back in its day it was the most expensive film made, billed as the "first million-dollar movie" to come out of Hollywood, originally it was meant to be over 6 hours long, I watched the 2-and-a-half-hour version, directed by Erich von Stroheim (Greed). Basically set after the First World War, in Monte Carlo, a man is posing as Count Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin - Captain 3rd Hussars Imperial Russian Army (Erich von Stroheim) in order to take advantage of unsuspecting women and citizens. With the help of his partners in crime, his two mistresses "Princess" Vera Petchnikoff (Mae Busch) and "Her Highness" Olga Petchnikoff (Maude George), he attempts to seduce rich women to extort money from them. Count Karamzin begins scamming the unworldly wife of an American envoy, Helen Hughes (Miss DuPont), he starts to charm her, despite her husband being close by. Helen is easily impressed by his faux-aristocratic glamor, to the humiliation of her dull but sincere husband, the new U.S. ambassador. Karamzin also has his eye on two other women, hotel maid Maruschka (Dale Fuller), and mentally disabled Marietta (Malvina Polo), daughter of one of his criminal associates (Cesare Gravina), seeing them both as easy sexual prey. Maruschka is seduced and abandoned, in jealousy she goes mad and sets fire to a building in which Karamzin and Mrs Hughes are trapped, Karamzin jumps and saves himself, leaving Helen behind, her husband saves and looks after her. Karamzin's public display of cowardice means his reputation is damaged, he is shunned from high society, he is humiliated, so attempts to restore his pride by seducing Marietta. In the end, Karamzin gets his just desserts, the disabled girl's angered father kills him, dumping his body in the sewer, while the "cousins" are arrested for being imposters and con-artists. Also starring Rudolph Christians as Andrew J. Hughes and Al Edmundsen as Pavel Pavlich the butler. It is a simple enough story about corruption and sexual obsession, a fake "count" swindling rich women, the pace may be uneven by today's standards, and the plot and acting styles are not perfect, but it still has interesting moments, and the casino, hotel, café and boudoir locations look good, overall it is a reasonable silent drama. Worth watching!
Review of Foolish Wives
