One of Stroheim's runaway projects (the budget ballooned from 250k to $1.2m), Foolish Wives' tale of grifters operating in post-war Monte Carlo is only so-so, but visually the picture is a stunner. Stroheim indulges his uniform fetish to good effect as an impoverished Russian nobleman reduced to swindling money from the wife of a US official while living in spurious splendour with his female cousins. Too long, but only a quarter of the length Stroheim initially wanted it to be.
Review of Foolish Wives
