FOOLISH WIVES: Blu-ray (Universal, 1922) Flicker Alley
If ever a temperamental artist
could be counted upon to deliberately destroy his own genius, it is Erich von
Stroheim who, in 1950, rather cruelly appeared as a wan ghost of his former
self, catering to the insanity of faded silent screen legend, Norma Desmond
(Gloria Swanson) in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard. Reportedly, upon an
advanced screening of that movie, MGM’s raja, Louis B. Mayer stormed Wilder,
declaring, “How could you do that?!?” Words, in hindsight, much more
fittingly applied to von Stroheim. At the dawn of Hollywood picture-making two
kinds of creatures emerged to gain dominance in the industry: the ambitious
mogul, driven by an intuition to make pictures that made money, and, the stern,
almost telescopically-focused artiste, primarily devoted to hand-crafting
cinema art. Von Stroheim is of this latter ilk. A pity, he failed to comprehend
the former was in charge of the whole menage and could – and did – as
easily cut the purse strings to balance their budget. One can argue von
Stroheim was blind-sided by ego. But it’s a bit more complex than that. Ostensibly,
his Viennese austerity benefited him at the outset; Hollywood, then, utterly enamored
by European wit and sophistication. And thus, very swiftly, von Stroheim became
an industry darling - justly celebrated for his innovative flair. Sadly, he was
also despotic to a fault. Nevertheless, he plied the largely Puritanical
American mores with Euro-urbane plots that fetishized sexual/psychological
undercurrents of promiscuity.
From the outset, Stroheim created a
persona meant to instill loathing from his creative cohorts. This, he reasoned,
equated to a governance by fear, ensuring only his vision would wind up on the
screen. A military deserter, von Stroheim claimed to be of Austrian nobility upon
his arrival in America. However, much of what was known about the man then was
a pure fabrication concocted by von Stroheim himself. For the rest of his days,
he would affect various accents. These only occasionally belied his origins – a
sort of fractured Prussian officer’s lingo – clipped and hilarious. Indulging
in the trappings of fleeting fame, von Stroheim quickly ran through three failed
marriages (Margaret Knox – 1913-1915; Mae Jones – 1916-1919 and Valerie
Germonprez, whom he never divorced while carrying on with Denise Vernac, from
1939 until his death), derailed his creative ambitions to make movie art by
insulting the intelligence of his bosses (some, like Irving Thalberg,
determined to keep tight reigns on von Stroheim’s spending), and, ultimately,
became an industry joke, rife for Wilder’s wickedly adroit lampoon. And while von
Stroheim’s strengths as a director/writer/star of the silent cinema were
irrefutable, his caustic nature eventually ensured his reputation as a genius
would, at first, be eroded by studio intervention (many of his movies never
arrived on the screen as he intended), and then, virtually to be swept aside by
the Hollywood machinery.
Foolish Wives (1922) was
touted by Universal as the first ‘million-dollar movie’. With lavishly
appointed recreations of Monte Carlo built on their backlot to showcase this
story’s plot, it is plain to see where much of the money was spent. Von Stroheim’s two previous pics for Uni - Blind
Husbands (1919) and The Devil's Pass Key (1920) – had been qualified
smash hits. Foolish Wives was thus envisioned to mark the pinnacle of that
success and the apex of Universal’s supremacy, as a leader in motion picture
entertainments. Von Stroheim had marketed his hit-making status from the
previous two movies to engage in contract negotiations for a sizable increase
in his salary just prior to embarking on this movie. Regrettably, Foolish
Wives fast became the bane of the studio’s existence; von Stroheim’s first ‘rough
cut’ running a whopping 6 ½ hours. Ordered to make trims, von Stroheim brought
the runtime down to 3 ½ hours. However, after a sneak peek was virtually laughed
off the screen, the studio assumed all responsibility for making further
editorial decisions. Ultimately, a 384-minute masterpiece was truncated, first
- to 147 minutes, then, widely distributed at 117 minutes. In more recent
times, a full-blown restoration has managed to bring back the 147-minute cut of
the film.
The production history of Foolish
Wives has been described as “a nightmare without precedents…from which
von Stroheim never fully recovered” – a gross understatement. Even as architects, Richard Day and Elmer
Sheeley, along with scenic artist, Van Alstein, began to build their massive Monte
Carlo facades, also - a Mediterranean villa, constructed some 300 miles north
of the studio at Point Lopus to take advantage of the seaside landscape, a
pervasive sense of the damned clung to the production. Studio chieftain, Carl Laemmle
was outraged by such expenditures, appointing 20-yr.-old Irving Thalberg as
head of production to reign in von Stroheim’s extravagant spending. To suggest
the relationship between von Stroheim and Thalberg was acrimonious is putting
things mildly. Thalberg reminded von Stroheim he was contractually obligated to
the wills the studio, to which von Stroheim merely laughed off virtually all of
Thalberg’s ‘suggestions’ as to how to expedite his shoot, and thereafter,
continued to strive for some invisible perfection at a snail’s pace, driving up
the budget considerably.
To offset this backstage war, Uni’s
publicity department began to craft ads extolling the virtues of a movie
exponentially evolving into the costliest production of all time. In the middle
of production, von Stroheim and the engravers hired to reproduce authentic 1000
franc notes for the gambling sequence were suddenly arrested after the U.S.
Treasury Department deduced they were being manufactured by the same
photoengrave techniques employed by professional counterfeiters. After
protracted litigation, the matter was resolved and von Stroheim returned to the
set. However, when Thalberg attempted to cut off all funding for von Stroheim’s
chronically delayed shoot at Point Lopus, he was met with the director’s clever
circumventing of the system, making arrangements to have everything he required
‘charged’ back to Universal anyway. And then, there was the unexpected death of
co-star, Rudolf Christians. Von Stroheim hoped to use double, Robert Edeson to
complete his remaining scenes. But by now, Thalberg had had enough of both von
Stroheim and the movie. Filming of Foolish Wives was officially
terminated on June 15, 1921.
Von Stroheim had exposed roughly 326,000
feet of celluloid on his masterwork, of which about half – or 150,000 feet –
was deemed usable. As the arduous editing process began, the industry was
rocked by comedian, Fatty Arbuckle’s sexual indiscretions. Foolish Wives,
with its similar intrigues, now appeared to be capitalizing on – and even
celebrating - such scandal, distasteful to the public at large. To quell these
concerns, Universal paid for the censors to attend an all-night screening of
von Stroheim’s first rough cut, encouraging them to identify ‘objectionable’
content the studio assured would then be excised. Von Stroheim was outraged. He
demanded the picture be released ‘as is.’ Instead, Thalberg fired von Stroheim,
assigning editorial duties to Arthur Ripley from hereon in. The show was cut
from 30 to 14 reels – or 3 ½ hours for its New York premiere, after which
Universal hacked off another 3500 feet, bringing Foolish Wives down to
10 reels for its general release. Unfortunately, nothing could change the
public’s impression of the picture as just a glossy and gargantuan soap opera.
Shelved for the rest of the decade, Foolish Wives would reemerge in a
completely overhauled edition in 1928, with aggressively edited and
restructured sequences that, in no way, conformed to von Stroheim’s original
vision.
Foolish Wives is basically
the tale of a disreputable and soulless ‘lady’s man’ - Count Wladislaw Sergius
Karamzin (von Stroheim) who along with his scheming ‘cousins’ - Princess Vera
Petchnikoff (Mae Busch) and Her Highness, Olga Petchnikoff (Maude George), sets
about to seduce and extort money from wealthy women vacationing on the French
Riviera. Aside: in von Stroheim’s extended cut, the so-called Count was actually
sexually involved with his ‘cousins’, Vera cast as the stern and enterprising
mastermind, pimping him out as stud-material to the classy dames in Monte Carlo
so all three could live resplendently at their seaside villa on Karamzin’s
ill-gotten gains. In the many emasculating revisions made to the picture
thereafter, virtually all of these inferences were expunged. Now, Karamzin
plots to ingratiate himself to Helen Hughes (Miss DuPont), the naïve wife of an
American envoy, Andrew J. (Rudolph Christians). Karamzin’s charm easily
impresses. Much to Andrew’s chagrin, Karamzin seems to have completely won over
Helen.
In tandem, Karamzin is aggressively
pursuing two other pigeons: Maruschka (Dale Fuller) – his dutiful housemaid who
has managed to sock away a tidy sum on her modest earnings, and, Marietta (Malvina
Polo), the simpleton offspring of his criminal associate, Cesare Ventucci (Cesare
Gravina). Fate is about to catch up to Karamzin’s fickle philandering. Realizing
she has been played for a fool, Maruschka goes mad, setting ablaze the villa,
thus trapping Karamzin and Helen. The callous Karamzin reveals his true self,
leaping to safety, leaving Helen to face the flames alone. Mercifully, her
devoted husband arrives in the nick of time. As witnesses to the fire attest to
Karamzin’s cowardice, he retreats in shame, next plotting to have his way with
Marietta. Instead, Cesare murders Karamzin, dumping his lifeless remains in the
sewer beneath the streets. In the final moments, Vera and Olga are exposed for
their complicity in these crimes and arrested.
Foolish Wives is an
intriguing, if utterly fractured movie. Without von Stroheim to helm the final
edit, and with only the surviving Universal cut (and an Italian print) to crib
from, some scenes run interminably long, while others, seemingly more integral
to the arc of the plot, are instead dispatched with haste, leaving the cadence of
the piece highly suspect and uneven. One can only imagine what the picture must
have been in von Stroheim’s 6-hr. cut…even, his 3 ½ hour abbreviation. In his
waning years, von Stroheim moved to France where he was to discover he was
sincerely revered as an artiste. In fact, he was awarded the French Legion of
Honor shortly before his death, age 71, in 1957. What the career of Erich von
Stroheim might have been had he shown even an ounce of willingness to modify
his artistic principles to satisfy the corporate structure of the movie
industry, we shall never know. By 1929, von Stroheim’s wake had left behind
more artistic wreckages than masterpieces: his adaptation of Frank Norris’ novel
– rechristened ‘Greed’ (1924) made for MGM, but similarly to suffer
innumerable cuts in the editing room before being unceremoniously dumped on the
market to tepid box office and long after von Stroheim had been let go, and,
1929’s notorious, Queen Kelly (a super-colossus funded by Joe Kennedy
for his gal/pal, Gloria Swanson…until funds grew short), ending in a suspended
debacle, utterly to ruin von Stroheim’s reputation in the industry for all time.
Flicker Alley unfurls a new-to-Blu
of Foolish Wives, cribbing from a 4K restoration done in conjunction
with MoMA and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. A note about MoMA’s
involvement. As early as 1935, curator, Iris Barry and director, John E. Abbott
had been eager to curate Foolish Wives (along with several other titles
owned by Universal) for posterity. Alas, their budget then did not extend to
securing original 35mm elements. And thus, MoMA’s only viable copy of Foolish
Wives was down-printed onto 16mm. In 1941, Barry managed to negotiate a
35mm nitrate from Universal. Alas, this was the heavily revised and re-edited
1928 cut, judged as an abomination by von Stroheim. And so, an arduous thirty-year
search began to find the most complete version of Foolish Wives as von
Stroheim had originally conceived it. In the mid-1970’s, professor, Arthur
Lennig noted discrepancies between the 16mm and 35mm versions and began making
his own inquiries as to Universal’s actual holdings. What he discovered was
that various European prints were being marketed by the studio as struck off
original camera negatives, heavily plagued by age-related artifacts, damage,
and, well-worn splices. The continuity, pacing and assembly of these alternate
versions was markedly different from the MoMA archives.
Elements for Flicker Alley’s edition
of Foolish Wives are split between Uni’s surviving 1928 American cut and
an Italian print, shot simultaneously, but with slightly different pacing and
angles of shots. Resurrecting the picture to its original glory, as well as
reversing the ravages of time, and, restoring the original hand-tinted frames
created by colorist, Gustav Brock, proved a lengthy process. Much of the last
act of Foolish Wives uses color filters to suggest different times of
day – a tan/yellow for mid-afternoon, lavender for twilight, and midnight blue
for night time. To this, Brock also meticulously hand-tinted specific frames to
infer the amber glow of candlelight, and raging orange/red streaks to
compliment the fire sequence. The cut of Foolish Wives assembled for
this Blu-ray marks the first concerted home video effort to revive, as close as
possible, the true intentions of Erich von Stroheim. The kudos here are owed,
not only Lennig, but impassioned historian, Richard Koszarski (who scoured Uni’s
archives in search of continuity scripts on which to base this reconstruction),
AFI’s David Shepard, MoMA’s Eileen Bower, and, noted historian/editor, Robert
Gitt. All of this fabulous effort was poured into the work in 1972. And it is
this assembly - from 1972, we have here on Blu-ray – with a major caveat to
consider.
Those seeking perfection from this
home video presentation should seek it elsewhere. It took decades to break von
Stroheim’s masterpiece down to bedrock. And much of that heavy-handed
debasement endures. Image quality ranges from shockingly superior to anything
we have seen before, to substandard, excessively grainy and riddled in
age-related dirt and debris. Rest assured, everything that can be done has
been done to bring Foolish Wives back from the brink of extinction. For
the most part, it looks utterly fabulous and will surely NOT disappoint. Film
grain has been lovingly preserved. Where no original elements exist, grain is amplified,
occasionally to distraction. Nothing to be done about it. Also, contrast ranges
from superb to anemic. Again, this is all that is possible. Foolish Wives,
like the Frankenstein monster, has literally been stitched together from all
sorts of parts, spanning the globe. Their condition ranges from excellent to
atrocious, with all range of quality fitted in-between. I was, frankly, taken
aback by how incredibly nuanced much of this image remains. Titles and
inter-titles have been recreated, as no originals exist. Lest we forget, this
movie is 101-years-old and has suffered the slings and arrows of being badly
archived for almost half that century. And
yet, what is here is highly watchable – even when the surviving footage
succumbs to the full breadth of time’s ravages.
To augment the movie, Flicker Alley
has commissioned a new orchestral score, composed and conducted by Timothy
Brock and performed by Real FilharmonÃa de Galicia. Predictably, it sounds
simply wonderful in full stereo. Flicker Alley has also contributed several
worthwhile extras. Alas, these still only touch upon the arduousness of its
original production history, and the even more costly and lengthy search for
von Stroheim’s original vision. We get, Restoring Foolish Wives -
a behind-the-scenes glimpse with Robert Byrne. Dave Kehr weighs in on Erich
von Stroheim and Hollywood’s First Million-Dollar Picture, Brad
Rosenstein explores locations and sets, and finally, there is a comparison demo
reel to illustrate the deplorable nature of these original elements. Perusing
these, it is a sincere wonder Foolish Wives has survived at all. Bottom
line: Foolish Wives was a movie begun in high spirits with grand
ambitions. That it ultimately was allowed to nearly slip into extinction is a
tragedy. That Flicker Alley has been able to provide us with a reasonable facsimile
of what once was, is a minor miracle. For historians, for lovers of film, for
those intrigued by what gross mismanagement can do to cinema art, and, for
anyone who believes the past should always be preserved…Flicker Alley’s Foolish
Wives comes VERY HIGHLY recommended!
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
3
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
3
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