Synopsis
Foolish Wives (1922) is Erich von Stroheim's silent crime drama, and you can watch online on iFILM. The setting is Monte Carlo — a lavish villa, a card-sharp's charm, and a swindler passing himself off as Russian nobility.
The fake Count Karamzin lives large alongside two "cousins" who are really his accomplices. Their trade is counterfeit cash and seduction dressed up as high-society acquaintance. When an American envoy arrives with his wife, the con man runs his usual game: flattery, staged passion, and a loan of real money coaxed out of a bored, lonely lady. Stroheim himself plays the cad with such icy elegance that you can't look away.
Universal sold the picture as the first film to cost a million dollars, and it shows — the studio built a full-scale replica of the Monte Carlo square. Its bite, a sharp jab at wealth and gullibility, still cuts almost a century on. A fine entry point for anyone curious about early silent classics. Stream Foolish Wives (1922) online on iFILM.
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