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.

Erich von Stroheim is most famous for writing and directing the film 'Greed' (1924), which originally clocked in at 9 hours in length (42 reels of film). Much mutilated and shortened by various editors, the copies that survive today are about 239 minutes. This earlier film, known as the first million dollar film in terms of initial cost, features Stroheim as writer, director and star. The finished version that he delivered to Universal was 8 hours long! It also suffered a similar butchering, but today we have a cobbled together version that is 146 minutes (about two and a half hours). The film tells the story of a con man, a fake Count Karamzin (Stroheim) and his accomplices: it is never boring, is full of extravagant sets, some rich set pieces and it makes great use of color tinting and quick dissolves.Stroheim's style seems to have had two main aspects: extravagant production and design with authentic detail, and scenes and sequences that unfold and develop in their own sweet time. At Point Lobos in Southern California, Stroheim had an immense reconstruction of Monte Carlo built as one of the major settings for the story. The frames there are filled with activity, huge casts of people, even down to little accurate details. These scenes are on the scale of 'Intolerance' (1916) or 'Cabiria' (1914).No wonder he'd wind up with 42 reels: sequences develop at their own pace and are almost set pieces in themselves. The first obvious example is the opening scene on the balcony, in which we are introduced to the key characters (the Count, his two 'cousins,' the maid, the counterfeiter, Ventucci, and his daughter, who all figure in the finale) during a leisurely breakfast. Another famous one is the Count's failed attempt to seduce the wife, Mrs. Hughes, in the old hag's cottage during an intensive rainstorm.The color tinting is well done throughout the film: daytime interiors will be brown; night time interiors a light plum and night exteriors blue; but Mr. and Mrs. Hughes's suite is only always black and white; during the finale there are fast cuts between the orange-red fire and the blue night. The entire film is interesting to watch, with von Stroheim nicely telling us with eye, tongue, and facial movements his wicked intentions, feelings and duplicitous nature.The musical score by Sigmund Romberg is listenable all by itself, but is not the greatest matching piano accompaniment. We also get Mae Busch as one of the con 'cousins.' Later featured in 'Our Gang' comedies, she was also a regular fixture in many Laurel and Hardy shorts. She was "Mrs. Hardy" in three of them, including the wonderful sitcom type feature 'Sons of the Desert' (1933) and as Ollie's crazed fiancée in 'Oliver the Eighth' (1934).I'll give the film an 8 for its sumptuous design and rich development.

'Foolish Wives' is the 'Smile' (Brian Wilson, sandpits, fire engines) of world cinema. What wonders might reside in the lost reels when such sumptuous detail and glorious framing fill all that remains? It is as over ripe and decadent as the novels of Huysmans, with Von Stroheim, an amoral Count that drinks oxblood for breakfast, giving one of the most richly-textured variations on villainy ever seen on film.For all its director's notorious largesse it is the intimate particulars and distillation of atmosphere that enchant: a sea breeze disturbing the drapes and dresses on a sunlit terrace, the Count's tortuously coy dance of seduction in front of the hotel, the interior of a garlanded boat in a bay illuminated by lanterns.

In 1999, I watched a documentary about movies that changed my life. In 2001, my late grandfather gave me a book that changed my life. There were many titles the two both matched, but three of them I'll never forget. The first is 'Dog Star Man' from Brakhage, but that one didn't made up its promise. The two other ones, however, 'Scorpio Rising' from Anger and 'Foolish Wives' from Von Stroheim, truly did. They both tell the story about a guy with a hat made from leather. I was amazed by that leather hat, and 'Scorpio Rising' has become my favorite movie ever. 'Foolish Wives' is not as good as I thought it would be, but still, it's Von Stroheim's best picture (even though I saw 'Greed' too). In fact, you must see 'Foolish Wives' for two things that occur in the picture: Von Stroheim who looks in a mirror, and Von Stroheim who smokes heavily. That's all.