The Moving Picture Weekly (1920-1921)

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—THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY ■15 Huge "Foolisli Wives Sets Hundreds Of Carpenters Are Busily At Work Building Big Sets To Represent Monte Carlo, Famous European Gambling Centre To Be Used For Von Stroheim Picture. ■^ON STROHEIM is a man of big ideas and tremendous powers of visualization and these are everywhere evident in the preparations constantly under way for the filming of "Foolish Wives," his next big production. The story of this forthcoming Jewel centers around Monte Carlo, the scene of so much notorious revelry, where life seems often merriest, but where hearts are too often heaAry, where beautiful women and wealth throng and where wine and dance and gambling are the order of the day. To reproduce this European fashion center is the most stupendous piece of work ever undertaken by Universal, and when the sets are completed, the sum expended will run well into six figures. Several hundred carpenters are at work daily, as well as plasterers, bricklayers, electricians, painters, interior decorators and gardeners, who are laying out the plazas and parks in exact copy of Monte Carlo. Reproduced above is the Hotel De Paris, 100 feet long and 60 feet high, one of the most notable of the buildings now being constructed. In fact, the whole background of the story is being worked out in so careful and realistic a fashion that it will be difficult to convince those who do not know the history of the production of "Foolish Wives" that it was actually filmed at Universal City and not in Monte Carlo itself. The same was true of "Blind Husbands"; English critics, for example, could scarcely believe that it had not been filmed in the Austrian Tyrol. And when one takes into consideration that "Foolish Wives" is a bigger undertaking than even "Blind Husbands" and "The Devil's Passkey," the genius of the spirit that is guiding it all is the more to be wondered at. Von Stroheim has gathered about him a cast of actors finished to the very last degree of their art, actors whose past performances have been flawless. They are Rudolphe Christians, an actor of European prominence, late co-star with Lee Kohlmar in "The Secret Gift," the vivacious Mae Busch, the spirited Maude George, the artistic Cesare Gravina, and Von Stroheim himself, a master actor in every respect. He will play the leading role, that of the Count Sergius Aprazin, polished, unscrupulous, clever and gallant, a fascinator of women and a deep-dyed scoundrel. And then there is Marguerite Armstrong, Von Stroheim's "find," a dazzling blonde beauty, comparatively new to the screen, who plays the leading feminine role, and Malveen Polo, the great Eddie's charming little daughter, who makes her screen debut in this production. "Foolish Wives" is a continental story, a story of intrigue and deception, of wits and women, of weakness and vice, and of love and forgiveness. It is such a story as only a Von Stroheim can depict and from all pre-reports. Von Stroheim is doing it in a masterly fashion. What with two such dazzling successes already to his credit, "Blind Husbands" and "The Devil's Passkey," and with all these reports already coming in of the marvel of the next production, it is small wonder that critics and exhibitors and movie-goers all over the country are awaiting with almost breathless expectation the release of "Foolish Wives." Great directors are not to be found in great profusion. Thousands of pictures are being filmed yearly, but it is only here and there that a real spark of directorial genius shoots up. Von Stroheim is one of those who possesses the divine spark of genius. He burst upon the movie firmament suddenly, very suddenly, it is true, but he has not only come to stay, he has come to make real movie history. And "Foolish Wives" gives real promise of being something monumental.