Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

Von Stroheim and Mrs. Grundy The maker of the sensational and extravagant "Foolish Wives" who likes to reveal human beings at their worst, confronts the arbiter of society who blacklists any one guilty of the slightest unconventionality. You may not wholly agree with either of them, but you will be interested in these facts and fencies about the most startling production of the year. By Gordon Gassaway A HOME-BREWED picture that has a greater kick than the imported product — and more flavor. A foreign film — made in America. This is "Foolish Wives," the most-discussed motion picture of the age and one that has taken the ice out of spice. Everything that "Passion" and "Gypsy Blood" were not "Foolish Wives" is. Every bit of stark realism Europe ever knew and forgot, and a lot that Europe never thought of, has been injected into this Universal City product by its ex-Austrian, naturalized American director, Eric von Stroheim. Dame Rumor herself drove me to the little room on the roof of the Administration Building at Universal City, in the Hollywood Hills, where Von Stroheim and his wife and one assistant had been working for two months all night long, every night, cutting one million feet of film — at one dollar a foot — into twelve thousand feet of "Foolish Wives." They worked at night, some said, because the scenes on the film were too explosive to be toyed with in the warm California sunshine. Dame Rumor herself — and her whole family, from Frank Lies, the eldest, to Mere Conjecture, the youngest — made me seek out the maker of "Foolish Wives" and ask, "What is all this foolishness about 'Foolish Wives,' anyhow?" But it was Mrs. Grundy who accompanied me throughout the interview. I couldn't shake her. It was Mrs. Grundy who broke in upon V on Stroheim's first words of description of the picture with, "But people don't do those things !" to which he answered, "You have been fortunate, dear lady, in your acquaintances. Or perhaps it was just that you were mistaken about them." Every time that "Foolish Wives" had been mentioned of late, Mrs. Grundy had drawn near, and Dame Rumor had it that I\Irs. Grundy Vi^ould never allow the film to be shown — that is, to other people. She herself wouldn't have missed it for worlds. Down the winding stairs Eric von Stroheim took us, past the tiny roof garden, built for him into the depths of the building, where there was a miniature projection room with a screen no larger than a wall map and a single little red schoolhouse bench. The silence, while the assistant cutter himself adjusted the film in a dim recess somewhere above, was most impressive, for I knew that I was the first outsider to see the muchtalked-of, daring scenes of "Foolish Wives." When the first scenes flashed chills ran up and down mv spine. No word was spoken imtil Mrs. Grundy simply could not hold in any longer. "Mr. von Stroheim says that almost all Etiropean FOOLISH WIVES Eric von Stroheim's "Million= dollar Folly" promises to be one of the most sensational and talked= about pictures ever made. It was begun eighteen months ago. By the first of August it had cost one million two hundred and nine thousand nine hundred and eighty=one dollars and forty=five cents. Within the industry, discussion about it has raged for the past year. Rumors have been circulated that this picture is intended for German propaganda, but there is nothing in the picture to bear it out. It is predicted that people will trample over each other's feet to see it, because it is packed with more shocks than a power house. Perhaps few persons will admit that they really like this picture, but it is doubtful if many will de= liberately stay away from it.