Foolish Wives – The First Million Dollar Picture
January, 1922 – Foolish Wives, the most recent film from Director Erich von Stroheim opened in January 1922. The film, a great looking production, was also written by and stared von Stroheim. 
With marvelous photography and a terrific re-creation of beautiful Monte Carlo built at Universal Studios in California, the films production was plagued by problems. The end result was a motion picture originally budgeted at $250.000 that cost in excess of one-million dollars, making it the most expensive project to date for Carl Laemmle's Universal Studios.
However, with some creative marketing and premium admission prices, the studio was still able to realize a substantial profit. The only real negative outcome was to Director von Stroheim's reputation, as he was now thought of as being overly exorbitant with his productions and rapidly becoming unemployable.
