Plot
The silent drama tells the story of a man who names himself Count Wladislaw Sergius Karamzin (von Stroheim) in order to seduce rich women and extort money from them.
He has set up shop in Monte Carlo and his partners in crime (and possible lovers) are his cousins: faux-Princess Vera Petchnikoff (Busch) and faux-Her Highness Olga Petchnikoff (George).
Count Karamzin begins his latest scam on the unworldly wife of an American envoy, Helen Hughes (Miss Dupont), even though her husband is nearby.
Read more about this topic: Foolish Wives
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)