Eric Von Stroheim may have spent money like a druken sailor but he got a hell of it up on screen – this is full of stunning sets and images, and is clearly the work of a great director. It’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on the French Riviera – Von Stroheim and his two “cousins” try to bag rich partners – well actually on he seems to be the one who tries to get one, the others sort of hang around. He chases after the married wife of the American representative to Monte Carlo – she’s not very good looking (a bit chunky in the face) and is up for romance.
A lot of it is really sexy too like the American wife getting changed after a storm in a little out of the way place while Von Stroheim perves at her through a mirror, and the whole concept of Von Stroheim living with his two cousins (and a maid who he’s also tupping) is hot – JackThompson esque, really. There’s a touching suicide form the maid who loves von Stroheim.
Spectacular action sequences inclide a storm and fire, both brilliantly done, and I was knocked out to learn this wasn't actually shot in Monte Carlo. It looks like it was done on location, with teaming extras (sailors on the boat dropping off the Americans, all the people on the promenade, the packed casinos). Von Stroheim gets his comeuppance - killed by the crazed father of a woman he molests - so it is moral in a way.
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