Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, June 1922 · page 51 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #34 — page 51: what you’re looking at
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This article mocks the heavy censorship of Erich von Stroheim's 1922 film *Foolish Wives*. Carl Laemmle (Universal Pictures owner) and von Stroheim (the film's director and star) attempt to screen the picture in San Francisco, but police censors eliminate multiple scenes involving seduction and voyeurism—a character named Count Sergius attempting to kiss and undress an ambassador's wife, and spying on her undressing. The satire's point: the censors cut so much sexually suggestive content that the remaining film becomes absurd. The author highlights a logical inconsistency—how could Sergius wade through a marsh for 30 minutes and still have a dry cigarette case and matches?—to mock both the film's implausibility and censorship's heavy-handedness. Despite being gutted, the censored version still drew huge crowds, suggesting audiences craved the scandal regardless.
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Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 49 CARL LAEMMLE, owner of Universal City, has been spending some time in San Francisco putting his million dollar “Foolish Wives” across the footlights at the Imperial theater. Von Stroheim, the author, director and star, also was here salvaging what the New York censors left of his little dream. The police censors looked the show over, eliminated the scenes where Count Sergius tried to kiss the American ambassador’s wife in the witch’s cabin; eliminated the action where he tried to take her clothes off in the witch’s cabin but was scared off by a big St. Bernard which waltzed up with his tongue hanging out and his tail wagging fiercely; eliminated the scene where Sergius sits in front of the grate in the witch’s cabin and utilizes a pocket mir- ror to watch the ambassador’s wife undress. We suppose Universal has experts to check on inaccuracies but it struck some of us as funny how Sergius could wade around for 30 minutes in a marsh in water up to his neck and then pull out his cigarette case and matches and smoke upon arriving at the cabin of the hereinbefore mentioned witch. Mebbe he car- ried his implements under his hat-band. In any event the picture proved sufficiently “interesting” in expurgated form to carry capacity crowds for weeks. Several hundred San Francisco society folk, who happened to be week-ending at Del Monte and Carmel last