Blind Husbands (1919)

Director:

Erich von Stroheim

Writers:

Lillian Ducey (titles)
Erich von Stroheim (screenplay)
(more)

Release Date:

21 October 1919 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

An Austrian military officer and roue' attempts to seduce the wife of a surgeon. The two men confront...

Plot Keywords:

Alps | Dog | Mountain | Rescue | Husband Wife Relationship

Cast

Sam De Grasse	...	Dr. Armstrong
Francelia Billington	...	Margaret Armstrong
Erich von Stroheim	...	Lieutenant Erich von Steuben
Gibson Gowland	...	Silent Sepp (as T.H. Gibson Gowland)
Fay Holderness	...	The 'Vamp' Waitress
Ruby Kendrick	...	A Village Blossom
Valerie Germonprez	...	The Newlywed
Jack Perrin	...	The Newlywed
Richard Cummings	...	The Village Physician
Louis Fitzroy	...	The Village Priest
William De Vaull	...	Man from 'Home'
Jack Mathis	...	Man from 'Home'
Percy Challenger	...	Man from 'Home'
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tiny Sandford	...	(uncredited)

Directed by
Erich von Stroheim

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Lillian Ducey		titles
Erich von Stroheim		screenplay
Erich von Stroheim		story "The Pinnacle"

Produced by
Erich von Stroheim	....	producer

Cinematography by
Ben F. Reynolds

Film Editing by
Eleanor Fried
Frank Lawrence
Viola Mallory		(uncredited)
Erich von Stroheim		(uncredited)
Grant Whytock		(uncredited)

Art Direction by
Erich von Stroheim		(uncredited)

Set Decoration by
Richard Day

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Edward Sowders	....	assistant director (as Eddy Sowders)
K.C. Stewart	....	assistant director

Camera and Electrical Department
William H. Daniels	....	camera operator (uncredited)

Other crew
Carl Laemmle	....	presenter

Production Companies

• Universal Film Manufacturing Company (as Universal-Jewel Production de Luxe)

Distributors

• Universal Film Manufacturing Company (1919) (USA) (theatrical)
• Kino Video (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• Edition Filmmuseum (2006) (worldwide) (DVD)
• Kit Parker Films (????-????) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Ciné-club Hollywood (????) (France) (DVD)
• MK2 Éditions (????) (France) (DVD)

Also Known As:

The Pinnacle (USA) (working title)
A Lei das Montanhas (Portugal) [pt]
Blinde Ehemänner (Austria) [de]
Corazón olvidado (Spain) [es]
Die Rache der Berge (Austria) [de]
La loi des montagnes (France) [fr]
Mariti ciechi (Italy) [it]

Runtime:

68 min | USA:91 min (DVD release) | Germany:99 min (Berlin International Film Festival)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

Universal Film Manufacturing Company

Trivia:

Erich von Stroheim had to agree to wave fees as writer and director in order to make this first film as writer director. However, he still got $200 a week to star.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In one shot, when the wife walks across her bedroom, a spotlight beam is visible on the ground following her.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Hollywood" (1980)

Delightful alpine movie - review of the Austrian version

This is a review of the Austrian version of the film, which is available on the R2 Edition Filmmuseum DVD. I believe it is also available in the States on Kino DVD in the truncated American version that has a different sentiment.

Blind Husbands is a story about folks holidaying in the alps (Cortina specifically). The main characters are a famous American surgeon, his wife Maguerite, and Leutnant von Steuben, a German military man (the filmmuseum English subtitles are a bit misleading here because they translate the intertitles referring to him as an impostor, whereas I believe von Stroheim's intention was to portray him as someone unfit to wear the uniform rather than literally not allowed to wear it). Von Steuben is played by von Stroheim himself.

He's meant to be a philanderer of married women. He looks the part, excepting that he is actually very short, shorter in fact than Maguerite. The world may have changed a lot in ninety years, but I doubt the women back then were too different from women today who are generally unable to take the advances of men shorter than themselves seriously.

I'll give the world and the female race the benefit of the doubt for the movie's sake. Von Steuben is after a clinch with Maguerite, but he's already had a squeeze with two of the hotel serving girls by the time he gets round to her. He's got a soft target really, because the husband is much too self-involved to notice that his wife is feeling lonely and in need of rekindling. Obviously where the title "Blind Husbands" arises from.

There's quite a lovely dinner scene outside the hotel in Cortina at night, there's all these paper lanterns in lines interspersed with the permanent hotel lanterns, very pretty really. Maguerite excuses herself from the hubbub and goes inside to play the piano. Whilst sat at the piano we see her head shot against a totally black background, quite an unusual shot for a film of any era. It's at this point that she appears totally alone, not just lonely, but alone. Back to the normal shot and Steuben has sidled in. He picks up a violin and starts to play a duet. What a powerful thing to do to one in such a suggestive frame of mind! Part two of the plan is to buy her the marquetry box that hubby was too busy to notice that she wanted. It's apparently two hundred years old, the design on the lid is all lozenges and grains, really reminded me very much of a Matisse type pattern, we get a lovely close up of it.

As it happens there are another two shots against a dark background, one of a bell ringing in the bell tower (to mourn the dead) and one of von Steuben pointing his grubby finger at Maguerite.

Most of the film basically concerns the von Steuben/Maguerite cat and mouse game. Can't blame him for chasing Maguerite really, my favourite shot of her was her wearing these lovely antique sunglasses with wildflowers in the back of her alpinist hat band. The movie is all shot really quite sympathetically, I'd almost call it realism, a surprising term for a 1919 film! According to others the level of mise en scene is apparently not up to Foolish Wives or Greed standard, but I'll go with it on an absolute basis.

If you see the movie as containing realism, then the ending is a bit of a cop-out, a sop to dramatic cliché. However we'll let Erich off as it still kind of works. The movie turns into a bit of a bergfilm at the end, American superman, surgeon, strong, weakling German braggart, this being totally exposed as they climb the mountain, having been rather sotto voce before.

The only silly part of the film concerns the shadow of an eagle, which is blatantly produced by a crude silhouette hanging on the end of a wire (unless eagles can fly backwards), yikes! Other than that though I thought the movie was brilliant.