Review - Blind Husbands

 July 31, 2021
 
Blind Husbands – US, 1919
 

It is said that upon its release, Erich von Stroheim’s Blind Husbands was an instant success and that the film announced to the world the arrival of a new and innovative director, one who was not afraid to tackle tough issues. Fast forward 102 years, and the question becomes how we should best evaluate the film. Should we, for example, try to look at it through the eyes of an audience member from 1919 and reflect upon what were then bold themes and creative camera techniques? Or do we look at the film through contemporary eyes and assess it based simply on its content? If, as Roger Ebert wrote, a film should feel brand new each time we see it, how should we assess a movie that we know was important historically, but which feels more than a little too dated in its understanding of the human psyche and is much less audacious than the films that proceeded it?
 
Blind Husbands is the story of Dr. Robert Armstrong (Sam De Grasse) and his wife, Margaret (Francelia Billington). They have been married long enough for the spark that initially brought them together to need a lot of effort to remain burning, and in the film’s prelude, we are asked whether an inattentive husband deserves as much of the blame when his wife strays as the outside who came between them. This notion is further enforced in the film’s opening scene. Set in a carriage, the scene presents us two contrasting couples. The doctor and his wife are one; the other is a younger couple whose hands and eyes are constantly locked and whose lips curl into joyous smiles at just the sight of the other. The doctor and his wife have long passed that stage. Well, one of them has anyway. The doctor’s eyes are buried in a book, while his young wife appears lost and lonely. Sure, her arm is in his, but that seems more indicative of her continued efforts rather than his. A question she asks him is answered by someone else. Sitting on in the opposite side of the coach is Lieutenant Eric Von Steuben (von Stroheim), whose keen eyes notice the distance that exists between the doctor and his wife. Perhaps more tellingly, they also notice the wife’s legs.
 
Just prior to this, we have witnessed something that until the introduction of the lieutenant has not made a lot of sense. A rugged mountain guide referred to as “Silent” Sepp (Gibson Gowland) has received a letter, the contents of which have produced a look of indignation. For the rest of the first half of the film, Sepp acts as a kind of restrained chaperone, always around to observe the movements of the lieutenant and inferring that what looks genuinely innocent – such as bringing Margaret a blanket - is, in actuality, anything but. The character is interesting, and moments in which he throws mental darts in the direction of the lieutenant let us know exactly how we should interpret his acts of “kindness.” The problem is that we’ve known not to trust him since he ogled Margaret in the coach.
 
Blind Husbands was revolutionary in its time. Here was a movie that acknowledged that a woman could be dissatisfied with her marriage and, even more shocking, that that displeasure could lead her to consider infidelity. But does Margaret every really contemplate that? Von Stroheim shows us Margaret reflecting on the changes that have taken place since she got married, but we never actually see mental images in which her husband has been replaced by the lieutenant. In fact, all we’ve seen from Margaret is a desire to get away from the lieutenant, and the sentiments she expresses when the lieutenant is in her room can hardly be said to have been expressed under the most romantic of circumstances.
 
So, in other words, I never thought Margaret was truly interested in the other man, and without that buy-in, you don’t really have any suspense. Perhaps as a result, the film’s final act is to add jealousy and homicidal impulses into the mix because apparently a lecherous flirt always has to be capable of murder and a man drawn into the service of others must always end up being a slave to his own foolish emotions. It would have been more realistic to present the lieutenant as a coward and the doctor as a man whose passion has been eclipsed by overconfidence. Alas. Exactly where, I can hear studio executives saying, is the drama is that?  And they’re right. Audience in 1919 flocked to the film, and if box office results are any indication of satisfaction, they liked what they saw.
 
Nonetheless, there’s no getting over the tameness of the film. This is a film what wants you to imply interest on the part of the wife when there are no real signs to infer it from. It wants to you to assume the worst of the lieutenant, but refuses to show him doing anything that would help explain why he is suddenly overrun by murderous impulses at the end, and it wants you to believe that a man as decent as the doctor could be completely undone, both emotionally and mentally, by the words of someone he only met a few days earlier. I just didn’t buy it, but then again, I’m looking at the film from contemporary eyes. (on DVD from Kino)
 
2 and a half stars