Already well known for his “Man You Love to Hate” acting persona, von Stroheim made his directorial debut with Blind Husbands. In this box-office success lauded for its “adult” treatment of sexuality, the director steals his own scenes as the debonair villain who upon meeting an American couple at an Austrian mountain resort, immediately and outrageously directs his desire toward the neglected wife. Seducing her amid lavishly realistic sets steeped in sexual and religious symbolism, the increasingly lecherous von Steuben is portrayed with as much condemnation as the righteous husband whose blindness and blandness are perhaps greater sins in the eyes of Hollywood’s precocious new visionary.