False Face

The topless stripper (Judith Chapman or a body double?) who gets her face bashed in at the start of the movie looks great topless from the shoulders down. Later, Judith Chapman gets chased through the woods in a hip-hugging red bikini. This is one of my favorite bikini scenes!

This movie has a great plot. It's fast paced and fun. And it's full of surprises. There's lots of southern flavor here, even a funeral with a jazz band playing and lots of people actually dancing at it. This movie is a classic. It's best to see only the uncut version.

So many times since I bought this Blu-ray, I've picked it up and then put it down again. A low budget film featuring facial surgery, maybe not. And then I watched it! Great film, full of surprises, not least of which is that the early exposition is dealt with so smoothly. From the brutal and explicit beginning, through the background story, the surgery and all, we are skilfully informed as the pictures fade into each other and we have arrived at the beginning of the tale that we expected to be the ending. Set in Georgia we get wonderful pictures of green and gold burial grounds and overgrown ruins. An atmosphere of creepy otherness develops alongside shades of incest. More a dramatic tale with tinges of the Italian gallo than a horror, this is nevertheless horrific and not without surprises. One particular surprise towards the end really caught me off guard and is followed quickly by the chase through the woods of a skimpy bikini clad women that almost as surprising as it is stunning. And then surprising again! It is a tragedy that director John Grissmer only made one other film and that almost a remake of this. Robert Lansing is effective as the leading man but Judith Chapman is an absolute revelation. Her career seems to have been more in TV and it is true that the interiors here sometimes look more like TV but Chapman is marvellous in a difficult role and always convincing. This is an underrated film that seems to offer little but does quite the opposite with great location shooting, some stunning key scenes and some real shocks.

A murderous surgeon (Robert Lansing) concocts a twisted scheme to win his missing daughter's inheritance money: by transforming a Jane Doe (Judith Chapman) into her double.

Although he was a constantly working actor, Lansing is probably best remembered as the authoritarian Brig. Gen. Frank Savage in "12 O'clock High" (1964), the television drama series about World War II bomber pilots. Genre fans may know him from "4D Man" (1959), "Empire of the Ants" (1977) or "The Nest" (1988). "Scalpel" is an early role for Judith Chapman who went on to star in a wide variety of soap operas.

The film has been called a "Hitchcock wannabe", which is fair. But really, it is as good as some of Hitchcock's work. Maybe not his best films, but better than average.

A murderous surgeon (Robert Lansing) concots a twisted scheme to win his missing daughters inheritance money, by transfroming a Jane Doe (Judith Chapman) into her double. Twists within twists make the rather convoluted plot entertaining. Lansing's character is a real creep, and Chapman who plays both the daughter and Jane is superb. Over all this movie is a fun little Hitchcock wannabe that amuses till the closing credits.