L'obsession du masque

My review was written in June 1986 after watching the film on Prism video cassette.

"Deathmask" (a/k/a "Unknown") is a well-acted, brooding suspense film too morbid to engage audience sympathies. Reviewed here for the records, the feature was lensed in New York in 1983 and self-distributed via a four-wall booking in Phoenix in December 1984 ahead of its current home video availability.

Farley Granger toplines as Doug Andrew, a chief medical investigator who becomes obsessed with the case of a four-year-ol boy whose corpse is found in a cardboard box in the woods in 1970. He is remind ed of the tragic death of his young daughter Jennifer a year earlier in his swimming pool, an incident for which he feels guilty as well as blaming his daughter Suzy who was watching her sister.

Not helped by resistance from incompetent chief medical examiner Dr. Riordan (Arch Johnson), Andrews and cop Mike Gress (Danny Aiello) are unable to identify the boy and solve the case. His family relationships are coming unglued, as Andrews crazily carries around with him the deathmask made of the boy's face.

Some 10 years later Andrews still is working on the case, even consulting a psychic (Ruth Warrick in a campy guest appearance). He finally tracks down the cause, as the boy was killed accidentally as a result of a violent love triangle involving jealous Victoria Howe (Veronica Hart). Film's end is extremely melancholy, as Andrews' wife has died of a stroke and his life force seems gone with the resolution of his single-minded quest. After a sad scene in which Victoria confesses but doesn't reveal her son's name to Andrews, pic ends with him tossing the deathmask in the ocean.

Granger is extremely effective in the driven role (claimed on screen to be a true story), which recalls the extremely downbeat pictures he starred in circa 1950: "Side Street" and "Edge of Doom". Supporting cast is solid, with an excellent contribution by former porn star Veronica Hart in the pivotal role of the child's mystery mom. As an odd touch, Hart is joined in the love triangle in flashback by her frequent porn co-stars Kelly Nichols and R. Bolla.

"Death Mask" is a very good film, but to be entirely honest, I hoped for more. I secretly hoped for this to be a genuine, undiscovered gem. One that only a few people in the world have seen, since it doesn't exist yet on DVD or Blu Ray, but nevertheless a powerhouse of an inspired-by-facts crime/drama that blows you away.

It certainly has all the required potential. The plot is based on true events, namely the infamous "boy-in-the-box" cold case, where a (to this day still) unknown 4-year-old child was found horribly mutilated, murdered and dumped in a lousy cardboard box. In the film, the same harrowing discovery is made, but the rest of the film is fiction. Police ME Douglas Andrews becomes obsessed with the boy, and he specifically cannot accept that the poor boy remains unidentified and nameless. Andrews mainly flees from a personal trauma, as his youngest daughter drowned in a pool and he blames his oldest daughter for the accident.

Andrew's obsessive quest for the boy's name and the circumstances surrounding his death results in a compelling and intense thriller. The sub plot with the spiritual medium is rather weak, but the incompetence and negligence of the senior police coroner is infuriating, and over the span of ten years Andrews gradually make stunning discoveries about the boy's medical condition. I guess the main reason why I'm still somewhat disappointed with "Death Mask" is due to the persona and behavior of the lead character. You simply cannot sympathize with Douglas Andrews because of how he treats his wife and especially he's daughter. He's so self-centered that I was constantly hoping for his wife and daughter to leave him.

Farley Granger stars in this 1984 film, as a Medical Examiner who becomes obsessed with finding out the identity of a young boy who was found dead, without identification. Because his own child had died at a young age, the Granger character becomes completely fixated on discovering the boy's identity, at great personal cost.

This film is in fact based on a true incident that occurred in Philadelphia in 1957. I have included an exceprt of a 1/1/07 article on the case from the NY Times in the IMDb Message board for this film. The parallels with the real case and this film are quite striking.

I strongly recommend this film, and then reading up on the true case that inspired it.

Occasional gallows humour and a stellar cast somewhat redeems an unevenly paced tale based on the true story of the 'boy in the box', whose identity was unknown for more than sixty years. Medical investigator (Granger) becomes obsessed with the boy's identity, himself struggling to come to grips with his own personal grief. Gradually his life and that of his fragile family spirals as the mystery deepens threatening to consume everything in his orbit.

Supporting former Hitchcock leading man Granger is an impressive cast including veterans Bryant, Warrick, McCurry, Johnson and Aiello, whilst knowing viewers will recognise adult performers Veronica Hart and short-lived mainstream leading man Robert Kerman (aka R. Bolla) as the elusive Dr Howe and his scorned wife. Whilst Kerman's role is only momentary, Hart gives a moving, convincing performance in a key supporting role.

Grim and tragically sombre in tone, 'Death Mask' is akin to its mid-eighties police thriller contemporaries, with moments of seemingly heavy empathy offset by bursts of apathetic violence where suffering is the common theme. Banal dialogue and a misfit score aside, overall it's a sufficiently gripping B-thriller (not unlike the scale of a telemovie) and gritty fictionalised account of what was until only recently an enduring and captivating unsolved mystery.