The Face of Marble

1946's "The Face of Marble" ended Poverty Row Monogram's run of genre titles since Bela Lugosi's "The Human Monster" in 1940. John Carradine had previously headlined 1943's "Revenge of the Zombies," conceding that Monogram paid higher wages ($3000 per week) than all the other Hollywood studios of the period, also featuring in "I Escaped from the Gestapo," "Return of the Ape Man," "Voodoo Man," and "Alaska." "Zombies" was a straight up remake of the 1941 "King of the Zombies, "with a very low key performance from the actor, while "Marble" is quite different; for one thing, his Dr. Charles Randolph is not depicted as a typical mad scientist but a rational and quite likable one with dedicated sidekick, Robert Shayne a good six years older though playing a younger assistant (he'd get the top slot by 1953's "The Neanderthal Man"). These experiments in raising the dead through a special serum coupled with bursts of electricity are intended to benefit mankind, but the drowned sailor fails to respond accordingly. Randolph next decides that his wife's beloved Great Dane would be perfect, but the dog becomes a vicious beast capable of walking through walls and thirsting for blood. With his wife secretly in love with Shayne, and a voodoo practicing housekeeper determined to make her mistress happy, it shouldn't come as a surprise that both Randolphs come to a bad end. The script is simply a mess, but it shapes up as Carradine's best Monogram horror, not returning to the genre until the 1956 all star entry "The Black Sleep."

For a horror movie, it's pretty hard to come up with a fresh version of reviving the dead. Here well-intentioned scientist Carradine wants no monsters, just an opportunity to give folks a second chance. Of course, things turn out otherwise, when a revived mastiff dog walks through walls on his way to ripping out throats. It doesn't help that creepy housekeeper Maria has her own voodoo plans, while a romantic triangle emerges between Carradine's wife Drake and lab assistant Shayne plus his girl Wriston.

Sound complicated. Yes, too bad the script didn't pare down and concentrate on creepy aspects. And I agree with others—we should see more of Carradine who's quite effective in restrained fashion. On other hand, there are those crackling Frankenstein arcs, better than expected for cheapo Monogram, while the spectral images passing through walls are also well done. However, maintaining a spooky mood with a more boffo ending would have really helped. Then too, I could have used more of the marble faces that are both novel and unsettling. But then, this is a low-budget quickie that still manages a few compensations.

Totally engrossed in his project to bring the dead back to life, Dr. Charles Randolph (John Carradine) fails to notice his wife Elaine's interest in Randolph's young lab partner, Dr. Cochran.

The sound and picture of this film need serious clean up, if possible. And there is some strange, latent racism here. But beyond those issues, there is a lot of horror potential -- reviving the dead, voodoo and a lab with electricity going everywhere. Randolph fits the idea of a "mad scientist" perfectly (but with less wild hair).

Some scenes are hard to follow because of how dark the picture is, but the story is decent, and if there was a way to fix this up, I would increase my rating.

From the TIMELESS HORROR set, this review will focus on THE FACE OF MARBLE which is another seminal B movie horror from my childhood. It is also the only one of the 4 movies to have been made by Monogram, one of the legendary Poverty Row studios. A number of reviews have complained about the quality of the picture compared with the other three. It's definitely inferior but I'd be willing to bet that it may be the best there is.

Monogram Pictures evolved into Allied Artists in the early 1950s and a number of Monogram titles (unless they were Bela Lugosi or the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys films) seem to only exist in worn 16mm prints. While not ideal, this print is way better than the various public domain VHS copies that I have had over the years. I'm sure this copy comes from the TCM library which usually has the best available prints. All of these movies were released by or belong to United Artists whose movie library is now part of MGM whose films belong to Warner Brothers who owns virtually every old movie out there

Back to THE FACE OF MARBLE. In the past year, I've been focusing on movies that made a big impact on me as a child and FACE OF MARBLE was one of them. This is one of John Carradine's early mad doctor roles and here he seems more unlucky than misguided. The idea of reviving the dead was a scary one to my young sensibilities and then for them to have the "face of marble" just totally spooked me as did the ghost dog Brutus.

Even at that early age, I could feel the sense of doom and melancholy that pervades the film aided by a really downbeat background score. I felt sorry for Carradine as he really loved his wife and didn't deserve what happened to him. I knew Robert Shayne from the SUPERMAN TV series so there was a connecting thread that I could relate to. By then I was able to recognize performers from other shows and pictures. Watching FACE again brought back some of those childhood memories. While the print may not be great, it IS great to have it on DVD...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

I saw this flick in 1946 as a 12-year-old, and found it pretty scary. Darkly black-and-white (most films were black and white then). What I remember most was that the faces of the dead revived didn't look like marble at all. Scared but disappointed. John W. Hall