Stolen Face

Insane melodrama with an over-the-top score by Malcolm Arnold proves to be an engaging experience that will make you smile quite often at its absurd plot twists, and will probably make you laugh out loud a couple of times in rollicking disbelief. The plot is almost a catalog of the obsessions, prejudices, misconceptions of human behavior and popular interpretation of love and science in the mid- 20th century. All treated with a solemn face, they give us a vivid portrait of the time. I am not blaming anybody or being censorial about the movie: I truly enjoyed most of it! Although I was one year old when it was released, watching the film was like opening a little window and remembering many things that were still accepted as true, fine or right when I was a kid. A field day for lovers of self-help manuals, this horrid version of the Pygmalion legend follows a plastic surgeon who has an affair with a pianist and loses her in the same week, and who decides to give her features to an inmate in a British prison with a scarred face. What follows has to be seen (with some very enjoyable screen moments among the seedy characters of London), leading to a self-righteous conclusion that is a letdown, considering that after all the terrible happenings that he was somehow responsible for, the surgeon closes the case with a cynical statement that leaves a sour taste. Still one admires Terence Fisher's skill to keep us fascinated for 69 minutes with another sick, maniac tale, as we grew accustomed to see and hear from him.

Hollywood star Paul Henreid came to Britain to play a plastic surgeon who finds out the hard way that beauty is only skin deep in this very poor man's 'Vertigo' after operating on shrewish kleptomaniac Mary Mackenzie in what is possibly the most eccentric film ever made by Hammer Films in their Exclusive days which offers the truly surreal sight of Lizabeth Scott incongruously blessed with the ability to play the piano yet dubbed with the voice of guttersnipe; an experience that is probably one of the most surreal Hammer ever provided with Malcolm Arnold's romantic piano score adding to the impression.

In 1950, American producer Robert Lippert formed a business alliance with Hammer studios. Under the agreement, Lippert would provide American acting talent - frequently shop-worn stars or just supporting actors who fancied a profitable trip out of the country - while Hammer would supply the rest of the cast and the production facilities. Together they would split the profits. Famous for his concern with the bottom line, Lippert produced over 140 films between 1946 and 1955, characteristically genre pieces such as I Shot Jesse James or Rocketship XM. For the British deal, most of the films were noir-ish thrillers - and include this title.

Stolen Face (1952) offers the characteristic noir idea of loss, or confusion, of identity often through surgery, as seen in the plots of such titles as Dark Passage (1947), or Hollow Triumph (1958). In the present film, which has echoes of both Pygmalion and Vertigo, a plastic surgeon falls in love with a concert pianist during a vacation, thinks he has lost her to another man, and sets to copy her features when restoring the looks of another woman - incidentally a habitual criminal - whom he thereupon marries. If this sounds far fetched, then it is, but is carried of well enough by the two leads Paul Henreid and Lizabeth Scott, who between them produce sympathetic moments enough during early scenes that almost makes one forget limitations elsewhere. Another standout element of this film is the musical score by the late Malcom Arnold. There is also an interestingly ambiguous ending.

If cosmetic surgeons could create faces like Lizabeth Scott's at will, they would be making even more than they earn now, or did half a century ago when A Stolen Face hit theaters. (But then the surgically created evil twin has been a staple of pulp movies up to John Woo's Face/Off). On holiday somewhere in England, Paul Henried, as an M.D., meets up with concert pianist (!) Scott. They fall in love, but she's spoken for. Back in grimy postwar London, he finds a patient horribly scarred in the blitz, refashions her into the spit-and-image of Scott, and marries the impudent baggage (a Cockney fadge with one foot in the gutter and the other on a banana peel). Their marriage, for some reason, does not go well. Re-enter Lizabeth Scott, who now has to play a double role.... The movie's not terrible, at least, though these noirish exercises set in Britain always have a fusty, half-hearted feel to them, more a mug of white tea than a snort of bonded Bourbon. Both Scott and Henried were well into the downslope of their careers -- which may, more than the locale, account for the enervated pace and commitment.

Up front I must admit I am a die-hard Paul Henreid fan, and I want to reassure any potential viewers of this movie that he was professional enough to put as much effort into this role as every other one I have seen him play, despite the fact that he made this film as a blacklisted and (consequently) underpaid actor.

There were basically two things I couldn't believe regarding the plot of this movie: 1)That an intelligent, established, professional man would marry a thievin' Cockney wench even if he did make her look like his lost true love; and 2) That his lost true love, on returning to him, didn't do a mad dash the other way when she found out he had actually made someone else look like her & then married that woman. I mean, isn't that a little twisted or something?

Overall the film was pretty good, & the romance between Henreid & Scott at the B&B truly enjoyable. I thought it delightful the way Henreid nursed Scott through her nasty head cold, & I like seeing a guy who is 6'3" sit on one bar stool with his feet on the next bar stool & look perfectly comfortable. It was only when the plot wanted me to believe the unbelievable that I had some trouble enjoying the film.

Ah, but the ending was pretty darn cute, & worth the 'huh?' I uttered during the dubious parts.