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.

Lizabeth Scott has "A Stolen Face" and also has the face that was stolen in this 1952 film also starring Paul Henreid and directed by Terence Fisher. Scott plays a beautiful concert pianist, Alice Brent, who meets Dr. Philip Ritter (Henreid), a plastic surgeon, while he's on vacation. They fall in love, but she leaves suddenly. She's involved with her manager and rather than confront the situation, she just takes off.

Devastated, Ritter returns to his practice, part of which is done at a prison where he reconstructs patients' injured or deformed faces to help them rehabilitate and live better, crime-free lives. One such patient is Lily Conover (Mary Mackenzie), a thief whose face is disfigured on one side. Ritter makes her over to look like Alice Brent and marries her. Lily, however, can't quite rehabilitate. She feels stifled by the doctor's lifestyle and starts stealing and hanging with her old crowd. Then Alice Brent decides she can't marry her manager and pays Philip a visit.

This film could be considered a camp classic - the story is, but the performances are quite good. Until he returns from vacation, Dr. Ritter is a fine doctor, totally professional and generous. A bad love affair makes him into an obsessed whacko who makes over a thief into the woman he loves and marries her. Go figure. And I agree with one of the comments here - why Alice Brent didn't cut and run when she realized what he did defies imagination.

Scott is older here than in her big noir days but is radiant and beautiful in both roles. She's more animated than in other films and pulls off the Cockney nicely. The only strange thing there was that when the makeover was complete, Lily suddenly had Alice's very distinctive husky voice.

Henried gives a good performance in an impossible role. How do you play a warm, normal, hardworking man who does a complete turnaround with no indication in the script as to where it came from, no tendencies beforehand, no grasping obsession during the affair - and suddenly a patient goes under the knife and emerges Lizabeth Scott. Only in Hollywood. I wouldn't have it any other way.

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.

Stolen Face is directed by Terence Fisher and adapted to screenplay by Martin Berkeley and Richard H. Landau from a story by Alexander Paal and Steven Vas. It stars Paul Henreid, Lizabeth Scott and André Morell. Music is by Malcolm Arnold and cinematography by Walter J. Harvey.

After meeting and falling in love with pianist Alice Brent (Scott), plastic surgeon Dr. Philip Ritter (Henreid) is crushed when she leaves him and reveals she's engaged to another man. Upon being introduced to facially disfigured female convict Lily Conover (Mary Mackenzie), Ritter decides to reconstruct her face to look exactly like Alice...

One of Hammer Film Productions ventures into B grade noir territory, Stolen Face is deliciously bonkers! Set up takes thirty minutes as couple meet in the lovely surroundings of an English country inn, they have whirlwind love and all is lovely and jaunty. Woman runs off to her other life, doctor doesn't think straight and obviously gets more than he bargained for when giving a Pygmalion make over to someone who he himself calls "an ugly social misfit". Original woman comes back into the picture, just as the good doctor's life is in turmoil, and we hurtle to a finale that is going to end bad for one of the three principals.

Ultimately, and if anyone is taking it seriously then they may need some sort of corrective surgery themselves, it's a fun cheapie that lacks the social nous of Behind the Mask (1941), or the psychological smarts of Vertigo (1958). It's driven by its gimmick and nothing else, Henreid and Scott play it right, the latter an American noir darling having fun in the dual role, while it serves as a learning curve for Fisher who would become one of Hammer's greatest horror directors some years later.

Not very noir in reality, certainly visually, and not very memorable all told. But still a decent enough time waster for those who enjoy those sort of mad premise movies that had a glint in their eye. 6/10

1952's "Stolen Face" served as the first, tentative stab at a science fiction topic from Britain's Hammer Films, director Terence Fisher himself at the helm (the company was founded in 1935 but not fully active until 1946). With American financing from Robert L. Lippert, US distribution was accomplished by importing Hollywood veterans Paul Henreid and Lizabeth Scott for the two leads, the script credited to Universal's Martin Berkeley ("Revenge of the Creature," "Tarantula," "The Deadly Mantis") and Richard H. Landau, who wrote early Hammers like "Spaceways" and "The Quatermass Xperiment." Henried's Dr. Philip Ritter is a renowned London plastic surgeon well known for his philanthropy, turning down lucrative offers from wealthy socialites to try to rehabilitate criminals at a women's prison by transforming their features in a positive way. One such case belongs to Lily Conover (Mary Mackenzie), disfigured during World War 2 and despondently turning to theft when she cannot earn a living. Overwork prevents Ritter from proceeding, his unexpected vacation yielding instant infatuation with would be patient Alice Brent (Lizabeth Scott), a world famous concert pianist laid up with a bad cold. A week breezes by for whirlwind romance before Alice disappears the morning after the doctor's marriage proposal, for she has been hiding her engagement to the older David (Andre Morell), set to be wed following her upcoming tour. The despondent surgeon then fashions Lily's scarred visage into an exact replica of Alice, complete with sleek blonde hair, even proposing to her despite warnings that she may still harbor habitual criminal tendencies. It's not long before wealth and status do indeed mark a change in the once grateful Lily, stealing a broach and fur coat (dutifully paid for by her husband to prevent scandal), then picking up with an old ex con boyfriend. As if our beleaguered surgeon hasn't enough problems to deal with, Alice turns up on his doorstep free from all entanglements and ready to pick up where they left off, only Lily is now aware of why she sports her new features and has no intention of leaving Dr. Ritter. With a more focused approach, this mixture of Frankenstein surgery and Pygmalion makeover could have made for a genuinely exciting thriller, but in Fisher's hands it's quite a tame romantic affair that doesn't really go anywhere, concluding on a particularly absurd happy ending. Unlike Alfred Hitchcock's later "Vertigo," there are no psychological underpinnings to support this minor programmer, and Henreid fails to display any trace of obsession in a sadly dispassionate performance. Lizabeth Scott, winding down her unfortunately brief career, does manage to convey two different personalities, Alice a decent soul, Lily with her Cockney accent and longer hair offering a slightly bigger challenge as she sinks into alcoholic oblivion. Making his Hammer debut as Alice's fiancee (in for all of two scenes) was Andre Morell, later one of the studio's greatest assets, working in major prestige pictures like "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "Ben-Hur," and "Barry Lyndon," while taking time out for Hammer in "The Camp on Blood Island," "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (as Watson to Peter Cushing's Sherlock Holmes), "The Shadow of the Cat," "Cash on Demand," "She," "The Plague of the Zombies," "The Mummy's Shroud," and "The Vengeance of She."