Stolen Face

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.

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.

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.

Paul Henreid stars as a celebrated plastic surgeon, who meets concert pianist Lizabeth Scott on a brief holiday. He quickly falls for her, but she disappears before telling him she's engaged to a man who has helped her in her career. A confused, sullen Henreid returns to his practice, which includes his charitable work with female inmates. Henreid believes if he can change their looks, he can change their lives. When he learns that Scott is going to be married, he decides to 'recreate' her on badly scarred thief Lily (Mary Mackenzie).

Then, to give her a better environment, he decides to marry Lily much to the disapproval of his friends. It isn't long before Lily reverts to old pals and old ways--stealing jewelry and furs, but Henreid makes excuses to the shops and pays her bills. One day, Scott shows up. She decided not to marry and she sees a picture of 'herself' (Lily) on his desk. You would think this would elicit a 'that's really creepy' response, but it's brushed aside a little too easily. Lily finds out that she's just a Scott knock-off, and makes it clear that now she's going to do as she pleases, Henreid can't stop her and her life gets wilder. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.

Scott is the standout of the cast, playing both demure musician and party girl with equal skill. I first thought she was even changing her throaty whispers to become Lily (who gets more Cockney as her behavior spirals downward) but Mary Mackenzie voiced Lily throughout (there is a similarity). There are shades of Vertigo in the plot, and the score by the London Philharmonic is quite good, Odd choice for Heinreid in the cast, since he played a double part in "The Scar" just four years earlier.

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."