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Indeed, the title character of this patently ridiculous schlock feature does not have a face. Incased in stone, he was a slave named Quintillus Aurelius in the days of ancient Rome, when Mount Vesuvius erupted and caused the destruction of the city of Pompeii. He's discovered in modern times by archaeologists, and goes about crushing the skulls of people unlucky enough to merely be in his way. What he really wants to do is reunite with the long ago noblewoman he loved, who's conveniently been reincarnated as the movies' leading lady, Tina Enright (Elaine Edwards).

There's nothing particularly special here, but undemanding fans of low budget genre fare could find enough to keep them interested. It's cheaply made like so many other movies of its kind, and devotes too much of its time to exposition. There's also some pretty silly but endearing narration, which was spoken by the great and prolific character actor of the period, Morris Ankrum. The characters are entertaining (bravo to Felix Locher as Dr. Emanuel; he really looks like he's having fun reeling off that exposition). Edwards is a hell of a screamer, and both she and Adele Mara are definitely pretty ladies. Luis Van Rooten as Dr. Carlo Fiorillo and Jan Arvan as the requisite police inspector are solid. Richard Anderson is a jut jawed, decent enough hero as Dr. Paul Mallon, but man, oh man, is Paul a stubborn dummy. He remains hard headed and skeptical for too long.

In the end, this is an okay update of Mummy type stories, if not too memorable overall. Writer Jerome Bixby, producer Robert E. Kent, and director Edward L. Cahn truly hit paydirt with a subsequent joint effort, "It! The Terror from Beyond Space", the movie that many people regard as the principal inspiration for "Alien".

Six out of 10.

"The Curse of the Faceless Man" is a rather inconsequential yet enjoyable horror film from the 1950s. It stars Richard Anderson of "The Six Million Dollar Man" fame.

The story begins with a body and a box of jewels being found in the ruins of Pompeii. This isn't that unusual. But the body itself is silly because it looks exactly like the ones they have on display there...but those are actually plaster casts of the bodies which had long disintegrated. Inexplicably, this is supposed to be an entire person....and looks exactly like one of the casts. However, it holds a secret...it's not quite dead! And, it has a murderous appetite if anyone comes between it and his beloved...much like in the old classic horror film "The Mummy".

So is it any good? Well, I must say that the costume looked really good. As far as the plot and dialog go, they are, of course, quite silly. But many folks (like me) like schlocky old 50s horror pictures...and it's well worth seeing and reasonably entertaining. Far from perfect, and with needless narration, it's worth seeing if you like this sort of nonsense.

Watching CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN transports me back to the days of "Chiller Theatre" on Saturday nights. The premise of a man saturated with Egyptian embalming fluid and then sealed in volcanic ash and preserved by the radiation from deep within the earth is certainly an unusual one. (Notice how they sneaked "radiation" into the plot once again?) It is also a movie you have to think about. Quintillus "sees" through a sort of ESP and recognises the reincarnation of the woman he loved. Alas Richard Anderson is a little too hard headed as the hero. Even after he sees Quintillus alive he refuses to believe his fiancee could have had a past life as the stone man's beloved. Gar Moore, who had worked with Roberto Rossellini in the late 1940's, does not have much to do apart from spount some scientific jargon and looked concerned. Bravo to Felix Locher as Dr. Emmanuel. Mr. Locher, real life father of actor Jon Hall (Charles Locher) did not begin acting until he was 76. Look for him also in HELL SHIP MUTINY and in his most famous film, FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER. The Faceless Man is played by Bob Bryant who usually did westerns. The narrator sounds a lot like Morris Ankrum, could someone tell me if it is really him? The "Museo di Napoli" is actually Griffith Observatory and a stretch of beach in Venice, California not Europe, stands in for the Cove of the Blind Fisherman. Okay so it is not full of CGI and the plot is predictable. We watch B-movies to have fun, right? So let's watch it have fun like we did when we were kids.

Richard Anderson stars as Dr. Paul Mallon, who is studying a recently unearthed stone-encrusted man from Pompeii, wearing a bronze medallion with Eutruscan symbols on it. Despite the superstitious fears surrounding it held by the locals, Paul proceeds with his study, when people mysteriously start dying, having been crushed by powerful hands. Could it be the stone man, or is it just a coincidence? Edward L. Cahn once again directs a fondly remembered cult classic(by some) but film is pretty weak really, with a clichéd and predictable plot, and little credibility. Richard Anderson is good though, but to think he went from "Paths Of Glory" to this in just one year!

Be warned, this film could scare young kids; it certainly horrified me when I was young. Today, it would probably horrify the general public and movie critics alike.

A workman digging in the debris around Naples unearths a small chest with valuable artifacts, all of which can be found on QVC. Just by coincidence, a stone creature is found nearby, an obvious victim of Vesuvius. While the creature is being transported to a laboratory, it suddenly comes alive and kills the truck driver. The truck driver's agent is to be congratulated for getting him removed very quickly from this film. Meanwhile, the scientists, led by Richard Anderson (over a decade before his scientist-stint in "The Six Million Dollar Man") try to make sense of all this. Anderson is joined in this incompetent pursuit by Luis Van Rooten, playing Dr. Fiorillo, and Adele Mara, playing Van Rooten's daughter. Van Rooten's attempt at an Italian accent sounds more like Tim Conway's Mr. Tudball character. He keeps pointing his pipe at everyone. I liked him much better as Ralph Kramden's landlord. Swiss-born Felix Locher joins the fray as another scientist; his accent is beyond description. Locher has the pivotal job of translating an inscription which lets us all know the identity of the stone guy. He is Quintillus Aurelius (no relation to Marcus). Quintillus is Latin for "Five illus." Apparently, Quintillus placed a curse on a family, almost 1900 years before the Corleone's thought of it.

Enter Anderson's fiancée, Tina, played by Elaine Edwards, who looks like Judy Holliday less the annoying voice. She is a painter and has dreams about a stone man (or perhaps it's Rock Hudson). She has dreamt about his discovery, about the truck driver being offed, etc. We also learn that Mara and Anderson had a thing for each other years ago. This has the makings of a romantic triangle; unfortunately, there is no onscreen chemistry between anyone, so the triangle reduces to a line segment, and ultimately, a point.

Anyway, if you're still reading this, Quintillus turns out to have been a slave who was in love with his master's daughter - and since there are only two women in the cast, and one of them is dreaming about him, I'll let you figure this one out.

There are several implausible scenes in this movie, even if you can get beyond a stone man walking around Naples. For instance, Van Rooten devises a clever plan to see if the creature is alive. With Anderson and Mara at his side, he places a brooch near the creature's prone body; naturally, the big guy awakens and goes for the brooch. It is at this point that all three realize they don't know how to stop the creature. Idiots! Can you say "Exit Strategy?" Later, the creature stalks Edwards, who inexplicably is left alone in her apartment, suffering from shock. And you thought your health care plan sucked. The creature breaks down the door of the building. No one hears this. Then he breaks down her apartment door. Edwards hears this, gets up, and puts on her nightgown. Yes, you want to look your best if you're about to be carried off by a monster. Finally, she screams when she catches sight of stone boy. Anderson, Van Rooten, et al, who are standing next to the building, manage to hear the scream, but were oblivious to all the prior crashing noises. Interestingly, everyone in Naples speaks English, even the Polizia.

Quintillus throws a few tantrums, belts some people around, and gives us the obligatory monster-carrying-the-girl scene, as he ultimately tries to take his true love into the sea to save her from Vesuvius. Anderson cleverly deduces that today's date is the same day that Vesuvius erupted ("2000 years earlier"). Well, it's more like 1,879 years. Maybe Anderson decided to round up the nearest millennium. But why nitpick?

Bob Bryant plays the stone Quintillus; at least no one can accuse his performance of being wooden. Horror and Sci-Fi actor Morris Ankrum narrates, and tells us what everyone in the cast is thinking. I didn't need this. The Bay of Naples is played by Southern California.

During an archaeological dig on the site of ancient Pompeii in Italy a box of jewellery is uncovered, quickly followed by what looks like a faceless statue but is in fact the calcified body of a 2,000 year old Roman gladiator. He comes to life and seeks out the reincarnation of his lover. She is an American who happens to be in the area, what are the odds of that happening!!?? Despite his size the police in the Naples area struggle to find the plodding stone man, the plot is rather silly at times. Essentially this movie is The Mummy (1932) but instead of bandages we get stone, and to be fair I found the creature quite good. The movie does have a few suspenseful moments but, like the Faceless Man, it also plods along at times too. Although set in Italy it was filmed in California but the cool European cars did help it look like the Mediterranean. Classic science fiction/horror this most definitely is not but for fans of these genres from this period it is a perfectly watchable 67 minutes.

Excavated from an expedition at Pompeii, a professor and his assistant find that the recovered mummy of an ancient guardian believes that she is the princess he loved reincarnated and sets out to reclaim her forcing them to protect her while trying to find a way to stop him.

This here wasn't all that bad of a drive-in feature. One of the films' better features is the fact that there's quite a lot of work here on the build-up to the reveal of the mummy and its condition. The connection to ancient Roman history, setting the whole affair around the eruption of Vesuvius which is carried out rather nicely through the discovery of the mummy, and it's contents from the dig site which leads rather well into the dreams she has about the mummy coming for her which comes off as the vast majority of the first half here. When it gets to the point about him being alive and coming after the medallion, this one gets even more fun as these are where the film really offers its best scenes as the first resurrection in the museum in front of her is quite the impressive offering, while the main attack in her apartment after it chases them out after it's chamber and goes on stalking her throughout the building which is a really fun and exciting sequence which remains a nice highlight. Even the finale is rather nice, from the final abduction out of the museum and the trip through the countryside where they arrive at the beach when the police arrive and engage in the final confrontation with the creature which is a rather nice and unexpected finish that ends this on a rather fun note. Along with the great look and imposing features of the mummy, these here are what make this one fun enough to hold over the flaws. The issue here is the fact that a vast majority of the film has an annoying and utterly irritating voice-over narration that is completely unnecessary as a whole. The voice-over tells us absolutely nothing important about what's going on since it merely describes the action playing out on-screen or shoots off a quick blurb following up on what was just learned which renders the exercise quite comical as well as irritating. Since it's carried on throughout the whole film, oftentimes just for a line or two, it's pointless needling on the story really gets old, and becomes a hindrance due to its continuation while it stayed only for the beginning this wouldn't be an issue. Likewise, the only other problematic issue is the overall cheap and quickie feeling to it as there's just not a whole lot here that denotes too much went into this, from the cheap look and cramped sets to the flimsy look of everything which makes this look incredibly cheap. That does tend to lower this one, although there's still plenty to like overall here.

Today's Rating/PG: Violence.

The name of this movie eluded me but I was fortunate enough (I guess) to have seen it once or twice on "Doctor Shock Theatre" that we picked up out of Philly. Looking at some of the stills online, the walking statue is kinda ominous looking. I wouldn't want to see it following me home. It also looks like a costume the creature wore from the Lost In Space episode, "Wish Upon A Star." I wish I could remember more about the movie but it's been too many years since I last saw it. I remember it was supposed to take place in Italy. Written by Jerome Bixby who wrote many stories for episodic TV including the original Star Trek. If you happen upon this gem by all means add your review here.

CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN (1958) is little more than a low-budget rehash of "The Mummy" story set in Griffith Park Observatory doubling as the Museo di Pompeii and Malibu locations doubling as the Bay of Naples. Though the film clocks in at sixty-three or so minutes FACELESS MAN plods along at a snail's pace. Quintillus Aurelius is an Etruscan buried in the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius who returns to the 1950's to reclaim his lost love (who has superhuman lung power - when this girl screams, she SCREAMS!) Not completely without charm but not a memorable moment in horror film history either. With Richard Anderson (FORBIDDEN PLANET, SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN) and Wolf Barzell (FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER). This flick is probably best enjoyed by Baby Boomers who were frightened by it as kids.

I guess the age of Camelot is dead. Modern viewers don't seem to appreciate a love story about a petra-fried beau trying to save his gal from Vesuvius. Ah! His love was hotter than the volcano; but, unfortunately, he was combustible. The artist feels drawn to her centuries old beau and murder ensues in this awesome-effect B movie. The film is reminiscent of the mummy genre. The title character is hideous and scary. There is a love triangle that is quite poignant. Performances are acted with affection and the cast is solid. Direction is typical for the 50's (and that's a good thing!) Excuse the pun; but, this film is definitely not a 'potboiler'.

Not the Kafkaesque tale of dealing with beaurocracy the title suggests but actually a moronically enjoyable quickie about a marauding mummy.

Scripted by sci-fi veteran Jerome Bixby with a nod to the recent Bridie Murphy case it boasts cool location work on the California coast masquerading as the Bay of Naples, a jangling score by Gerald Fried and Adele Mara as a formidable lady scientist whose eyebrows look permanently arched in astonishment. As well they might.

I am predisposed to like 1950s B-movies. And this one had a lot of potential. It was basically the mummy story, set in the shadow of Vesuvius. Standard scientists and pretty girl who screams. There were two major flaws though. One was that the dialogue was full of exposition – "as you know, your specialty is… " And "as you know, you were once engaged to him." This is not only clumsy but easily remedied.

In a strange twist, this movie actually made me scream aloud – but not for the reasons that the filmmakers would have wished. It was the voice-over narration. The film begins with it … All well and good. And then it goes away for 12 or 15 minutes and the next time it came back it surprised me so much I literally screamed. And it was ludicrous: the shot was of the scientist looking concerned for his girlfriend and the narration said something like " he was concerned for his girlfriend." It is as if they didn't trust their own actors, who were actually conveying the emotions quite well.

The ending is very strange too. This could've been a solid seven star film for people like me who like old black-and-white horror and science fiction … But the two flaws were serious.

A citizen of Pompeii, entrapped by lava during the historic volcanic blast has turned into a solid stone mummy. It comes to life, and assumes the film's leading lady is his lost love. The usual fast paced, but cheaply made thrills by prolific genre director Edward Cahn (1899-1963). The usual drive in stuff from that period. The scenes where the stone man menaces the girl (who's one helluva screamer!) are a bit chilling.

1958's "Curse of the Faceless Man" came from the same writer (Jerome Bixby), producer (Robert Kent), and director (Edward L. Cahn) of its United Artists cofeature "It! The Terror from Beyond Space." The decade had previously seen science fiction takeoffs on supernatural creatures with 1956's Columbia "The Werewolf" (scripted by Robert E. Kent) and 1957's United Artists "The Vampire," here it's The Mummy's turn with a twist (quite different from the 1956 "Pharaoh's Curse"), not the Egyptian kind but an Etruscan from Pompeii buried for 2000 years by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD (approximately 1000 people died). A love starved gladiator slave who placed a curse on those who came between him and the woman he loved, a senator's daughter, provides the far fetched reason for Vesuvius belching its fire and fury, and though he too failed to escape its destruction Egyptian embalming fluid enabled his stone encrusted body to remain alive beneath the ground through the centuries before being excavated in modern times. And as if one more cliché was needed, like Karloff's 1932 Mummy he finds a modern woman who just happens to be the reincarnation of his lost love. The mystery aspect of how the mummy kills was echoed by a 1966 Roddy McDowall vehicle titled "It!" which was a modern update of The Golem, radiation providing the meager sci/fi hook, hardly as effective as the Scroll of Thoth or tana leaves (makes one long for Lon Chaney stalking Mapleton residents in Massachusetts). Despite the rare starring role, a forlorn Richard Anderson ("The Night Strangler," THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN) spends the entire picture looking down with a fixed expression of mild concern. Felix Locher was the father of actor Jon Hall, his most substantial part coming up in Richard E. Cunha's "Frankenstein's Daughter" (sharp eyed viewers may remember the nondescript Gar Moore from 1949's "Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff," here in his final screen performance).

A worker at an archaeological dig at Pompeii unearths a jewel box and the calcified body of a man, a victim of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A. D.. At the Museo Di Pompeii, Dr. Emanuel (Felix Locher) translates the writing on a medallion found inside the box: it's a curse placed by Etruscan slave Quintillus Aurelius, the faceless man found with the box, who comes back to life to find the reincarnation of the woman he loved and kill anyone who gets in his way.

Curse of the Faceless Man is yet another '50s horror in which a character is hypnotically regressed to a past life (others I have seen recently include The She-Creature, The Undead, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, and The Aztec Mummy). This time around, it's artist Tina Enright (Elaine Edwards) who is regressed, back to Pompeii in 79 A. D. when she was a member of Roman nobility. By an amazing coincidence, Tina is the reincarnation of the woman Quintillus had the hots for back in the day, which means that her fiancé Dr. Paul Mallon (Richard Anderson) has to try and find a way of stopping the stone man from carrying away his gal.

Similar in many ways to a mummy movie, Curse of the Faceless Man is a sloppy, derivative low-budget B-movie that requires regular exposition via narration (by Morris Ankrum) to keep the film from stalling completely. The monster is a man in a manky rubber suit who moves slower than a sloth with bad knees, meaning that any fatal attack is laughable, since victims could have simply walked away at a brisk pace (rather than standing their ground). The end of this unexceptional piece of schlock horror sees the faceless man carry Tina into the sea (believing that he is rescuing her from the eruption of Vesuvius), where he dissolves.

Curse Of The Faceless Man tells the story of a man encased in stone after the lava hit him at the destruction of Pompeii. He's been that way for almost 2000 years until an archaeological dig found him. But he's as dead as an unstaked vampire and he's carrying a 2000 year old itch that needs scratching.

I'm sure a lot of viewers spotted the parallels between this film and the classic Boris Karloff version of The Mummy. Both Karloff's Im Ho Tep and Quintillus Aurelius the gentleman caught in that lava flow are staking claim to a currently alive woman who is the reincarnated beloved of their ancient crushes.

The scientific explanations offered by Doctors Richard Anderson, Adele Mara, Luis Van Rooten, Felix Locher, and Gar Moore are really kind of sketchy. These players sure got nowhere near Naples on the budget this film had.

How did they destroy this man of stone? Here's a hint, he went the way of the Triffids.

Typical and cheap 50s science fiction.

Watching this film you will easily be reminded of the Universal classic mummy films on Kharis (which starred Tom Tyler & Lon Chaney as the mummy Kharis). But instead of being a mummy this is a man made of stone that was found at the ancient site of Pompeii. It is very much like the Universal Kharis series.

I like this film - it's not nearly as good as the mummy series but it is a fun horror film like any of the Kharis films. It's just one of those movies you can really turn off your thinking cap and just kick back and enjoy the craziness on screen.

6.5/10

The Curse of the Faceless Man (1958) with its somewhat cliched and predictable plot does tend to repeat many of the elements contained in Universal Studios, The Mummy (1932), so we do feel that we're on a very well-trodden path and all too familiar territory. The premise of an embalmed man being sealed in volcanic ash and preserved by radiation deep within the earth is at least an interesting one.

The plot of this movie has to be one of the most original ever: instead of vampires, zombies, ghosts or aliens, this time the monster is a plaster cast from the shape of a person who died in Pompei, during the famous eruption of the Vesuvio volcano, 79 a.d.! Scenes were not shot in Italy at all, you can see some pretty anonymous setting with wrongly-written Italian signs and a landscape which looks like California or Mexico, but has definitely nothing of Italy. Acting is terrible, the story is nonense and effects are very poor. Still, like many cheap horror pictures from the 1950's, it's so absurd that it's big fun to watch.

If you are not warned or used to Edward L Cahn's style, you will never make it with this film, you won't watch it till the end. It is a pure lousy picture, but that's precisely why I like it, I think it's good to see such gentle and agreeable crap from time to time; not all the time of course. It is involuntarily funny, and it's made to leave the audience puzzled, skeptical, wondering what this unidentified film is...Is it made by a disabled, brain disabled director. But don't worry, it's only Edward L Cahn, the unique Edward L Cahn. I enjoyed it much, maybe because i am a bit disabled too.... I love it. But Terence Fisher's THE MUMMY, nearly the same topic, is far far better.