Le visage volé

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.

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.

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."

"A Woman's Face" meets "A Stolen Life." Paul Henreid is a famed, highly principled plastic surgeon. We see him refusing to work on a society matron who is beyond his help. He is taken to meet a badly scarred young criminal. She isn't terribly nice but he is intrigued and takes on the case pro bono.

He is then persuaded to take a vacation. On his trip he meets a concert pianist. She is none other than Lizabeth Scott! Well, add to the movies this resembles, though in this case considerably predates, the classic "Vertigo." We can also toss "Pygmalion" int the pot, though Scott is no Wendy Hiller.

I can't give too much away but you can guess who the bad girl ends up looking like after surgery.

Scott is quite good. She given a little more range than some of her other movies gave her and she does well. The rest of the cast is good too.

The movie is, I suppose, film noir. I wouldn't say it's campy. But it is fun.

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.