Wonderland Burlesque's Let's Go To The Movies: Face Time - Part II

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's Go To The Movies: 

Face Time

Part II

That look, that face...

It's all in the face. It can be read like a book. Or so these films would have us believe. 

And sometimes... that face is a bit spooky!

The silver screen has been home to so many beautiful (and not-so-beautiful) faces, lighting up the dark, showing us the way, sharing celluloid dreams. It seems only fitting that we take them at their word and look a these films one face at a time.

Yes, these faces may belong to a bygone era, but in the movies?

A face lives forever.

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White Face

(1932)

AKA: Edgar Wallace's White Face The Fiend

A doctor finds a man murdered in a seedy part of London. A police investigation reveals that the killer is a blackmailer known as 'White Face' who is also a master of disguise. The doctor realizes that he has a patient matching the suspect's description, and enlists the aid of a reporter to unmask the killer.

Based on a play by Edgar Wallace, this.British crime drama was directed by T. Hayes Hunter and stars Hugh Williams, Gordon Harker and Renee Gadd.

During filming, an affair between Hugh Williams and Renee Gadd began.

The film is now considered a lost film, though the screenplay still exists.

The New York Times wrote, "the British studios contribute a well-bred little mystery picture to the Broadway market in White Face, which is at the Broadway Theatre. An Edgar Wallace product, tailor-made according to the formula for these matters, it places a corpse in a slummy London street at midnight, sets the hounds of Scotland Yard baying up several wrong trees, and in good time whips the mask off the mysterious White Face. On Hollywood standards it is a pleasant enough item for the homicide enthusiasts, suffering generally from a faintly anemic quality and specifically from an absence of humor."

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Sherlock Holmes Faces Death

(1943)

During WWII, several murders occur at a convalescent home where Dr. Watson has volunteered his services. He summons Holmes for help and the master detective proceeds to solve the crime from a long list of suspects including the owners of the home, the staff, and the patients recovering there.

This American murder mystery was directed by Roy William Neill and stars Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, and Hillary Brooke.

The sixth of 14 films based on Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. And the second of three Holmes films in which Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce and Hillary Brooke appeared together.

This movie features a very young and uncredited Peter Lawford who was only 19 years old at the time of filming. He plays a young sailor standing at the bar, has a few lines of dialogue and says "Blimey!" very convincingly in his native British accent.

If the basement crypt looks familiar, it is due to the fact that the set was originally built for Dracula (1931), the iconic Universal classic.

You can watch this movie in its entirety for free on YouTube.

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Fiend Without A Face 

(1958)

AKA: Les Monstres invisibles

A scientist on an air base in Canada experiments with the materialization of thought waves through atomic energy, which ultimately take the form of malevolent invisible killer brains, which then materialize as flying brains with attached spinal columns and eyestalks, strangling people with their spinal cords.

Based on The Thought-Monster by Amelia Reynolds Long, which was published in the classic American pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1930, this nightmarish British chiller was directed by Arthur Crabtree and stars Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, Michael Balfour, and Kim Parker.

Screenwriter Leder was originally set to direct the film, but being American, was unable to obtain a British work permit in time, so Crabtree replaced him as director. In an interview, star Marshall Thompson recalled that director Arthur Crabtree didn't really want to direct the film - he thought sci-fi was beneath him. Crabtree turned up on set on the first day of filming, took one look at the script and informed the cast and crew that he refused to do the film. He walked off set, and the producers needed several days to convince him to return, citing contractual obligations. Thompson says that during those days, Thompson directed the film himself.

It was released in June 1958 by MGM as a double feature with The Haunted Strangler (1958). Together, the two films earned $350,000 in the United States and Canada, and $300,000 in England and elsewhere. The estimated production budget for Fiend Without a Face was £50,000; MGM realized a profit of $160,000 on the movie. It was also one of the most successful British films of 1958.

Kim Parker only appeared on screen in a towel for a few seconds, but the studio used that image on the posters to promote the movie. The shocked look on her face wasn't caused by the creatures in the film; she was startled to find a man in her bedroom as she walked out of the bathroom half-naked. Director Arthur Crabtree wanted Parker to film her shower scene fully nude even though she wouldn't be exposed onscreen, but she refused. Instead, she wore a strapless one-piece swimsuit in the shower and under her towel after.

The film's visible brain creatures were created using stop-motion animation, an unusual practice for such a low-budget science fiction thriller of this era. The director of these effects sequences was Florenz Von Nordoff, while the actual stop-motion was done in Munich by Nordhoff's partner, German special effects artist K. L. Ruppel. Peter Neilson headed up the British practical effects crew

This outstanding sci-fi/horror hybrid is considered a special effects bonanza, and a high-water mark in British genre filmmaking. Considered so horrific that the controversy was reportedly brought up in Britain's House of Parliament. Questions were actually raised in Parliament as to why British censors had allowed Fiend Without a Face to be released, notably: "What is the British film industry thinking by trying to beat Hollywood at its own game of overdosing on blood and gore". The film created a public uproar after its premiere at the Ritz Theater in Leicester Square. The British Board of Film Censors had already demanded a number of cuts before granting it the 'X' certificate.

A publicity stunt went somewhat wrong in New York City. The Rialto Theater in Times Square featured a sidewalk promotion for the film--one of the prop brain creatures was displayed in a cage on the sidewalk outside the theater, wired for sound and motion. However, the crowd it attracted grew so large that they were snarling pedestrian and vehicle traffic, and the police demanded that it be removed. There were also reports of some audience members being sickened by what they saw on the screen. It is not known how many of the stories about fainting and sickness were genuine or simply examples of old-fashioned Hollywood ballyhoo.

You can watch this film in it's entirety for free on YouTube.

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Eyes Without A Face 

(1960)

AKA: Les Yeux sans visage, 

The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus

After causing an accident that left his daughter Christiane severely disfigured, the brilliant surgeon Dr. Génessier works tirelessly to give the girl a new face. He does so, however, by kidnapping young women and attempting face transplants. He has been woefully unsuccessful to date. The doctor's world begins to collapse around him when his daughter realizes just what he has been doing.

Based on a novel of the same name by French author Jean Redon. this French/Italian horror film was directed by Georges Franju and stars Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel, and Édith Scob.

 

Franju felt the story was not a horror film; rather, he described his vision of the film as one of "anguish... it's a quieter mood than horror; more internal, more penetrating. It's horror in homeopathic doses."

To avoid problems with European censors, Borkon cautioned Franju not to include too much blood (which would upset French censors), refrain from showing animals getting tortured (which would upset English censors) and leave out mad-scientist characters (which would upset German censors). All three of these were part of the novel, presenting a challenge to find the right tone for presenting these story elements in the film. Redon himself contributed to the screenplay, which shifted the focus to the character Christiane. After assistant director Claude Sautet laid out a preliminary screenplay, the writing team of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac - who had written novels adapted as Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques (1955) and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958).

Givenchy created the gowns Christiane (Édith Scob) wears throughout the film. French composer Maurice Jarre created the haunting score for the film.

Although the film passed European censors upon its original release in 1960, the film's disturbing facial surgery scene still caused controversy. The French news magazine L'Express commented that the audience "dropped like flies" during the heterografting scene. When the film appeared in the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1960 it was reported that seven audience members fainted during the surgery scene. Director Georges Franju responded "Now I know why Scotsmen wear skirts."

The initial release of the film was met with negative reactions from film critics. One French critic stated the film was "in a minor genre and quite unworthy of his abilities." Franju responded by saying that the film was his attempt to get the minor genre to be taken seriously. On the other hand, an English film critic for The Spectator was nearly fired for writing the film a positive review.

Originally released in the US in 1962 as an edited and dubbed version titled The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus; an odd title considering there's no one named Dr. Faustus in the film. It served as part of a double feature with the American-Japanese horror film Manster (1959).

Widely-recognized as one of the most influential horror films of all time.

You can watch this film in it's entirety for free on YouTube.

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Faces In The Dark

(1960)

Businessman and inventor Richard Hammond is determined to develop and market the perfect light-bulb. In a freak lab accident he is blinded and suffers a partial breakdown. His wife, partner and brother take him to his country house, but then Hammond starts to suspect all is not what it seems.

Based on the 1952 novel Les Visages de l'ombre by Boileau-Narcejac (see: Eyes Without A Face), this.black and white British thriller was directed by David Eady and stars John Gregson, Mai Zetterling, John Ireland and Michael Denison.

This was Michael Denison's last film until Shadowlands (1993), which was his final film overall, 33 years later.

Monthly Film Bulletin said "Though the central hypothesis of this horrific film – the urgent discovery, lease and furnishing of a house in France so like his own in Cornwall that a blind man couldn’t tell the difference – is as far-fetched as anything yet adapted from Boileau and Narcejac, the situation itself is still an inviting one. David Eady’s handling is sadly unambitious, however. Instead of using all the resources of the cinema to stress and elaborate the tension, he settles for a prosaic, television style of presentation. The photography is suitably harsh but the camerawork lacks fluidity; the characterisation is properly flat, but so is most of the acting. Only the tombstone incident, and Mai Zetterling’s enigmatic Christiane, have anything like the right Grand Guignol flavour." While The Radio Times wrote "this tale of blindness and rage should have been a real nail-biter. Sadly, ex-documentary director David Eady simply doesn't have the thriller instinct and throws away countless opportunities to make the tension unbearable."

 You can watch this film in it's entirety for free on YouTube.

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And that's all for now, folks.

Tune in next time...

Same place, same channel.

 

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Fiend Without A Face - Trailer

(1958)