Edgar Soberon Torchia 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.

GusF It's not on the same level as the best early 1950s Hammer films that I have seen such as "The Last Page" or "Mantrap" - both of which were also directed by Terence Fisher - but it's a good little thriller which packs quite a bit into its 70 minutes runtime. It concerns a plastic surgeon, Philip Ritter, who alters the appearance of a disfigured habitual criminal, Lily Conover, to recreate a beautiful woman, Alice Brent, with whom he had a brief but intense romance. It can be seen as a precursor to "Vertigo" as well as Fisher's later (and lesser) Hammer films "Four Sided Triangle" and "Frankenstein Created Woman", which cover similar territory from a sci-fi / horror perspective.The film has a great leading man in the effortlessly classy and charismatic Austrian actor Paul Henreid. Best known for his supporting roles in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" and "Casablanca", he was the most high profile male Hollywood star to ever grace a Hammer film and the most high profile overall after Bette Davis and Joan Fontaine. Lizabeth Scott, who only died in January, is not a great actress but she is perfectly fine as Alice. When playing Lily, her voice is dubbed by the original actress Mary Mackenzie so I can't really gauge Scott's performance but Mackenzie is a much better actress. It also features nice supporting roles from André Morell, my favourite Hammer leading man after Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, in his first film for the studio and future "Dad's Army" star Arnold Ridley as well as a small appearance by Richard Wattis, who does not play a civil servant for once! This has nothing to do with my enjoyment of the film itself but I was a little disappointed that the John Wood in the film was not, contrary to what it said on both Wikipedia and IMDb, the Shakespearean actor who is best known for playing Stephen Falken in "WarGames".Overall, this is by no means a Hammer classic but it's great fun.

BA_Harrison When his proposal of marriage to American pianist Alice Brent (Lizabeth Scott) is rejected, successful plastic surgeon Dr Philip Ritter (Paul Henried) uses his skill with a scalpel to turn scarred, psychotic, habitual thief Lily Conovor (Mary Mackenzie) into the spitting image of his beloved and marries her instead; but as the saying goes, beauty is only skin deep, and despite her angelic looks Lily is still a hard-living slag on the inside and soon returns to her old ways, fraternising with her friends from the criminal community. So far, so far fetched, but matters get even more complicated for Phil when Alice comes back to him, having changed her mind about marriage...With its themes of vanity, obsession and madness, early Hammer production Stolen Face could be seen as a precursor to the French classic Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960) or the wonderfully deviant Corruption (1968), as well as an indicator of the darker direction that the studio would eventually take; unfortunately, the film is neither stylish nor sleazy like the aforementioned titles, instead occupying mediocre melodramatic potboiler territory, and despite solid direction from Hammer stalwart Terence Fisher and a decent cast (Scott does particularly well in her dual role, convincingly pulling off a Cockney accent), it all makes for a rather unmemorable experience. The ending is particularly dumb, with all manner of contrivances resulting in a predictably happy ending for Alice and the good doctor.

bensonmum2 I've now watched three of the Hammer noirs that were recently released on DVD and while each is okay, there's nothing very memorable about any of them. That's precisely how I feel about Stolen Face – it's a decent watch, but it's nothing I would go out of my way to see again. While Paul Henreid gives a nice performance and Terence Fisher's direction is solid, the screenplay really lets them down. There just aren't any surprises. It's all nicely done, but I've seen it before. And if you haven't seen it, you can probably predict the film's outcome with a great deal of success. It's about as subtle as a hammer (pun intended) to the head. My enjoyment of the film isn't helped any by the presence of Lizabeth Scott. I've only seen her in two movies that I can name off the top of my head (this one and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers) and that's two too many. I can't stand the woman! One interesting aspect of Stolen Face is the interjection of little elements horror/sci-fi. After all, this is Hammer and this is Terence Fisher. It somehow seems appropriate.