A Stolen Face (1952)

Country of Origin: UK
Year of Production: 1952
Running Times: 71m 40s (UK - theatrical)
Length: 6,500 ft
Format: 35mm
Colour Format: black and white
Ratio:
Sound: mono

DIRECTION

Director: Terence Fisher

PRODUCTION
Production Companies: Exclusive Films / Lippert Pictures Inc
Producer: Anthony Hinds
Production Manager: Arthur Barnes

SCRIPT
Script: Martin Berkeley, Richard H. Landau
Story: Alexander Paal, Steven Vas

DIRECTION
Assistant Director: Jimmy Sangster
Continuity: Renée Glynne

PHOTOGRAPHY
Director of Photography: Walter J. Harvey
Camera Operator: Peter Bryan

EDITING AND POST PRODUCTION
Editor: Maurice Rootes

MUSIC
Music: Malcolm Arnold
Specialty Numbers: Jack Parnell
Music Performed By: The London Philharmonic Orchestra
Solo Pianist: Miss Bronwyn Jones

SOUND
Sound Recording: Bill Salter
Sound: RCA Sound System

COSTUMES AND MAKE UP
Gowns For Miss Scott: Edith Head
Furs: Deanfield of London and Paris
Make Up: Philip Leakey
Hair: Bill Griffiths

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Art Director: Wilfred Arnold

LOCATIONS
Locations: Hammersmith-Riverside Studios, London, England, UK

CASTING
Casting Director: Nora Roberts

CAST

Paul Henreid (Dr Philip Ritter)
Lizabeth Scott (Alice Brent/Lily Conover (after surgery))
Mary Mackenzie (Lily Conover (before surgery))
André Morell (David)
John Wood (Dr Jack Wilson)
Susan Stephen (Betty)
Arnold Ridley (Dr Russell)
Everley Gregg (Lady Millicent Harringay)
Cyril Smith (Alf)
Grace Gavin (hospital pre-surgical nurse)
Terence O'Regan (Pete)
Diana Beaumont (May)
Alexis France (Mrs Emmett)
John Bull (Charles Emmett)
Dorothy Bramhall (Miss Simpson)
Ambrosine Phillpotts (Miss Patten)
Russell Napier (Detective Cutler)
Hal Osmond (photographer)
Howard Douglas (farmer)
Frank Hawkins, John Warren (commercial travelers)
Richard Wattis (store manager)
Janet Burnell (Maggie)
William Murray (floor walker)
James Valentine (soldier)

UNCREDITED CAST

Bartlett Mullins
Brookes Turner
Philip Vickers
Ben Williams

Dr Philip Ritter, a Harley Street plastic surgeon, works hard at both his practice and at a women's prison where he does charity work. While taking an enforced holiday for the sake of his health, he meets and falls in love with American pianist Alice Brent and they begin an affair, despite Alice's already being engaged to her manager David. When Alice leaves on a concert tour with David, Ritter uses one of his disfigured prison patients Lily in a bizarre experiment - he remodels her face into an exact copy of Alice and then marries her. He hopes to prove his theory that giving Lily a beautiful face will somehow 'cure' her of the criminal tendencies, but a leopard can't change its spots and Lily causes Ritter a good deal of grief. Life gets worse when Alice returns having split up with David - Ritter tries to leave for an appointment in Plymouth but an enraged Lily, now aware of whose face she is wearing, insists on coming with him...

Stolen Face was a surprisingly prescient movie, with Terence Fisher directing a (sort-of) Hammer film about a medical man who uses his skills to play God. Clearly the film's greatest liability is its wholly unconvincing plot, a ridiculous melodrama uncomfortably mixing plastic surgery with sugary romance. Fisher would make one more pass at a similar idea (in Hammer's The Four Sided Triangle (1953) a scientist similarly tries to produce a duplicate of his lost love) and would do so again in Frankenstein Created Woman (1967). Stolen Face is the least interesting of the three, poorly plotted by writers Martin Berkeley and Richard H. Landau who seemed set on making a perverse version of Pygmalion.

UK
Theatrical Distributor: Exclusive Films Ltd

USA
Theatrical Distributor: Lippert Pictures Inc
Video Distributor: Henwood Video

UK
Rating: A

1952
January
14: UK - rated A by the BBFC (for theatrical release)

April
24: UK - trade show at the Rialto, London

May
22: USA - press screening in Hollywood, California

May
16: USA - theatrical release

1953
December
1: USA - television broadcast (on CBS)

1956
November
8: UK - television broadcast (on Rediffusion)

1996
August
3: UK - shown at the Barbican, London as part of the Hammer at the Barbican season

Volto rubato - Italian title

MAGAZINES

Cine-Technician vol.18 no.98 (September / October 1952) p.111 (UK)
credits

Daily Film Renter vol.26 no.6323 (23 April 1952) pp.5, 8 (UK)
review

Kinematograph Weekly no.2339 (24 April 1952) p.23 (UK)
credits, review

Monthly Film Bulletin vol.19 no.221 (June 1952) pp.81-82 (UK)
credits, synopsis, review

Motion Picture Herald vol.187 no.10 (7 June 1952) p.1389 (USA)
review

Today's Cinema vol.78 no.6487 (22 April 1952) p.12 (UK)
review (by J.G.W.)

Variety 28 May 1952 (USA)
credits, review (by Brog)

plastic surgery, doctors, criminals

Last Updated: 1 January, 2009