Terence Fisher started directing in 1948, and while some of his early films have their merits (particularly "So Long at the Fair" with Dirk Bogarde and Jean Simmons) his fame rests on the string of low-budget but generally classy horror films he made for Hammer between 1957 and 1974. This film was one of several he made for that company before that run, and given the title, and the fact that Paul Henreid plays a plastic surgeon, you might hope that this is a British precursor to Georges Franju's classic "Eyes Without a Face." No chance: instead it's a rather ridiculous melodrama.
Henreid is forced by bad weather to seek refuge in a country pub, and there he meets and falls for a concert pianist (Lizabeth Scott.) She leads a sing-sing in the pub, banging away on the old joanna , as concert pianists love to do. He then returns to London and she goes off on a concert tour arranged by her manager and fiancé Andre Morell. Henreid has undertaken, presumably pro bono, to rebuild the face of habitual criminal Lily (Mary Mackenzie) who's about to be released from Holloway and whose disfigurement in the Blitz has left her embittered. The idea is that the operation will somehow reform her.
Scott tells Henreid she's going to marry Morell, so Henreid does what any sensible plastic surgeon would do: he gives Lily Scott's face and marries her. His attempt to civilise and reform her fails miserably. She's bored by opera, drinks heavily with her old crowd and he has to pay for the expensive items she shop-lifts. Then Scott turns up (Morell having understood that she loves another) and the scene is set for disaster.
The leads are unexciting but adequate, and Fisher's direction is as competent as you'd expect, but the sheer silliness of the story defeats them.
Review of Stolen Face
