User Reviews

Scarred on the outside, scarred on the inside. That is the central theme of A WOMAN'S FACE, George Cukor's 1941 film that starred Joan Crawford in what could be the best role of her entire career. As Anna Holm, she continued her winning streak of critical performances even though the film itself garnered no awards of any kind. With this film it seems she believed she was back on track at MGM because she campaigned to star in THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE in the central role but was denied the chance because Louis B. Mayer did not want to see her play "more cripples or maimed women." It's because of this that A WOMAN'S FACE was her last quality film at MGM; she'd do three more films of much lesser quality before leaving MGM for good and going into a two year hiatus before making her great "comeback" in MILDRED PIERCE.

Joan Crawford herself was quoted as saying that her Oscar win for MILDRED PIERCE was more a tribute to her career as a whole up until then and credited A WOMAN'S FACE for her 1946 win. When comparing the two, she gave great performances in each, but somehow, as Anna Holm she was more effective in her restraint, the inner hurt coming out in her expressive eyes and defeated look throughout. Much, if not all, of the credit could be given to Cukor himself who was keen on erasing all of the quirks that made her the star and the fact that she trusted his direction only enhanced the resulting product. Watching the sequence when her disfigured face is shown for the first time when she takes her hat off -- as if she were expecting a reaction of horror of the character who witnesses it -- and seeing the anguish in her eyes which betray her sarcastic view on life, it is possible to see the real actress within. Another scene has her recite the events that led to her disfigurement. Her voice remains in one note, her expression almost blank -- she is on the edge of pain itself, a freak being told to spill its guts out as to why she became a freak. A great moment in film and acting, as she could have overdone it at any time, and chose not to.

A WOMAN'S FACE is linked, albeit in an indirect way, to film noir. I don't believe it is, and much of it is due to a sunnier, glossy feel the film develops during a dance sequence. Film noir is unrelenting and grim. This movie is closer to romantic suspense, even when scenes involving romantic encounters are almost nowhere to be seen. It's possible that Cukor's visual style is to blame. However, Anna Holm is a woman in the middle of a blackmail ring and thus living in the underbelly of a society that has betrayed her, so it must be considered as such. The opening sequence in which she is led by guards to her cell is done in odd angles and we never see her face, only her back. She is dressed in black throughout the entire film. We only see the left side of her face throughout the first half, and Cukor is able to use the simplest of things -- lighting, objects placed on the right side of Crawford's face, throwing a sliver of light on top of her uncovered eye after yet another operation, illuminating her left profile during her court scene. Suspense is well-drawn, we want to see her unwrap the gauze, and that simple notion drives the entire movie. Very sharp.

A WOMAN'S FACE is thus, one of Crawford's finest efforts filled with small moments -- watch her take a walk in the park and react to daylight with a bouquet of flowers in her arms -- among the greater scenes. Great support by Melvin Douglas, Marjorie Main (in a dramatic, dour turn), and especially Conrad Veidt, excellent as the scheming Torsten. A shame it got lost in the awards shuffle come 1942 and that it ultimately went to Joan Fontaine for SUSPICION. Recommendable.

Joan Crawford is convincingly disfigured as our story starts, and of course she get fixed up. But she's a bad egg, exploiting one guy, while living out another guy's anti-social philosophy. All of this takes place in Sweden, which is truly bizarre. It causes anything and everything memorable in the visuals, which are freed from having to depict Anytown USA, but it makes a viewer wonder why every remake since is burdened and rendered unspecific by the need to Americanize everything. There is plot, plot, plot so chatty that you could drown in it, and making matters worse is a framing device that adds zilch to the movie. The photography is occasionally nice, with odd angles and miniatures incorporated quite well. But it's overwrought without ever once drawing you in.

Copyright 6 May 1941 by Loew's Inc. An M-G-M picture. New York opening at the Capitol: 15 May 1941. U.S. release: 23 May 1941. U.K. release: 30 August 1941. Australian release: 9 October 1941. Length: 9,565 feet. 106 minutes. (The Warner DVD rates ten out of ten).

NOTES: Cukor told me that the wonderful snowstorm climax was shot by a second unit under the direction of producer Victor Saville.

COMMENT: After a most impressive opening, this film is undermined by some tedious and banal dialogue scenes, all shot in extremely long and boring takes. Fortunately, it ends with a bang — a sleigh chase so dramatically inter-cut, and filmed by Victor Saville from such a diverse variety of angles, it cannot fail to move the spectator to the edge of his chair.

Sad to say, Melvyn Douglas is a liability who does nothing for the film, and even such a stalwart trouper as Marjorie Main remains disappointingly lackluster in a role she should have relished. But the rest of the cast, particularly Donald Meek and Osa Massen, have a royal time with this melodrama. Crawford and Veidt have their moments too, though they fail to sustain their portrayals at a high pitch of intensity; while Henry Daniell and George Zucco strive valiantly to make their presence felt in small roles.

Planck's photography, particularly his outre lighting of the earlier scenes, is superb. The art direction is similarly impressive.

A SECOND VIEW: As I inferred above, the first half-hour or so is marvelous — despite some remarkably fatuous dialogue of the "Do you like music: symphonies, concertos?" caliber.

Fortunately, the best witnesses are brought on right at the start, with Donald Meek absolutely delightful as a rascally waiter, while boring old windbags like Bassermann bring up the rear.

Alas, once the operation is over, the film's interest nosedives. We can see the denouement coming a mile off, but the characters take their own nice time getting there. Even the climax on the cable car over the dam and the night chase in the sleighs with lots of speeded-up action and obvious meanwhile-back-in-the-studio inserts, fail to generate much excitement.

Cukor's direction is at its stylish best in the initial segments, the tone set by such opening masterstrokes as the rapidly cut tracking shots of Crawford and her guards. Crawford, of course, is great, but Douglas rates as a pain (fortunately he's not in the film all that much). Veidt makes a charming villain. And there's a terrific music score by Kaper.

It's not every classic-era Hollywood film that has as its heroine a thief, blackmailer, murderer and intended infanticide (as well, of course, as a poet and musician - this IS Joan Crawford), but this isn't your average classic-era Hollywood film. it is one of Cukor's best, and echoes its theme of transformation - from scarred freak to beauty; from independent transgressor to adoring wife; from poor daughter of drunk to frequenter of chateaux; from warped criminal to protector of innocence - in its very form, as it moves from rich melodrama to unbelievably tense Hitchcockian thriller, in a way Cukor would do later with 'Gaslight'; or in the way it turns from christian allegory (Barring identifies himself with the Devil; Segert the 'scientist' (like Elaine Benes' pediatrist boyfriend, this plastic surgeon has ideas above his station) as Frankenstein/God; and Anna is repeatedly referred to as an angel, not always ironically) to a savage critique of the cinema and its assumptions, or vice versa.

Every great director has an overriding theme he asserts and develops throughout his oeuvre. The common element in Cukor's films is his recurrent interest in the theatricality of everyday life, the way identity is conceived as a performance, to be constantly negotiated through an artificial society. Think of Eliza becoming a 'lady' in 'My Fair Lady'. 'A Woman's face' opens with a court-bill proclaiming the case to be tried; it is like a play-bill, and Cukor pulls back to reveal a group of potential punters reading it. The trial itself is theatricalised, from the shoving, gasping audience, to the ritualistic introduction of the dramatis personae, while the film is full of role-playing and deception, where costume is of crucial importance; of playwrights devising plays for actresses (poets or not).

This elaborate artifice points to the pathos of the main theme, that of a potentially beautiful woman hideously scarred and mocked by her peers. It is a cliche that good looks can mask a vicious heart, and vice versa, but Anna's case is more complex. In a world of appearances, where one's character is literally judged by the face one presents to the world, than Anna must play her role. As her face is horribly disfigured, than so must her soul, her body reuniting the division enacted by Dorian Gray. Likewise, when her face is restored, or, more accurately, recreated, she becomes a nicer person. No wonder, even today, most young girls want some kind of reconstructive surgery - it's an easy ticket to moral and social improvement.

Cukor is too sympathetic to his heroines to allow this poisonous morality to stand. His film is one of the great melodramas, as he reveals the limitations of female experience in a self-interested male world. Barring picks on Anna because he sees her self-loathing can be manipulated for his own ends. Although Anna is a criminal, she is a moral force - she plays on the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie; the scene where she strikes Segert has an overwhelming S&M charge, and is mirrored later when Barring whips his pursuers.

In the first half, Anna is a femme fatale, economically independent, preying on a weak middle-class. Her normalising into society, first by improving her face, is shown as an imprisonment - the barred door leading to Barring's (get it?) apartment; the hall of mirrors her identity gets lost in as she admires herself (an amazing shot); the literal prison she finds herself in after the murder; the ironic bars that overlook the seemingly redemptive talk of marriage with Segert; the uncertain ending, where Anna hasn't been acquitted yet - Cukor knows she's just exchanging one prison for another.

This sense of entrapment is embodied in the narrative, where her story is submerged in a host of others' stories, all unreliable and diminishing, reducing her to a woman's face. This wider social analysis of women's role is tied specifically to the role of actresses in the film industry, their dependence on facial beauty, their collusion in 'false' or unrealistic images of femininity - the film is full of lamps being switched on to light up women's faces, but they are harsh and exposing rather than flattering. The initially sadistic concept of disfiguring Joan Crawford becomes a sympathetic narrative of her plight.

This film was made in 194l, so naturally it reflects that time period in film making and story telling and would undoubtedly be done somewhat differently today. Nonetheless, it is a film that can still be enjoyed by a 21st century audience.

The storyline is well paced, and extremely well told, with some surprises, and great acting by the cast, especially Ms. Crawford.

In this film, Joan Crawford plays a woman whose face was damaged in a fire when she was a child, this has caused her to feel like an outcast, and she has grown up to be a hard, bitter woman.

She has few scruples, nor do the people who work for her at the restaurant she owns. They are all party to various scams and cons, including blackmail.

She has never known love, and is an easy victim to the attentions of a handsome man, Tarten Barring. Despite her own cynicalism, she believes Barring loves her, and is so grateful for his attentions, she is willing to do anything for him.

This leads her into a situation where she takes on a false identity as she and Tarten plot together to commit the heinous murder of a child.

As the film opens, she is on trial for murder - the story unfolds as various witnesses testify.