Unlike Vertigo, where we empathise with James Stewart’s Scottie, Philip here is the stooge, weak and overlooked by the innately powerful Alice.

An uneven minor mad scientist horror pic.

The problem with this rather mediocre tale is that the underlying premiss is really pretty far-fetched. Surgeon Paul Henreid has a brief assignation with a concert pianist (Lizabeth Scott) before she returns to her boyfriend "David" (Andre Morell). Obsessed with the woman, the physician carries out some restorative plastic surgery on a female prisoner and guess what - yep - when she emerges from the bandages, she could be her twin. Somewhat implausibly, he goes on to marry her, but soon discovers that she wasn't a prisoner for nothing, and when he meets the musician again (now sans boyfriend Morell) the wife sees her own reflection, so to speak, and things turn positively ugly! Very eagle eyed amongst us might spot Arnold Ridley (think "Dads Army with the his sister "Dolly") but really that is all one can say that might be of interest. The rest of it is all a bit procedural. Henreid was never my favourite leading man - his efforts, though charming, rarely got out of first gear and the dreadfully dubbed Cockney accent from Scott's rather base alter-ego "Lily" is pretty tough on the ears. There are loads of surgery/face/identity transplant style stories out there, many better than this.

Browse discussions about “Stolen Face”

Jump to Reddit for live threads on this title.