Mon 2 May 2016
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN (1958).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[5] Comments
CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN. United Artists, 1958. Richard Anderson, Elaine Edwards, Adele Mara, Luis Van Rooten, Gar Moore, Felix Locher. Screenplay: Jerome Bixby. Director: Edward L. Cahn.
There are two primary ways of looking at Curse of the Faceless Man. Either it’s a hodgepodge of horror film tropes with more than a smidgen of themes generously, um…. borrowed from Karl Freund’s The Mummy (1932). Or it’s a loving, living homage to Universal’s entire Mummy series, modified to a Southern Italian setting in which the mystical Etruscan and Roman past loom large over the scientific present.
As an admirer of director Edward L. Cahn’s ability to make the most out of what are admittedly low-budget productions, I’m more akin to give the film the benefit of the doubt and call it an homage, albeit one clearly designed to exploit interest in the mummy film sub-genre and to make a quick buck off of it. To paraphrase the famous saying from Seinfeld: not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Richard Anderson, who went on to feature in The Six Million Dollar Man, portrays Dr. Paul Mallon. He, along with his fiancée, Tina Enright (Elaine Edwards), is residing in modern day Italy in the outskirts of the town that was once the Roman city of Pompeii.
After an archaeological dig discovers the remains of a faceless mummy-like man in the ruins, strange things begin happening. First, the driver tasked with transporting the mummy is mysteriously killed. Second, and more significantly for the story, Tina begins to have visions of the faceless mummy, as if she has some unexplainable connection to him and to the distant past (shades of The Mummy).
But what could it be? Is she the reincarnated descendant of a Roman elite family? And who is this faceless man and what does he want? Dr. Carlo Fiorello (Luis Van Rooten) and his daughter, Maria (Adele Mara) are both on the case. Working at the local museum, they’re determined to unravel the mystery of the faceless man once and for all!
May 3rd, 2016 at 3:54 am
FACELESS may be cheap and derivative, but it’s never dull. I’ve always liked Cahn’s movies for their energy and lack of pretension, and always wondered how he managed to turn out a classic like LAW AND ORDER.
May 3rd, 2016 at 8:51 am
This is a film I’ve never heard of.
Thank you for an informative review!
I too am a big fan of Edward L. Cahn.
His films are uneven, but often quite inventive.
May 3rd, 2016 at 8:57 am
Cahn turned out Law and Order because it was a studio project with big time talent in front of the camera and behind it. Somehow, he fell into a professional abyss, possibly for personal reasons, And hopeless, exploitive projects were all that was on the table, unless he chose to leave the business entirely.
May 3rd, 2016 at 2:07 pm
This one falls into the category of not as good as it could have been and not as bad as it might have been. The cast and Cahn’s direction help, but for me it is more hodgepodge than homage.
As for LAW AND ORDER, considering it had a W.R. Burnett novel, a John Huston screenplay, and starred Walter Huston and Harry Carey I’m not sure how much credit to assign Cahn. Mere competence would have been enough in that situation, though he does deliver.
Granted, some of his other films suggest the talent was there, but I think, all things considered, it could be considered an anomaly more than the work of an auteur.
In any case the factors deciding how a directors work is remembered can be diverse and perverse. One great movie, unless, like Charles Laughton you only make one movie, is not enough. My rule of thumb is that unless a director does a masterpiece it takes at least three films to determine how great he is.
October 14th, 2020 at 6:29 pm
[…] by Edward L. Cahn, whose Curse of the Faceless Man I reviewed here, the movie is rather talky at times, with numerous characters either sitting or standing around […]