Behind every face is a story, and in this daytime of movies we follow the tales of a number of faces that have been altered, damaged and/or reconfigured.

Another Face (1935) casts Brian Donlevy as a murderous gangster known as "Broken Nose" Dawson who eludes police by having his face changed through plastic surgery. His new mug is so handsome that he goes to Hollywood to become a movie star and is promptly cast as a good-looking gangster! According to Leonard Maltin, the "funny premise" of this satire "clicks most of the time and has some real laughs."

A Woman's Face (1938) is a Swedish film starring a young Ingrid Bergman just a couple of years before she vaulted to Hollywood stardom. This thriller gives her an uncharacteristic role as a ruthless blackmailer with a disfigured face. After her looks are restored, her personality softens and she begins to regret the hard path she has taken. Joan Crawford would star in a 1941 remake at MGM. IonCinema.com called Bergman's performance her "most complex and rewarding from her 1930s work" and revealed that some of her makeup effects were created by her then-husband, dentist Petter Lindstrom.

Dark Passage (1947) is a Delmer Daves crime thriller starring Humphrey Bogart as a man convicted of killing his wife who escapes from prison and undergoes plastic surgery to hide his identity. The opening scenes, before Bogart's "new" face is revealed, are shot from the subjective viewpoint of the character. Bogart's wife, Lauren Bacall, costars as the intrigued woman who comes to his aid.

Nora Prentiss (1947) is a film noir drama with Ann Sheridan in the title role as a nightclub singer and Kent Smith as her married lover, who fakes his own death rather than ask his wife for a divorce. Later, after his face is scarred beyond recognition in an automobile accident, he is accused of his own murder! Film historian Bob Porfirio noted that the film "does not lapse into a romantic melodrama that might detract from the maudit (accursed) sensibility, the quintessential element of film noir."

Hollow Triumph (1948) has Paul Henreid in a double role as the mastermind of a casino robbery and a lookalike psychoanalyst he plots to murder. To be a dead ringer, the robber must carve a scar on his face - but chooses the wrong side! Joan Bennett, an experienced noir player, costars as the doctor's secretary who suspects that something is amiss but doesn't seem to mind. According to The New York Times, the "story moves along briskly, the performances are sound, and there is always the promise of more violence just around the corner."

House of Wax (1953) is a horror thriller starring Vincent Price as a disfigured sculptor who uses the corpses of his murder victims as figures in his wax museum. The film, a remake by Warner Bros. of its 1933 Mystery of the Wax Museum, was originally released as the first color 3D film from a major American studio. According to the Rotten Tomatoes website, the film is a "horror delight that combines the atmospheric eeriness of the wax museum with the always-chilling presence of Vincent Price."

Eyes Without a Face (1960) is a French-Italian horror film about a brilliant surgeon (Pierre Brasseur) who, after causing an accident that left his daughter disfigured, tries to give her a new visage by kidnapping young women and attempting face transplants. The film was not well-reviewed at the time of its release but was later re-evaluated, with J. Hoberman describing it in The Village Voice as "a masterpiece of poetic horror and tactful, tactile brutality."

The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962) is an American sci-fi horror thriller in which a mad doctor (Jason Evers) develops a means to keep the severed head of his fiancée (Virginia Leith) alive. To secure a body for her, he plots to commit murder. TV Guide described the film as "one of the most genuinely bizarre 'brain' movies." Interestingly, it has inspired several different adaptations as a stage musical!

by Roger Fristoe