stone figure, with whom she apparently shares some kind of psychic connection. Is it possible that Tina’s the reincarnation of the faceless man’s girlfriend? Do you even have to ask? Running a brisk 66 minutes, Curse of the Face-
less Man still drags its feet in several vital areas. The monster itself is not terribly scary – while there are superficial similarities to the oversized, avenging statue in The Golem (1920), the (liter- ally) stone-faced creature is more mysterious than menacing. But even more problematic are the scenes in which the monster isn’t in the background ready to smash down balsa wood doors. When the narrative isn’t caught up in the tedious love triangle between Paul, Tina and a local girl (Adele Mara), the film keeps returning to scenes of museum officials, police inspectors and university types standing around trying to come up with a plausible explanation for the fig- ure’s return to life. Eventually, they hit on some convoluted tale involving X-rays, an ancient curse, vats of embalming fluid and underground radiation – a waste of time, considering the au- dience cared little about anything other than shots of the creature terrorizing poor Tina. And there are still plenty of those; that scene
Just Like Mummy Used to Make
CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN (1958) DVD Starring Richard Anderson, Elaine Edwards
and Adele Mara Directed by Edward L. Cahn Written by Jerome Bixby MGM
Hammer Films gets most of the credit for re-
animating Universal’s classic screen monsters in the 1950s, but the truth is they weren’t the only ones ransacking 1930s horror franchises for in- spiration. Even before Hammer began its lush Gothic adaptations of Dracula and Frankenstein, poverty row studios such as Gramercy, AIP and Clover were busy cranking out cheap black and white pictures that modernized these monsters for the atomic age. Curse of the Faceless Man, like similar features The Werewolf (1956), The Return of Dracula (1958) and the Black Lagoon- spawned The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959), isn’t always successful at transplanting its titular creature to post-World War II America, but there’s some scattered fun to be had. Borrowing heavily from The Mummy, Curse of
the Faceless Man has another ancient, uncannily preserved man who has somehow come to life to reunite with his long-lost love, striking down anyone who gets in his way. But, in a ripped-
RM46 R E I S S U E S
from-the-headlines twist, this film draws on then- recent Spanish archeological excavations. When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, burning ash descended on the city of Pompeii, instanta- neously hardening to freeze an exact mo- ment of time. Though historians first began uncovering Pompeii’s treasures in the 18th century, major discov- eries were still being made in the 1950s as whole villas were fi- nally uncovered. The film, which oc-
cupied the bottom of a double bill with director Edward L. Cahn’s su- perior sci-fi shocker It! The Terror from Be- yond Space (1958), plays out largely as ex- pected. While visiting Naples, American doctor Paul Mallon (Richard An- derson) is having a hard time believing that a re- cent archeological find, the fully rock-encrusted body of a 2000-year-old Roman warrior (Bob Bryant), is walking around crushing people’s skulls. Meanwhile, his fiancée Tina (Elaine Ed- wards) is having strange nightmares about the
in The Mummy where Boris Karloff slowly awakes from his sarcophagus and kills the archeologist is re-enacted no less than three times, and the climax utilizes that old creature feature standby: the monster carrying the uncon- scious girl off into the dis- tance. By this point, however, Curse of the Face- less Man has given up all hope and seems instead to ape the budget-minded se- quel, The Mummy’s Ghost (1944). It even concludes with virtually the same end- ing, as the Faceless Man dissolves in water after walking into the sea – Kharis would have been proud! Thankfully, Hammer was
already helping the classic monsters regain their re- spectability by this time. And – judging by this entry, now available as part of
MGM’s manufacture-on-demand program – not a moment too soon. Peppered with stock footage, ludicrous science and painfully phony European set dressing, Curse of the Faceless Man is just as bland and featureless as its title suggests.
PAUL CORUPE
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