A WOMAN‘S FACE
(directed by Gustaf Molander, 1938)
***+ (out of 5)
.
> This Swedish import features a tough-as-nails performance by a fiery young Ingrid Bergman, as a petty criminal in Stockholm with a horrible facial disfigurement.
. Her face reflects the hard knocks life has dealt her. She is cynical, embittered, emotionally stunted and unable to have normal human relations. She falls in with a gang of petty hoods, setting up grifts and blackmail opportunities to profit from. While attempting extortion, she is mistaken for a burglar by a celebrated plastic surgeon who has devoted himself to helping disfigured WWI vets. Instead of reporting her to the police, he takes her under his wing as a patient, and after the nerve-wracking surgery: voila! The woman’s face is as stunning as… Ingrid Bergman’s!
. She soon discovers, that her time in the care of a compassionate man has changed her mind just as surely it did her appearance. Now, implanted to help murder a child for the inheritance, she has to confront this change within, and find a way to do the right thing- or at least stop the wrong thing from happening.
. A WOMAN’S FACE is pretty good stuff. Hollywood borrowed the plot for a film by the same title featuring Joan Crawford and Melvyn Douglas- and it won Best Picture of 1941.
– I need to see that.
*
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