Faces in the Dark

FACES IN THE DARK is one of those intriguing, long-forgotten little British thrillers of the early '60s. It's an essential three-hander in which the unlikeable John Gregson plays an industry boss who ends up getting blinded in a freak factory accident. He's forced to recuperate, being looked after by his wife Mai Zetterling and second-in-command John Ireland, but soon becomes convinced that everything isn't as it should be.

This is a film that makes the very best of a low budget thanks to a unique-feeling storyline and plenty of suspense that builds up, particularly in the second half. The first half is a little slow and stately, but as a mystery this throws clues at you every now and then before finally letting rip towards the climax with an excellent twist. From that point in it never disappoints, right up until the arresting climax. FACES IN THE DARK certainly holds its own against bigger budget fare in this viewer's opinion.

This taut little gem was on British television last night - January 23rd 2010 - on the Film 24 channel, which has been treating old movie fans to some really obscure titles recently including two other John Gregson films ' To Dorothy A Son ' and ' SOS Pacific '.

I have now recorded it in case it's another 50 years before it turns up! It's got a very dark, disturbing ending for a British film made in 1959, no doubt because of it's French literary origins.

While it's definitely worth thriller & mystery lovers spending 90 minutes of their time, the sudden disappearance of John Ireland ( who adopts a pretty good English accent as Gregsons ner-do-well brother ) mid-way through the film, is the biggest mystery of all.

I believe he was making the TV action series " The Cheaters " in London at the same time so maybe he had to bow out of " Faces In The Dark " because of other work commitments.

He didn't even have a dramatic death scene...suddenly he was gone and referred to as being dead! All these years later, we'll never know why an actor of his stature had such a minor role in the film,

Richard Hammond is injured badly in an accident at the company he owns. He is blinded and disfigured and isn't adapting to this well at all. He seems angry, on edge and is not a particularly noble blind man. So, it's easy not to like the man. However, over time you start to wonder if perhaps SOME of his anger is because something else is going on...something or someone is manipulating him...and what he seems to experience isn't exactly real...at least not what they tell him it is. What REALLY is going on here?!

This movie is unusual because an American actor, John Ireland is in it BUT doesn't play a very significant part. Now a lot of American actors went to Europe to make films during the 1950s and 60s....but they always starred in the films. This time, it seemed more like he was just working a day or two and that's all.

So is it any good? Generally yes...though the very end is a tad sloppy. You really have a hard time imagining the wife meeting her fate the way she did...it just seemed HIGHLY unlikely. Some might also dislike how vague parts of the ending is as well. Still, it is different...and I love different.

FACES IN THE DARK is a rather forgotten film in the British noir genre. The movie is a bit slow but totally worth hanging in there - the TWIST is quite staggering & very well done (no surprise it is based on a book by the writing team that also wrote the novels that VERTIGO, LES DIABOLIQUES and EYES WITHOUT A FACE were based on). John Gregson is very good as the rich successful man who is blinded in an industry accident. He is angry at the world with his fate and slowly begins to worry that he is losing his mind. Is he just paranoid or is his "loving" wife too good to be true? I watched this with a few friends and we all thoroughly enjoyed it.

John Gregson plays a very unsympathetic character, a genius inventor at a firm for making bulbs, and he makes a breakthrough with a new revolutionary invention, but the laboratory explodes, and he loses his sight. Fortunately he is married to the always lovely but ambiguous Mai Zetterling, who takes well care of him with his main partner at the job by her side, but there is also John Ireland as his brother, a good-for-nothing always needing money, drinking and playing the piano and with a bad heart at that, for running too much after women. That's the set-up.

It's a cruel drama, almost nasty in character, Boileau-Narcejac are not quite convincing this time in their contrived intriguing but overdo it, while the main theme is the more interesting: a blind man finding himself not only groping in the darkness but finding that darkness growing ever thicker as his closest of kin are more and more lost to him. It starts on a very small level, he fails to recognize his cat, he finds himself smelling trees that weren't there, and he is not helped at all by his own very aggressive nature losing patience all the time. It's a story about darkness and loneliness that constantly grows worse, and the end isn't exactly any answer to his predicament.

The acting is perfect, the psychological realism is consistent, but there are flaws in the concrete story, just as in their other unsurprassed thrillers, like "Vertigo" and "Les diaboliques."