A Woman's Face

Joan Crawford got a plum role in A Woman's Face and George Cukor got a very good performance out of her. Especially when you consider this role was originally intended for Greta Garbo. If Garbo had done it this film would have ranked among her best.

A Woman's Face casts Crawford as the scarred and cynical leader of a gang of blackmailers and thieves who use a roadhouse cafe that she owns as the place to lure rich suckers and trim them. She was scarred shortly after her birth and on her right side looks like Gloria Grahame after Lee Marvin scalded her in The Big Heat.

Among a crowd she has one night are plastic surgeon Melvyn Douglas and no account count Conrad Veidt. Douglas is interested in her professionally, thinking he can work his plastic surgical magic. The problem is that people scorning her all her life has given Crawford a really cynical and rotten outlook on the human race.

That outlook however is just what Veidt wants. He wants to rope her into a plan to kill his young nephew so that he inherits the vast estate. On his recommendation Crawford is sent to Uncle Albert Basserman's estate to be Richard Nichols's governess. The better to gain access to the kid.

Still Crawford sees a chance for a new life and she's conflicted.

Considering this role looks tailor made for Garbo, Crawford delivers a very good performance running the gamut of emotions on screen. I also have to say that Veidt was one cunning devil of a villain. His scene with Crawford where he declares what he intends to do with the money from the estate is both chilling and timely for 1941. Definitely one of Veidt's best English language performances.

This one is a must for Joan Crawford fans.

An exciting cast, an excellent story, excellent acting. Joan Crawford is perfect as a malevolent blackmailer who has a change of heart after her facial disfigurement is repaired.

The story progresses in an interesting way, with the plot unfolding during a murder trial. Each witness builds the story line, and the script has many unexpected plot twists, making this film anything but predictable.

This film is a good example of how skillful film makers create special effects without high-tech gadgetry. It's wonderful that we have films like this to show us what real movie-making is like.

Thanks to "A Woman's Face," Joan Crawford's slumped career had a badly needed revival, and Greta Garbo's career ended. Garbo had a choice of "A Woman's Face" or "Two-Faced Woman," but she refused to play a character with a deformity. So she made the disastrous "Two-Faced Woman" instead and retired, her face free of scars and her life free of films.

Ingrid Bergman made the original movie in Sweden, and in the hands of MGM, it translated quite well with a superb performance from Joan Crawford, perhaps the best of her career, as a scarred, bitter woman who makes her living from blackmail. Her story is told in a series of flashbacks, as each character testifies at the woman's trial.

The performances, from MGM's able stable, are very good - Melvyn Douglas as a doctor, Conrad Veidt as an evil man who wants to use Crawford for his own ends (he described himself in this film as "Lucifer in a tuxedo"), Osa Massen, Albert Basserman, Donald Meek, Henry Daniell, George Zucco, and Marjorie Main. Richard Nichols, as the little boy Lars-Erik, sports the same southern accent in Sweden as he did in France in "All This and Heaven, Too."

Crawford is excellent, and one wonders if the role of Anna didn't strike a chord with her given her difficult childhood. Under Cukor's direction, she handles the role beautifully.

A very good movie, and an exciting sleigh ride at the end that you won't want to miss.

The fact that Joan Crawford failed to win an Oscar nomination for her magnificent performance in this film is a travesty! Her talents as an actress were never more evident in her portrayal of a bitter woman who hates the world because of her disfigurement.

This film may surpass even Joan Crawford's Oscar-winning performance in `Mildred Pierce' as the best of her career. `A Woman's Face' is part courtroom drama, part mystery, and unfolds in the form of flashbacks through the eyes of no less than half a dozen questionable characters. Crawford plays Anna Holm, a facially scarred woman whose disfigurement has led her to an embittered life of crime.

Melvyn Douglas is perfectly cast as the handsome and heroic Dr. Segert, and Conrad Veidt plays Torsten Barring, the despicable charmer. Crawford's interpretation of a genuinely mean-spirited and heartless Anna develops into a complex character who wins our sympathy despite her evil intentions. It's a breath of fresh air to see Crawford not made up glamorously. There are no dazzling gowns or mascara-ed lashes to distract the viewer from Crawford's fabulous performance.

With a brilliant supporting cast (including the adorable Richard Nichols as the 4 year-old Lars-Erik, and Marjorie Main as the suspicious housekeeper), `A Woman's Face' ranks among the best Crawford films of all time. It is a must-see for anyone who wishes to see a well-made, fascinating tale of intrigue, love and human frailty.