A Woman’s Face **** (1941, Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt) – Classic Movie Review 6080

Director George Cukor’s 1941 film noir-style thriller drama A Woman’s Face provides a quintessential vehicle for Joan Crawford as Anna Holm, a blackmailer who cannot get over the psychological damage of her face scarred in childhood.

Conrad Veidt plays her sleek new lover Torsten Barring, who introduces her to a fine visage via a plastic surgeon, Dr Gustaf Segert (Melvyn Douglas), and wants her to masquerade as a governess to kill his nephew. Now there’s a plot!

A Woman’s Face is magnificently daft, but the gorgeously photographed Crawford’s intense, persuasive star turn and Cukor’s attentive, crafted film-making work make it compelling. There is a sharp, suspense-packed screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart, with a narrative told in flashback by witnesses at the Crawford character’s murder trial.

Veidt is a consummate bad guy, while the MGM cast, especially Osa Massen (as Vera Segert), Reginald Owen (as Bernard Dalvik) and Albert Basserman (as Consul Magnus Barring), and production are immaculate.

It is set in Sweden, as is the original stage play, Il Etait une Fois by Francis de Croisset, on which it is based. Christopher Isherwood and Elliot Paul were uncredited hands at work on the screenplay, credited to Donald Ogden Stewart.

Also in the cast are Marjorie Main, Connie Gilchrist, Donald Meek, Henry Daniell, Charles Quigley, George Zucco, Gwili Andre, Henry Kolker, Robert Warwick, Gilbert Emery, Clifford Brooke, Sarah Padden, William Farnum and Richard Nichols.

A Woman’s Face runs 106 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by Donald Ogden Stewart, Christopher Isherwood and Elliot Paul, stage play, Il Etait une Fois by Francis de Croisset, shot in black and white by Robert H Planck, produced by Victor Saville and scored by Bronislau Kaper, with Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons.

The Doris Day (1910–1998) who appears uncredited as a party guest had a short 12-film career from 1939 to 1943.

A Woman’s Face was previously made as an Ingrid Bergman 1938 Swedish film, En Kvinnas Ansikte [A Woman’s Face].

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6080

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