The Face Behind the Mask [Behind the Mask] **** (1941, Peter Lorre, Evelyn Keyes, Don Beddoe) – Classic Movie Review 10,867

‘WHAT FIENDISH FURY TURNS MAN INTO MONSTER?’

Director Robert Florey’s 1941 Columbia Pictures black and white film noir crime thriller The Face Behind the Mask [Behind the Mask] stars Peter Lorre, who is on top form as Janos Szaby, the Hungarian watchmaker in America who wears a mask after he is badly burnt in a fire.

He takes over a crime syndicate, but, when he helps blind Helen Williams (Evelyn Keyes), the mobsters think that he has ratted on them.

The Face Behind the Mask is a first-rate B-movie, imaginatively made and satisfying. Don Beddoe also stars as friendly policeman Lieutenant Jim O’Hara, and George E Stone plays Dinky.

Writers: Paul Jarrico (screenplay) and Allen Vincent (screenplay). It is based on the play Interim by Thomas Edward O’Connell and the story by Arthur Levinson.

Shooting took place from 6 to 26 November 1940, and the film was released on 16 January 1941.

Director Florey and Lorre reunited in 1946 for The Beast with Five Fingers.

Also in the cast are John Tyrrell, Stanley Brown, Al Seymour, James Seay, Warren Ashe, Charles C Wilson, George McKay, Ben Taggart, Harry Strang, Edwin Stanley, Walter Soderling, Lee Shumway, Claire Rochelle, Frank Reicher, Lee Phelps, Ralph Peters, David Oliver, Al Hill, Chuck Hamilton, Jack Gardner, Joel Friedkin, Eddie Foster, Sarah Edwards, John Dilson, Mary Currier, Al Bridge, and Sam Ash.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,867

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