Complete credited cast: | |||
Pierre Brasseur | ... | Le docteur Génessier | |
Alida Valli | ... | Louise | |
Juliette Mayniel | ... | Edna Grüber | |
Alexandre Rignault | ... | L'inspecteur Parot | |
Béatrice Altariba | ... | Paulette Meroudon (as Beatrice Altariba) | |
Charles Blavette | ... | L'homme de la fourrière (scenes deleted) (as Blavette) | |
Claude Brasseur | ... | Un inspecteur | |
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Michel Etcheverry | ... | Le docteur Lherminier - médecin légiste / Forensic surgeon |
Yvette Etiévant | ... | La mère du petit malade (as Yvette Etievent) | |
René Génin | ... | Henri Tessot | |
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Lucien Hubert | ... | Un homme à l'enterrement |
Marcel Pérès | ... | Un homme à l'enterrement (as Marcel Pères) | |
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François Guérin | ... | Le docteur Jacques Vernon (as Francois Guerin) |
Edith Scob | ... | Christiane Génessier |
After causing an accident that left his daughter Christiane severely disfigured, the brilliant surgeon Dr. Génessier works tirelessly to give the girl a new face. He does so however by kidnapping young women and attempting face transplants. He has been woefully unsuccessful to date. The doctor's world begins to collapse around him when his daughter realizes just what he has been doing. Written by garykmcd
Along with THE SHINING, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and PSYCHO, the best horror film ever made. Franju forsakes the usual signifiers of the genre - hurtling pace, quick editing, signalling music, hysterically scary scenes - in favour of a pace as funereal and petrified as its heroine's face. A soul-chilling film, seeped of all emotion, its scientific subject matter belies a timeless, complicated, non-judgemental Gothic fable about the destruction of innocence, the carelessness of masculine authority and the exploitation of women (especially in art). The many paralells with VERTIGO (the source novel was written by the same writers), the startling tree and animal imagery, the suspended dream logic and the perverse comic sense ensure this film as a classic, and makes one yearn for more Franju.