Eyes Without a Face (film)

This article is about the 1959 film. For the Billy Idol song, see Eyes Without a Face (song).

Eyes Without a Face
Directed by	Georges Franju
Written by	Pierre Boileau Thomas Narcejac Jean Redon Claude Sautet Georges Franju
Produced by	Jules Borkon
Starring	Pierre Brasseur Alida Valli Edith Scob Francois Guerin Juliette Mayniel
Cinematography	Eugen Schüftan
Edited by	Gilbert Natot
Music by	Maurice Jarre
Distributed by	Lopert Pictures
Release dates	1959 May 3, 1960 1960 October 24, 1962
Running time	84 min.
Countries	France Italy
Language	French

Eyes Without a Face (French: Les yeux sans visage) is a 1959 French-language horror film adaptation of Jean Redon's novel of the same name. Directed by French filmmaker Georges Franju, the film stars Pierre Brasseur as Doctor Génessier, Alida Valli as Louise, and Edith Scob as Christiane Génessier. The plot revolves around the obsessive Doctor Génessier attempting experimental heterografting surgery to restore his daughter Christian's face which had been horribly ruined in a car accident. With the help of Louise, Doctor Génessier lures young women into his home-laboratory to preform the experiments to restore Christiane's beauty.

Eyes Without a Face received an American debut in an edited form in 1962 under the title of The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus as a double feature to accompany the film The Manster. In 2003, Eyes Without a Face was re-released in its original uncut form to American theatres to positive critical acclaim.

Plot

A young woman named Louise drives to an isolated area and drops a covered body into a river then drives off. The next day, following a lecture Doctor Génessier leaves to a Mortuary where Inspector Parot suggests they have found the remains of his missing daughter, Christiane Génessier. Despite the corpse being faceless, Génessier confirms the body as Christiane’s and funeral arrangements is made for her. On arriving home he Génessier arrives home and hears coming from one of the upstairs rooms, where he finds Christiane laying on a bed face down with an obituary notice beside her. The body identified earlier was not of Christiane's, and Christian angrily asks what he's done this time. Génessier he's done only what had to be done in order to avoid investigation and to help restore Christiane's face which had been destroyed in a car wreck. Christiane dons a mask that Génessier tells her to wear to hide her disfigurement and tries to call her friend Jacques Vernon, but only hangs up without saying a word midway through the call.

Louise wanders through Paris and befriends a young woman named Edna Gruber who is trying to find new housing which Louise offers to her at Génessier's home. Edna is immediately subdued by Génessier, and taken down to his secret laboratory under his house. After dinner, Génessier performs a heterograft surgery on Edna's face to use it to restore Christiane's. Following the success of the surgery, Louise is attacked by the now heavily bandaged and faceless Edna who attacks her and escapes and shortly jumps out of a high window from the house later to her death. Following disposing of the Edna's corpse, Génessier notices flaws on Christiane's face. Her face grows worse within days and resorts to wearing the mask again. Christiane again phones Jacques and this time says his name, but the phone call is interrupted by Louise.

Jacques takes the case to the police station where the police find his story relates to their mystery of the girls disappearing with similar facial characteristics. To investigate it further, they use a women of similar likeness named Paulette Mérodon who had recently shoplifted to help investigate into Louise's relation with the missing girls. Paulette arrives the hospital, found healthy by Doctor Génessier and leaves promptly to return to Paris but is picked up by Louise to give her a ride. Jacques phones Inspector Parot to say she's left and Parot says he'll phone her home later to see that she's arrived safely. Génessier meanwhile has almost started to do perform the surgery on Paulette's face but is interrupted by a visit at his front door from Parot asking about the patient’s last whereabouts, as she has not returned home. The officers leave, while Paulette wakes up on the surgery table crying where Christian frees her. Louise enters and is promptly stabbed in the neck by Christiane. While Paulette escapes, Christiane frees Génessier's dogs which promptly attack and kill the returning Génessier. Christiane also frees caged doves who fly near her as she walks slowly into the woods outside Génessier's house.

Influence

Director John Carpenter has suggested that Eyes Without a Face inspired the idea for a featureless mask for the Michael Myers character in the popular slasher film series Halloween. Carpenter recalls that the film crew "didn't have any money to make a mask. It was originally written the way you see it, in other words, it's a pale mask with human features, almost featureless. I don't know why I wrote that down, why Debra and I decided on that, maybe it was because of an old movie called Eyes Without a Face."

External links

• Eyes Without a Face at AllMovie
• Eyes Without a Face at IMDb
• Eyes Without a Face at Metacritic
• Eyes Without a Face at Rotten Tomatoes
• Eyes Without a Face at the TCM Movie Database
• Criterion Collection essay by David Kalat
• Criterion Collection essay by Patrick McGrath