IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Leofwine_draca Tod Slaughter was well set in his career of playing movie villains by the time this film was produced and his familiarity with the role he plays is easy to see. Plotting, cackling, and eventually going mad are all trademarks of Slaughter's creations throughout his life and the elements are in abundance in his character of the Chevalier here. Standing head and shoulder over the other cast members – who are all admittedly decent themselves – Slaughter steals his scenes and makes the film his own. This time around, he's a French aristocrat – complete with top hat and tails and goatee beard – who falls in love with the daughter of a bank manager.The plot is familiar stuff to anybody who has seen the likes of previous Slaughter fare like MURDER IN THE RED BARN and NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND. However, what makes this film seem different are the plot elements that are more in line with a Universal horror film from the period than the previous British murder-thrillers that the actor starred in. Ingredients of this film include a mystery killer nicknamed 'Le Loup', who may or may not be a sinister werewolf; a hideous, half-human monster that lumbers around like Frankenstein's Creature; and a laboratory in which a scientist is using electricity to bring murder victims back from the dead so that they can identify their killers – complete with the scientific apparatus familiar from many horror films, including Hammer's THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.Scenes involving the courtship between the young lovers are very predictable and lacking in interest, but the film-makers wisely choose to focus on the horror and mystery aspects of the plot instead. There's some fun action to be had involving the young male lead, who is falsely accused of murder and forced to go on the run from the authorities. The River Seine also puts in an appearance, particularly at the climax that is as rousing and entertaining as you would hope. THE FACE AT THE WINDOW may be familiar fare for melodrama fans, but it pushes all the right buttons and the change of scenery from rural England to 19th-century Paris is an interesting one. Recommended.

morrison-dylan-fan Getting home late at night,I decided to take a look at some IMDb reviews,in the hope of finding a quick,and easy going title that I could watch for the IMDb Horror Challenge.As I got near the end of a fellow IMDb'ers first page of reviews,I noticed that they appeared to be a fan of an actor called Tod Slaughter,which led to me deciding that it would be a good time to enter the "slaughterhouse" for the first time.The plot:With the family's bank facing near closure,the Brisson's decide that they must take drastic measures to stop their bank from going bust.Being contacted by a strange man called Chevalier Lucio del Gardo,M.de Brisson initially breaths a sigh of relief,when Gardo tells him that he would be more than happy to invest in the Brisson's bank.Sadly for M.de Brisson his moment of happiness is torn to shreds,when a strange wolf man brutally kills him,shortly after Gardo had discovered that M de. Brisson's sweet daughter Ceclie de Brisson,had a secret boyfriend.View on the film:Whilst their adaptation of Brooke Warren's play never quite breaks away from its Victorian roots,the screenplay by A.R. Rawlinson and Ronald Fayre crafts a delightful mixture of Gothic Horror influence's,with the underwritten Wolfman subplot being counted by a wonderfully strange nod to Frankenstein,and some off-beat dashing heroes,which include Ceclie's boyfriend,who is more than happy to burn the local's pub to the ground!.Matching Rawlinson and Fayre's Gothic riffs,director George King soaks the movie in a thick,smoke-fulled fog,which helps to give the movie an extra bite,and also allows for Kings "unique" Horror moments in the film (a Frankenstein's monster hand!) to stand out with a real chill in the air.Entering the movie with an almost Dick Dastardly relish,Tod Slaughter gives a terrific,wild performance that lights up the entire film,with Slaughter showing Gardo go from a conniving player into a deranged maniac,as he starts to fear that Ceclie and her boyfriend may be about to discover the face at the window.

Red-Barracuda Tod Slaughter has to be one of the most reliably entertaining screen actors of the 30's. I've seen most of this guys films and he never disappoints. There's no doubt that his acting style is hammier than a hammy thing but there's nothing wrong with that surely? It takes considerable charisma and skill to overact as compellingly as Slaughter. This film follows a very similar narrative path to many of his other vehicles, i.e. Slaughter plays a rich pillar of the community who lives a double-life as an evil criminal, he lusts after a woman half his age who is not interested in him, so he sets about framing her fiancé with a crime he did not commit leaving the poor girl easy prey for him. Almost all his movies could be described thus. But it doesn't really seem to matter very much as Slaughter is always terrific as the leering cad and is easily the best thing about the films he stars in.Slaughter's films were all Victorian melodramas first and foremost but this one definitely moves into more definite horror and even science fiction territory. The monster who is the face of the title is an effective looking baddie although he doesn't really get to do much and his presence in the movie doesn't make an awful lot of sense. But not to worry because, as I mentioned earlier, this is Slaughter's film and he delivers the goods as usual.

chrismartonuk-1 Forget Karloff & Lugosi. Forget Cushing & Lee, even Price and the Chaneys. Tod is king of horror for one very important reason - he quite evidently enjoys his work. This was the first Tod film I saw and - having heard so much about him prior to this - I feared disappointment. No worries. Despite the cardboard settings and woeful support cast, from the moment he strides masterfully in, we are in the capable hands of a classic film villain. The opening murder with the eerie wolf howl on the soundtracks sets the scene perfectly and then we are treated to an acting masterclass from the great man himself. Whether innocently acting the concerned friend, lecherously trying to sneak a kiss from the heroine, threatening his low-life confederates with a grisly end if they cross him or, worst of all, holding somewhat one-sided conversations with his demented foster brother, Tod holds the film together. The Chevalier is underplayed by Tod compared to Sweeney Todd - but seldom has one man wiggled his eyebrows to more sinister effect. It's a great pity that Universal studios didn't try to to entice him over for their classic horror cycle - Tod would've made a far more spirited Dracula than John Carradine in the later sequels and can't you just see him going toe to toe with Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes. Shame nobody thought of putting him up against Arthur Wontner's in the UK. The double-exposure effects for the appearance of the "face" are well done for their time and the whole film compares favourably with the Universal classics of the period.The production values are far higher than is normal for a British quota quickie of the period. The contrast between the spacious elegant rooms of the moneyed classes and the clutter of the Blind Rat - with a wealth of extras and charming Parisian detail such as the dancers - more than foreshadows the class-consciousness Hammer brought to its gothics a few decades later. So does the violent action with Lucien using an oil lamp to devastating effect - his disguise as "Renard" could have been a bit more convincing - and Tod making a sudden getaway by leaping from the window of the scientist's house and swimming the Seine to safety. John Warwick and Marjorie Taylor make an appealing couple - although Warwick is no match for Eric Portman in the earlier melodramas - and George King is improving as a director with a tightly edited montage of tense faces as the "corpse" slowly stirs into action to write its incriminating message. Tod is less of a central figure with whom we are expected to side with - even through his setbacks - as Stephen Hawke and Sir Percival Glyde were, but is still a marvellously blackhearted villain, as seen in his unsporting behaviour at the duel with pistols with Lucien. This is his finest film.