Scott received uniformly good reviews for her dual role, though the film overall was deemed a bit too heavy-handed to be believable. The Hollywood Reporter declared: "Miss Scott does a fine job..., skillfully giving both characters separate and distinctive personalities. Henreid plays the doctor with warmth and sensitivity, drawing more sympathy than the rather unintelligent role really deserves."
Stolen Face was released in the United States by Lippert Pictures, whose chief, Robert Lippert, currently had an agreement with the British company Hammer Films to distribute each other's movies on either side of the Atlantic. Lippert hired Henreid and Scott (the latter on a loan-out from Hal Wallis), and paid their salaries and expenses, but the production itself was paid for by Hammer Films. The film's credited producer was Anthony Hinds, whose father was Will Hammer, one of the founders of the company. Hinds would soon go on to make a name for himself as producer of the horror pictures for which the Hammer company is best known.
Paul Henreid later wrote that at this point in his career he was effectively reduced to playing in these smaller films because he had been blacklisted. But Stolen Face did well enough that Lippert signed Henreid to another small-budget picture, Man in Hiding (1953), which again was produced by Hammer. For both films, Henreid took a small salary in exchange for a percentage of the profits -- a gamble that paid off.
This was director Terence Fisher's third film for Hammer, and according to his biographer Wheeler Dixon, it was "a project which Fisher believed in from the start." It was also the first film in which "Fisher tackled...significant fantasy overtones..., further transmogrified by the strong science-fiction slant of the final shooting script."
Dixon notes that Stolen Face demonstrates Fisher's inventive talent with low budgets, since he convincingly re-propped the same limited sets to represent different locations. In all, writes Dixon, this is "the first film which even hints at the fully mature style [Fisher] would display in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958) only four and a half years later."
By Jeremy Arnold
SOURCES:
Wheeler Winston Dixon, The Charm of Evil: The Life and Films of Terence Fisher
Paul Henreid, Ladies Man
