The Face Behind the Mask

One of the darkest and saddest films of the early noir period, Robert Florey’s The Face Behind the Mask stars noir legend Peter Lorre as starry-eyed, kind-spirited Hungarian immigrant Janos “Johnny” Szabo for whom the American dream results in the annihilation of both his body and soul. After a fire deforms his face to monstrous proportions, Johnny cannot find work (“My face makes no difference; I can work with my hands”) nor compassion until he encounters petty thief Dinky (George E. Stone) who shows him true friendship and introduces him to a gang of criminals whose activities could earn Johnny the money he needs to buy a face mask sculpted into his former likeness. Johnny rises rapidly and gains power in the syndicate until his moral compass is reset by Helen Williams (Evelyn Keyes), a sweet, blind girl who helps Johnny see beyond his cynicism, but maybe too late. Florey effectively embellishes the bleakness of noir with contours of the horror genre, particularly around Johnny’s transformation into a deformed and violent criminal, utilizing shadows and reflections to disorient the viewer, but the crimes remain rooted in situations that are all too real, including death by car bombs, desert starvation, etc.