Griffiths Jones plays a scientist who is planning to elope with the bosses daughter.I suppose that the censor dictates of the day required them to have separate rooms.Fathers solicitor comes to the hotel and offers him £5000 to leave the daughter.Jones knocks him down and leaves the hotel.The clerk kills the solicitor and steals the money.The daughter doesn't believe that Jones is innocent and so she goes and marries her fathers choice.Jones goes off to South Africa.Becomes a hero in a fire and finds a girlfriend.However he still yearns for his first love.He gets the chance to go back to England which he takes.He goes back to the same firm that he worked for.Now if they didn't recognise his supposedly disfigured face surely they would recognise his voice.In the end he is caught by the police but the police eventually discover the true murderer.Lots of implausibilities but entertainingly done.
5 Reviews
If you ignore the Implausabilities this is quite a good quota Quickie
malcolmgsw4 March 2014
Warning: Spoilers
The Face of Another
richardchatten30 January 2020
This is not an earlier version of Max Varnel's 1961 Danzigers quickie of the same name, although it it does also share a certain morbidity of subject; involving as it does a hero who returns after an absence of four years supposedly disfigured in a laboratory explosion and rendered unrecognisable by a couple of faint scars, a different hairstyle and the loss of his moustache.
Well photographed by veteran cameraman Jimmy Wilson but otherwise pedestrian and badly acted (except for Ellis Jeffreys as the heroine's mother commenting wryly from the sidelines, and Sylvia Marriott as the nice girl left back in the Transvaal who the hero should have married).
Victor Hanbury called it a day as a director after making this film, and is now best-known for the film he signed but didn't direct, 'The Sleeping Tiger', on which he 'fronted' for blacklistee Joseph Losey.
Well photographed by veteran cameraman Jimmy Wilson but otherwise pedestrian and badly acted (except for Ellis Jeffreys as the heroine's mother commenting wryly from the sidelines, and Sylvia Marriott as the nice girl left back in the Transvaal who the hero should have married).
Victor Hanbury called it a day as a director after making this film, and is now best-known for the film he signed but didn't direct, 'The Sleeping Tiger', on which he 'fronted' for blacklistee Joseph Losey.
Not as explosive as it pretends to be.
mark.waltz15 March 2023
Warning: Spoilers
A slow beginning and a slow middle half makes this British melodrama somewhat of a chore to get into. Wrongfully believed to be a murderer, Griffith Jones returns home after plastic surgery, having run off like a coward rather than stay to try to clear his name. His plastic surgery is due to a lab explosion, not his effort to hide his identity, and when he returns, he discovers that his former fiancée Sylvia Marriott has gotten married to the boring and imperious Cecil Ramage and is quite unhappy. Jones has to clear himself to find some happiness for them, and over the period of 68 minutes, there's enough misery for the two characters to fill a week's worth of soap opera.
Sadly I found this to be a rather uninteresting quota quickie, bogged down with melodrama that I found tedious and uninteresting. The scenes leading up to the murder of Marriott's family solicitor don't really open up the plot to grab the viewer, and it's only through the scenes in South America and the confrontation with Ramage and Marriott where the film shoes any spark. In trying to become a complex mixture of mystery and romance, the film doesn't fulfill its intentions. Jones and Marriott try sincerely to create sparks, but in this case, there's no fire, only smoke, and that creates a foggy view of a not very interest conflict and mystery which is only briefly dealt with.
Sadly I found this to be a rather uninteresting quota quickie, bogged down with melodrama that I found tedious and uninteresting. The scenes leading up to the murder of Marriott's family solicitor don't really open up the plot to grab the viewer, and it's only through the scenes in South America and the confrontation with Ramage and Marriott where the film shoes any spark. In trying to become a complex mixture of mystery and romance, the film doesn't fulfill its intentions. Jones and Marriott try sincerely to create sparks, but in this case, there's no fire, only smoke, and that creates a foggy view of a not very interest conflict and mystery which is only briefly dealt with.
Asks too much suspension of disbelief
Leofwine_draca22 June 2016
Warning: Spoilers
RETURN OF A STRANGER is a '30s-era crime/drama film with an intriguing and unusual storyline, although only average execution. The first half of this rather short movie is by far the most interesting, as the viewer has no idea what to expect from the twists and turns of the script. The hero is a guy who elopes with his girlfriend, the daughter of a rich family, only for the two to find themselves pursued by lawyers and the like.
The action then shifts to South Africa for a brief explosive interlude before ending up back in London, where it becomes a kind of 'unmasking the villain' style thriller. Sadly, this second half is quite slow and talky, with an emphasis on romance and the crime elements kept to a bare minimum. It's not a bad movie per se, and the cast certainly fulfil their requirements reasonably well, but I found this film asked too much suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewer. The object of love turns out to be a rather cold and horrible woman early on, so the guy's pursuit of her doesn't make much sense. Also, apparently getting a few scars on your cheeks and shaving your moustache makes you instantly unrecognisable to people who've known you for years. Who would have thought that?
The action then shifts to South Africa for a brief explosive interlude before ending up back in London, where it becomes a kind of 'unmasking the villain' style thriller. Sadly, this second half is quite slow and talky, with an emphasis on romance and the crime elements kept to a bare minimum. It's not a bad movie per se, and the cast certainly fulfil their requirements reasonably well, but I found this film asked too much suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewer. The object of love turns out to be a rather cold and horrible woman early on, so the guy's pursuit of her doesn't make much sense. Also, apparently getting a few scars on your cheeks and shaving your moustache makes you instantly unrecognisable to people who've known you for years. Who would have thought that?
Well worth an hour or so of your time...
spottedowl14 September 2007
This relatively unknown drama is typical fare for its time.
The leading man of the story is wrongly thought to be a murderer and flees his homeland when his fiancé also suspects him of the murder. Some years later he is facially disfigured while rescuing fellow workers from a chemical fire in his adopted country.
After recuperation from this heroic deed he is transferred back to England with a job promotion, unrecognizable as the person who left in disgrace. Naturally, the new appointment is with the same people who he was involved with before leaving, his ex. fiancé and all. It's not too long before several people start to realize just who he is, including the police.
Of course the true murderer is finally trapped by some deft police deduction. The ex. fiancé who had married an uncaring person in a cold relationship is divorced by the husband and is immediately swept up by our hero, presumably to live happily ever after.
The acting is quite good, the storyline plausible, and well worth a look. Four out of five stars from me.
The leading man of the story is wrongly thought to be a murderer and flees his homeland when his fiancé also suspects him of the murder. Some years later he is facially disfigured while rescuing fellow workers from a chemical fire in his adopted country.
After recuperation from this heroic deed he is transferred back to England with a job promotion, unrecognizable as the person who left in disgrace. Naturally, the new appointment is with the same people who he was involved with before leaving, his ex. fiancé and all. It's not too long before several people start to realize just who he is, including the police.
Of course the true murderer is finally trapped by some deft police deduction. The ex. fiancé who had married an uncaring person in a cold relationship is divorced by the husband and is immediately swept up by our hero, presumably to live happily ever after.
The acting is quite good, the storyline plausible, and well worth a look. Four out of five stars from me.
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