Faces in the Dark

Faces in the Dark is a 1960 black and white British thriller film directed by David Eady and starring John Gregson, Mai Zetterling and John Ireland. The film is based on the 1952 novel Les Visages de l'ombre by Boileau-Narcejac.

Plot
Richard Hammond, an aggressive and ambitious business mogul and inventor with little or no time for his wife, friends or family, is blinded in an explosion on the same day that his long-suffering wife had planned to leave him. He becomes bitter at life.

His wife is a devious woman and is plotting, with her lover, in an attempt to make her husband think he's going insane, in the hope that he will take his own life and leave them free to pursue their illicit affair in peace.

As he is blind when he encounters the lovers in bed the man just has to stay silent to evade detection.

Hammond gets wise to their plan.

Cast

 * John Gregson as Richard Hammond
 * Mai Zetterling as Christiane Hammond
 * John Ireland as Max Hammond
 * Michael Denison as David Merton
 * Tony Wright as Clem
 * Nanette Newman as Janet
 * Valerie Taylor as Miss Hopkins
 * Roland Bartrop as French doctor

Production
The film was shot at Shepperton Studios with sets designed by the art director Anthony Masters.

Critical reception
Monthly Film Bulletin said "Though the central hypothesis of this horrific film – the urgent discovery, lease and furnishing of a house in France so like his own in Cornwall that a blind man couldn’t tell the difference – is as far-fetched as anything yet adapted from Boileau and Narcejac, the situation itself is still an inviting one. David Eady’s handling is sadly unambitious, however. Instead of using all the resources of the cinema to stress and elaborate the tension, he settles for a prosaic, television style of presentation. The photography is suitably harsh but the camerawork lacks fluidity; the characterisation is properly flat, but so is most of the acting. Only the tombstone incident, and Mai Zetterling’s enigmatic Christiane, have anything like the right Grand Guignol flavour."

The Radio Times wrote "this tale of blindness and rage should have been a real nail-biter. Sadly, ex-documentary director David Eady simply doesn't have the thriller instinct and throws away countless opportunities to make the tension unbearable."

TV Guide wrote that "The film has some pot-holes, but the chilling climax is smooth as glass.

Allmovie noted "Although there may be a few minor gaps here and there in the storyline, Faces in the Dark is a suspenseful drama."

Leslie Halliwell said: "Unlikely but watchable puzzler, betrayed by lifeless handing. Hitchcock would have worked wonders with such a plot."