Eyes Without a Face (1960)
Written by Georges Franju, Jean Redon, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Claude Sautet, and Pierre Gascar
Directed by Georges Franju
The 1960s were the prelude to the horror boom of the 1970s. This means you’ll find some archetypes and tropes refined here, elements that will be at their zenith in the following decade. Foreign film markets were gaining strength during the Sixties, with places like France & Italy at the forefront. There weren’t many French horror films then, so Eyes Without a Face was quite different. Producer Jules Borkon thought it was an untapped market in France and purchased the rights to a horror novel he’d recently read. Director Georges Franju had only made documentaries, so this was his first fictional narrative feature. Smartly, he hired writers who had worked on Les Diaboliques and Hitchcock’s Vertigo to help work out the script. The result is something that feels like a horrific modern fairy tale. A princess locked in a tower in the woods who has been turned into a monster by another.
Continue reading “Movie Review – Eyes Without a Face”