The woman with the scar

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Movie
German title The woman with the scar / blackmail (original distribution title)
Original title A woman's face
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1941
length 107 minutes
Rod
Director George Cukor
script Donald Ogden Stewart ,
Elliot Paul
production Victor Saville for MGM
music Bronislau caper
camera Robert H. Planck
cut Frank Sullivan
occupation

The Woman with the Scar (OT: A Woman's Face ) is an American feature film with Joan Crawford directed by George Cukor . The film opened in German cinemas in October 1949 under the title Blackmail .

action

The film begins with the start of the trial against Anna Holm for murder before the Stockholm jury. The individual witnesses present their testimony and gradually the whole biography of Anna condenses from them. The first flashback begins when the bankrupt impostor and womanizer Baron Torsten Barring established a company for his lover Vera Segert, the wife of the well-known Stockholm plastic surgeon Dr. Gustav Segert, there. Just as the waitress is about to throw Barring out of the establishment as a dodger, the baron ensnares the owner of the restaurant, Anna Holm, who is disfigured by a scar on the left side of her face. Anna works with a gang of criminals, blackmailing wealthy citizens with intimate secrets. Anna, who has grown cold and cynical from her disabilities, instantly succumbs to Barring's dexterous charm.

The next day, Anna appears at Vera Segert's and blackmailed the wife with her knowledge of their affair. Instead of being cornered by Anna, Vera, a cold-hearted woman, mocks Anna and makes fun of her physical disability. Anna suggests Vera and gets her to hand over her jewels in return for compromising letters. Just as Vera goes to her jewelry case, Dr. Sail home. Anna tries to escape undetected, but she stumbles and the doctor notices her scar. He offers the young woman to treat her free of charge. It turns out that Anna got the scar as a child when her drunk father accidentally set the house on fire. After a total of twelve operations that Dr. Segert, Anna has become a flawless beauty without any trace of her previous harm. However, the operation only led to an external change. Inside, Anna is still lonely and desperately longs for recognition and security. Almost inevitably she falls into complete bondage to Torsten Barring, who made her feel beautiful and unique from the start. She does not realize what diabolical plan Barring is pursuing with his approach. His uncle, the ancient consul Magnus Barring, will pass on his vast fortune to his four-year-old grandson. Torsten Barring would only get the inheritance if something happened to this boy. He gets the reluctant Anna to apply under the name Ingrid Paulson as a nanny in the consul's household in order to gain the boy's trust and ultimately to murder him. Over time, however, Anna experiences real warmth and affection from the consul and his grandson. She changes and takes the opportunity to learn Dr. Know Segert better. They both fall in love. Meanwhile, Torsten plans to kill his nephew during an excursion, but Anna prevents the act by shooting the baron at the very last minute. The flashbacks end and Anna awaits the court's verdict. Dr. Segert promises Anna to stay with her no matter what.

background

Joan Crawford's career had been in a permanent crisis since the mid-1930s. Her studio still used her in Cinderella stories and failed to develop Crawford's acting potential. Too often her wardrobe got better reviews than she did and it wasn't until 1939 that she made the leap to character roles with her appearance in a relatively small role in The Women under the direction of George Cukor . Joan Crawford, who was gradually approaching 40, then tried to keep her fans by portraying more mature women. So in 1940 she willingly took on the role of the mother of a teenager in the film adaptation of Susan and the Good Lord . She also faced growing competition in the studio from other stars like Greer Garson and Katharine Hepburn . After seeing En kvinnas ansikt , the Swedish adaptation of the story from 1938 with Ingrid Bergman , directed by Gustaf Molander , Crawford was convinced that the role of Anna Holm would finally make the leap into the ranks of serious actresses. The project had been under discussion for some time and Greta Garbo was even supposed to take on the lead role at an early stage . Crawford personally addressed her request to Louis B. Mayer . The prospect of bringing one of Hollywood's most famous glamor stars to the screen as a disfigured murderer made him initially rejected.

In the end, the star and director convinced the reluctant Mayer and filming began in the spring of 1941 with outdoor shots in Sun Valley. Cukor spent a lot of time and energy guiding Crawford, who had never played such a demanding role before, through the role. It was important to him to get a natural, rather reserved portrayal from Crawford. In his own words, Cukor insisted that Anna was not a movie queen in the conventional sense, but a woman who had been beaten by fate and hardened inwardly. This directional approach is particularly evident in the scene in which Anna Dr. Segert talks about her childhood accident. In Cukor's opinion, Crawford was too energetic in the first rehearsals and interpreted the part too much as the innocent victim of a gruesome accident. Instead, he required the actress to speak her dialogue in a flat voice, with no apparent external emotion. Cukor finally made Crawford repeat the scene until her voice had the desired monotony and exhaustion he imagined.

In the film itself, it takes a while for the audience to see the scar on Anna's face. During the scenes with Torsten Barring at the beginning, only the reaction on the faces of the bystanders is an indication of the actual extent of the disability. Only later, when Anna is with Vera Segert, does the face appear in a long shot. The studio carefully prevented any footage showing Crawford with the scar from reaching the public before the film started. For Conrad Veidt , the role meant the breakthrough on the US market, after he had won over a predominantly female audience as a dangerously brutal lover in England alongside Valerie Hobson in The Spy in Black . He himself made fun of his role, claiming

"I'm the devil in tails!"

The film became a huge critical hit, and Crawford admitted decades later that the greatest disappointment of her career was not receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for the role . She then vowed, should she ever be nominated, not to attend the Academy Awards in person. For this reason, she stayed away from the Academy Awards in 1946 , officially because of pneumonia, when she received the award for her portrayal of Mildred Pierce in Solange a Heart Beats . The success of The Woman with the Scar was short-lived for the actress. When Crawford tried to play a deaf-mute in the film adaptation of the Broadway hit The Spiral Staircase , Mayer categorically refused.

"No more cripples or disabled women!"

Joan Crawford, always her strictest critic, was satisfied with herself and her portrayal.

"I can only say the very best about" The Woman With the Scar ". It was an excellent script and George Cukor allowed me to use every nuance of it. In the end, I was deeply touched by the reviews and the reactions of the fans, who finally realized that deep down inside I was a dramatic actress. [...] Funny, but I think "The woman with the scar" was the reason why I won the Oscar for "As long as a heart beats". An actor who's been in the business for a while won't win the award for a role. This requires a certain oeuvre. "

Theatrical release

Cost of $ 1,343,000 was slightly above the standard for an A production at MGM at the time. The box office results were respectable at $ 1,077,000 in the US without being great. International revenues were $ 830,000 and on total earnings of $ 1,907,000, the studio ended up making a loss of $ 131,000.

criticism

The Hollywood Reporter simply called the portrayal of Joan Crawford:

“The biggest part of her career. She is superb. "

In Variety , the critic also found benevolent:

“Miss Crawford undertakes a radical change of role away from the glamor girl and appears in the first half of the film with appropriate make-up in order to credibly portray a disabled person. This step will be an incentive for other stars with dramatic ambitions to take on similar roles. "

literature

  • Roy Newquist (Ed.): Conversations with Joan Crawford . Citadel Press, Secaucus, NJ 1980, ISBN 0-8065-0720-9 .
  • Shaun Considine: Bette and Joan. The Divine Feud . Dutton, New York 1989, ISBN 0-525-24770-X .
  • Lawrence J. Quirk : The Complete Films of Joan Crawford . Citadel Press, Secaucus, NJ 1988, ISBN 0-8065-1078-1 .
  • Lawrence J. Quirk, William Schoell: Joan Crawford. The Essential Biography . University Press, Lexington, KY. 2002, ISBN 0-8131-2254-6 .
  • Bob Thomas: Joan Crawford. A biography . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1978, ISBN 0-297-77617-7 .
  • Alexander Walker: Joan Crawford. The Ultimate Star . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1983, ISBN 0-297-78216-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. I have nothing but the best to say for A Woman's Face. It was a splendid script, and George let me run with it. [..] Funny, but I think A Woman's Face was the reason I won an Oscar for Mildred Pierce. An actor who's been around a while doesn't win an award for just one picture. There has to be an accumulation of credits.
  2. The greatest acting role of her career. She is superb.
  3. Miss Crawford takes a radical step as a screen glamor girl to allow the makeup necessary for facial disfiguration in the first half; an innovation that might well interest other screen stars with dramatic tendencies to be receptive to similar roles.