1959 – Edith Scob – Les yeux sans visage

We’re jumping now a few years ahead to greet our third guest on this list. It was an unlikely project to come out of France at the time, with a most unusual shock scene. Probably one of the most poetic horror film of all time, Les yeux sans visage (AKA Eyes Without a Face or the more exploitative title Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus) was directed by an unique talent, namely Georges Franju. Of course, Franju is also mainly known for his 1949 B&W short film, Le sang des bêtes, which proposes an incursion in a day in the life inside a Parisian slaughterhouse, and his 1963 feature Judex, which pays homage to silent serials, among many of its inspiration.

In her early twenties at time of filming, Edith Scob plays the disfigured daughter of a brilliant surgeon, who dedicates his life in trying to give her a normal appearance (even if this means kidnapping teenage girls to experiment on and transplant some skin bits, all in the name of science). Wearing an expressionless white mask and gliding around her deranged dad’s mansion in a large bathrobe, frail Christiane already looks like a ghost, sharing with us some choice moments of despair.

I don’t want to reveal too much, but the final scene of the film is a chill-inducing visual, once again involving the young woman’s fragile presence. She’s not in every scene of the film, but without Edith’s involvement, there will be no movie.

One of the earlier gore scene in the history of world cinema is actually in Les yeux sans visage, as we can witness one of the good doctor’s transplantation procedure. Yes, a French movie depicting a teenager having her face removed in graphic detail. Oddly, that kind of script would be remade many times over the following years, mainly by Jess Franco, who proposes similar projects with his Dr. Orloff series and others.

Soon to be seventy, Edith Scob is still working in movies today.

Next: dual roles in the first official directing effort of a soon-to-be horror master… is it so hard to figure it out?