I occasionally mention my "little list" which is not so little at all; as mentioned on the sidebar, this continues to grow when I read about some film which either I have never seen or just don't know. I'm always particularly intrigued by movies that people put on their "top 10" lists (which the BFI produces once a decade) where the film in question falls into one of the these two categories. Then there are the "career gap" films of well-known actors where the movie in question has totally disappeared from view for one reason or another, which includes the flick under consideration today.
Peter Cushing was always considered amongst the finest of British actors, even if his late career was nearly inseparable from some occasionally dubious horror efforts. I had long wanted to see the above missing film which has only once been shown on British TV -- some 30 years ago -- but which was apparently wildly successful for its director Robert Hartford-Davis. So when I found that the National Film Theatre had scheduled another one-off showing, I welcomed the opportunity. Unfortunately it was an abysmal disappointment in every way and the only positive thing I can say is that there is now one less movie on my little list.
Set in the so-called Swinging London of the 60s, Cushing plays a eminent surgeon who is madly in love with photographer's model Sue Lloyd. The fact that he was then an old-looking 54 to her 26 years doesn't add to the believability factor, especially when he gets into a fistfight with a with-it photographer played by Cheri Blair's dad. In the course of this a cleeg light falls and burns Lloyd's not particularly gorgeous face and Cushing spends the balance of the film in growingly mad doctor mode as he searchs for the pituitary glands needed to restore her beauty. It's an old standby horror theme and not particularly well done here; it's certainly no poetic "Eyes without a Face". As each operation begins to fail, the two main characters become more and more manic and obsessed with finding more supplies, which means that Cushing has to kill and behead more young women. I understand that more explicit versions exist of the scene where he kills his first prostitute, but I somehow doubt that nudity would be much of an improvement, given the duff nature of both the acting and the dialogue.
Towards the end of the movie the tenor changes when Cushing and Lloyd's holiday house is invaded by four weird punks (as we would call them today) and the film becomes something like "Penthouse", which is my least favourite British movie of all time. Anyhow Cushing's laser gets switched on and out of control and virtually the entire cast lies dead at the end, which doesn't quite finish the movie as we are again given brief glimpses of the many not particularly wonderful scenes that have come before. Yes, embarrassment is definitely the right word here.
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