From a play 'It Etait Une Fois' by Francis de Croisset, which had been adapted as an Ingrid Bergman Swedish film En Kvinnas Ansikte in 1937, and it was she who came up with the ending - that she would face trial for murder but the outcome wasn't known. This of course had to be changed to the happier ending that MGM audiences were expecting, by Donald Ogden Stewart and Elliot Paul. It was a big hit.
The scarred faces compared:
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| Bergman's diary reveals she cried in the studio - not from the pain of the makeup but because she was so 'bad' |
Thanks to Musings for saving me the trouble.
Both versions take the form of a trial in which various witnesses come forward and present the story of the scarred and (emotionally) ugly woman blackmailer, beginning with a cohort in Donald Meek, who explains how Crawford blackmailing an adulterous woman Osa Massen leads her to meet plastic surgeon Melvyn Douglas, and her transformation begins. But she's being manipulated by evil Conrad Veidt (was he ever the good guy?) who wants her to kill his nephew, a little boy, and so we are led to the snowy, er, hills of Hollywood, and Albert Basserman, Marjorie Main and young Richard Nichols.
There's a very exciting sled chase / race at the end, edited by Frank Sullivan (and without music) and Robert Planck's photography of these scenes and Ms Crawford's face are equally good. Bronislau Kaper's score is not to the fore.
Lots of recognisable people in cast include Reginald Owen, Connie Gilchrist, Gwili Andre, Henry Daniell, George Zucco, Robert Warwick.
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