Woman's Face [VHS]
Legendary actress Joan Crawford (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?) stars in this 1941 melodrama directed by George Cukor (A Star Is Born,Adam's Rib) as a scheming con woman and blackmailer, a bitter woman shut off from society because of a disfiguring scar. The opportunity to undergo an operation--by plastic surgeon Melvyn Douglas--to remove the offending scar presents her with a choice: open herself up to a whole new life or return to her old ways and the only life she's ever known. Eventually, Crawford is drawn back into her old ways by her lover, Conrad Veidt (Casablanca), as he enlists her aid in a kidnapping and murder plot. Soon she finds herself trapped between her hopes for a new beginning and the malevolent double-crossing lover who seeks to exploit her for the woman she used to be, rather than who she can be. Crawford is oddly touching as a woman who undergoes a spiritual rebirth, yet cannot shake the pull of her past.A Woman's Faceis one of those classic dramas, deliciously wicked and immensely enjoyable.--Robert Lane