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Fiend Without a Face (1958) (1994x2)

Data di messa in onda: Mag 16, 1994

Next, a variation on the Andromeda Strain theme: Fiend Without a Face. Alarmed by a series of mysterious deaths, an isolated Canadian community blames an American military atomic experimental power-station, that’s situated nearby. Though set in Canada, Fiend Without a Face was shot right here in Great Britain by the producer’s associates in 1957. It was directed by Arthur Crabtree, who also made the infamous banned movie Horrors of the Black Museum; and the script was by Amelia Reynolds Long. Presumably it was set in North America in order to more effectively compete with the wave of American science-fiction films of a similar ilk. This was the era of the great Jack Arnold movies, like The Incredible Shrinking Man, Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, This Island Earth and Them! In other words, pretty stiff competition. And how does our home-grown sci-fi hold up in comparison? Well, although there’s some good stock footage of aircraft, a la Dr Strangelove, this doesn’t really look like Canada to me. Or if it is, it’s a part of Canada that’s filled with surreal little English bungalows. The actors are rather like the second and third row of troops in Dad’s Army. And the only concession they make to being Americans is saying “labra-torry”, instead of “laboratory”. None of this applies to the extremely sexy Kim Parker in the role of Barbara Griselle, by the way. One place though where I think Fiend Without a Face does compete very favourably with its American contemporaries is in the monsters, when they finally appear. It takes a while for this to happen, because they are, like the killer plague in The Andromeda Strain, invisible. In fact, when I first saw the footprint or tail print of the invisible fiends, I thought ‘Oh no, this isn’t going to be any good at all. They did this much better in Forbidden Planet’, but no! I was deceived! Because when the fiend without a fiend actually ceases to be inviisible the result is absolutely horrible! And there isn’t