I have always thought that "Les Visages De L'Ombre" was Boileau-Narcejac's best novel,even Superior,in several respects to the more celebrated "Celle Qui N'Etait Plus" (which Clouzot rewrote as "Les Diaboliques" ) and to "D'Entre Les Morts " (transferred to the screen by Hitchcock as "Vertigo".Much to my surprise,this movie was never released in France,at a time when their novels were extremely popular over here :in the late fifties and sixties,there was "Les Louves" (Saslavski,1957),"Meurtres En 45 Tours "(Etienne Périer,1960 from "A Cœur Perdu" )"Maldonne" (Sergio Gobbi ,1969) and "Maléfices" (Henri Decoin,1962,starring Juliette Greco,which is never to be found:however,given the quality of the book,it must possess considerable appeal for fans of Boileau-Narcejac's style.)These books are,par excellence,"the novel of the victim" ,and the victim is always a man;women are all femme fatale in these works which some may find misogynist ."Les Visages De L'Ombre" ,as an user already pointed out,is a cruel story :so hard and so desperate was the ending that the editors asked their winning team to sweeten it ,to make it more moral:they did not ,but anyway are their other detective stories so optimistic?Among all these murder mysteries ,"Les Visages De L'Ombre " is the hardest to transfer to the screen:when you read it,you live the whole story through a blind man's eyes,so to speak.You do not know what Christiane and David (Hubert in the book) feel ;in the last part of the movie,the actors are compelled to overplay,whereas in the book,the characters remain "neutral" ,even kind .The suspense is increased tenfold.David Eady made the best of the novel:he certainly could not direct a movie with a central character surrounded by fog and smoke and darkness.His actors direction is faultless,particularly John Ireland as Maxime ,the unfortunate hero's brother.He made Christianne's lover an amateur painter ,which is a good way of introducing the peach tree episode.By and large ,except for the final ,in which the screenwriters did what Boileau-Narcejac's editors urged them to do before their book was released ,the screenplay is faithful like a dog to the initial story . The scene in the cemetery ,which scared me to death when I read the book for the first time,is skillfully filmed :Richard's fingers touching the cross and discovering the awful truth compares favorably with Clouzot's and Hitchcock's best frightening moments ;on the other hand,Richard's desperate escape in the country is too short :this is perhaps,however,the only moment when Eady could recreate Richard's plight ,alone in the darkest night and losing his bearings ,and the trick of the level crossing -not from the book- does not make up for it.It was an arduous task :I do not think a remake would do the novel justice or else it would have to be an avant-garde thriller with one character and darkness.But I would recommend it to all Boileau-Narcejac's buffs in my country.NB:There's also a German MTV version "Gesichte Des Schattens" .(1984)

John Gregson plays a hard nosed businessman who is a workaholic. He gets blinded by a prototype lightbulb blowing up in his face. As he was the one to push the lightbulb to its maximum he caused his own fate and this film sees him in a tortured painful state throughout.One advantage of his blindness is that he cannot see the dire wooden acting!! of Michael Dennison. Dennison is someone I like but his performance in this film must have stunk the place out.The music in this film is quite brilliant and counter balances Gregsons state of mind and he slowly believes that he is going mad. John Ireland probably offended by Dennisons acting disappears from the film about three quarters through. All in all an effective little shocker except for Dennison whose acting is abysmal.

Like the preceding comment by JimShine illustrates, this movie is only half-good : an average-to-good acting job; and indeed the direction lacks energy and tension.The strength that remains in this movie comes basically from its clever story, its suspenseful plot. The explanation is simple : it is adapted from a novel by Boileau-Narcejac! Voilà ! Of course ! For the sake of anecdote, let's remind the reader that the British publishers of Faces in the Dark / Les Visages de l'ombre (that was in the early 60s) asked Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac if they couldn't, by any chance, change the conclusive chapter because it was too dark. Well, if they called it 'Faces in the Dark', it must have been for some reason, bozo ! Like many people in the same trade, Boileau-Narcejac wrote and published too much. As a result, let's say MOST of their novels are at least enjoyable, SOME are pretty boring - especially the late ones, as often happens with thriller/suspense writers - and a solid DOZEN are masterpieces of suspense, atmospheric and chilling to the bone ! They also wrote an adorable jewel of the pastiche, 'Arsène Lupin : Le Secret d'Eunerville' which is a full-fledged Arsène Lupin novel better than some of the original ones written by Maurice Leblanc.In fact, lots of people may know very well a couple of their stories without realizing it : H.G. Clouzot's Les Diaboliques and Alfred Hitchock's Vertigo were both adapted from a Boileau-Narcejac novel.They also can be counted are among the rare true INVENTORS of the genre, because in the immediate postwar years, they decided to escape from both the whodunit (written from the point of view of the detective) and the noir (written from the point of view of the criminal) and decided instead to write their novels - a genuine breakthrough - from the point of view of the victim. And it is the case with Faces in the Dark, which could well be their most efficient suspense ever - but to know that, you have to read the book, for this movie adaptation, though acceptable, doesn't really do it justice. Reading 'Les Visages de l'ombre' is a really frightening experience (especially the conclusive chapter!), while watching this movie is at best intriguing.

In terms of the number of votes for this movie (mine is the 10th), this could be the most obscure film I'm ever seen! Which of course means nothing to you, but it does get me wondering about how some films survive the decades and others just vanish. Certainly there are many much worse ways of spending 80 minutes than watching "Faces in the Dark". On the very slim chance that you might get to see this movie, I won't spoil what was for me the most enjoyable aspect of it, which was speculating as to what would happen next: is it a horror film? a psychological drama? or what? Anyway, the basic plot is that the main character goes blind after an accident; he and his wife plus sundry other relevant persons take a break at their holiday home; and then strange things appear to happen. There are a few things wrong with this film, primarily the rather dull direction (it's not all told from the main character's POV, which deflates some of the tension), and I found John Gregson a little too gruff at times (I only know him from comedies, including, by the way, a film called Genevieve which is one of the most thoroughly entertaining movies I know). Some of the other acting is occasionally dodgy too. Overall, though, it held my interest up to the end, which is, I think, a good enough recommendation for any obscure movie!