Written by Linda
August 08, 2011
Poor faceless man! All he wants is to be loved!
Two thousand years after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, a gladiator is still frozen in love with a woman literally out of his reach. There lies Quintillus Aurelius, arms outstretched to the upper-class woman whom he has been stuck trying to save for two millennia. Poor Quintillus.
In modern times (aka the groovy 1950s, when men still wore suits when solving mysteries, and Italian women all had a Lollobrigida va-va-voomishness to them), Quintillus Aurelius is dug up from the ruins of Pompeii, along with a few valuable treasures. Curiously, though, some begin to claim that though he lays there like a hunk of man-shaped-concrete, arms forever outstretched, this faceless man can actually move. In fact, when Quintillius is transported to the museum, the truck carrying him veers off the road when the lone driver is strangled... but by whom?!?!?
Solving this mystery are Dr. Paul Mallon (Richard Anderson, who manages to be even stiffer and more emotionless than Quintillus), and the museum curators, the father-daughter duo of Dr. Carlo Fiorillo and his va-va-voom hottie daughter Maria. Oh, but Quintillus has his eyeless face on Paul's woman Tina (Elaine Edwards), who feels an odd pull toward the stone embrace of the Pompeii monster. Quintillus wants Tina, and they all know it. This is the type of movie where, after killing a museum guard, the faceless man goes stiffly and slowly staggering down the road, seemingly toward his next victim. Who could it be? It must be Tina! So to protect Tina in her apartment, Paul and the police stand guard at the front door of her building. Brilliantly, Quintillus simply goes in a side door, because he remembers from "back in the day" in Pompeii how to get in!
The Curse of the Faceless Man is a brisk show, at just over an hour long, and it doesn't wear out its welcome. Sure, some of its acting is wooden and cheesy (Quintillus actually has more character than some of the humans that have faces), and the story takes itself very seriously. But it is totally watchable, on a sort of rainy Sunday afternoon (with a nap break) way. Shoot, I have to admit that true story behind Quintillus' actions, when all was revealed, was actually kind of moving and sad. A love story spanning 2,000 years despite rigid, unbending arms... you have to give the faceless man his due!
