False Faces
When:
Thursday, May 23, 2019 7:00p -
8:30p
Thursday, May 23, 2019 7:00p -
8:30p
Where:
Lightbox Film Center
3701 Chestnut St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
Admission:
$8-10
Categories:
Film
Event website:
https://lightboxfilmcenter.org/programs/false-faces
The loathsome career of Henry Schireson, the self-styled “King of Quacks” famous for bobbing Fanny Brice's nose and infamous for a botched surgery that necessitated the amputation of a young woman’s legs, is celebrated in Lowell Sherman's False Faces, a delirious film à clef. Dismissed from his post at a New York hospital, Schireson's screen counterpart Dr. Silas Benton (portrayed by director Sherman as an affectless sociopath) relocates to Chicago and promotes himself to the idle rich and famous as the doyen of nip-and-tuck. Utterly indifferent to his trail of human wreckage, Benton dallies promiscuously with every woman in sight and gorges himself with riches gleaned from his outlaw surgeries. His ultimate comeuppance is designed to leave the picture audience agog and cheering. This screening is part of Lightbox Film Center’s new series, Down & Dirty in Gower Gulch, a retrospective of low-budget “Poverty Row” films from the ‘30s and ‘40s restored by UCLA Film & Television Archives.
