False Faces (1932)

Silas Brenton is an unscrupulous doctor, overcharging his unsuspecting patients. When his ill-gotten gains are discovered by the Board of Review, he is barred from practicing in New York. He travels to California, where he sets himself up as a plastic surgeon to the rich and famous...despite his lack of qualifications. Brenton gives washed-up actresses "face lifts" that lead to paralysis. Amid outcry, he agrees to fix the crippled legs of the wealthy Mrs. Finn in an attempt to save his reputation. But instead the woman's legs must be amputated after the botched operation. Now the crooked doctor who has brought suffering to so many is being hunted by the police...as well as the broken Mrs. Finn, who won't rest until Brenton dies at her hands...

This shocking pre-Code melodrama is a tour de force for Lowell Sherman, one of the few 1930s stars to direct his own pictures. Afterwards he would transition completely into directing, with 1933's She Done Him Wrong (the film that made Mae West a star) and Morning Glory (which netted Katherine Hepburn her first Academy Award.) In 1934, Sherman tragically died from a case of double pneumonia while filming Becky Sharp (it would eventually be completed by Rouben Mamoulian and released in 1935.) Leading lady Peggy Shannon had been a Ziegfeld girl, and was being groomed by Paramount to replace Clara Bow as the new "It" Girl. Her most notable role would be the apocalyptic disaster film Deluge (1933). Alcoholism derailed her career, however, and she died of a fatal heart attack in 1941 at the age of 34 (her husband shot himself three weeks later.) Studio correspondence reveals that the Association of Motion Picture Producers had concerns that False Faces would negatively impact Hollywood's standing among plastic surgeons. Appearing in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo during the nightclub scene is Western star Ken Maynard, playing himself.

• drama