Fiend Without A Face - Production and Release

Production and Release

The film was made entirely in England. Its Canadian setting was chosen because it would appeal to both American and British Commonwealth movie audiences, while still being easy to replicate using the English shooting locations. U. S. Air Force stock aviation footage was also used to establish the military base setting and to pad-out the film's meagre running time. The producers used primarily expatriate American and Canadian actors working in the United Kingdom, plus a few British actors dubbed by Americans.

Screenwriter Herbert J. Leder was originally set to direct the film, but being American was unable to obtain a British work permit in time, so Arthur Crabtree replaced him as director.

The film's visible brain creatures were created using stop-motion animation, very unusual on such a low budget science fiction thriller of this era. The director of these effects sequences was Florenz Von Nordoff, while the actual stop-motion animation was done in Munich by German special effects artist K. L. Lupel. Peter Neilson headed-up the British practical effects' crew.

Fiend Without a Face created a public uproar after its British premiere at the Ritz Theatre in Leicester Square in London's West End. The British Board of Film Censors had demanded a number of cuts before finally granting the film an “X” Certificate, but newspaper critics were still aghast at its horrifying special effects; questions were actually asked in Parliament as to why British censors had allowed the film to be released and further asked what was the British film industry thinking in trying to beat Hollywood at its own game of overdosing on blood and gore.

When the film opened in the U. S. at the Rialto Theatre on New York City's Times Square, the film's producer had an outside, front-of-the-house display showcasing a "living and breathing" Fiend in a steel-barred glass display case. It periodically moved its tail, startling on-lookers, and also made menacing sounds, done with the help of a concealed electrical device. The crowd that gathered on the sidewalk to watch the caged Fiend grew so large that N.Y.C. police finally ordered it removed because it was creating a public disturbance.