Sunday, August 18, 2019

Your Daily Dose Of Irony

This week John Alan Schwartz, director of the infamous Faces Of Death franchise, passed away. Hey, we all gotta go sometime, but his death makes for an ironic headline.

1978's Faces Of Death became one of the most infamous "movies" of all time. The film was basically a clip show, featuring footage of actual human and animal deaths. Fun!

While a few of the segments were indeed real, many of them were staged and featured elaborate makeup and special effects. For some reason, Schwartz directed the movie under the stage name Conan le Cilaire. Schwartz also appears in several of the segments in the film.


The posters often proudly proclaimed that the movie was banned in over forty countries. This was a lie as well, as only FIVE countries (Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Norway and the U.K) officially banned it.

The movie was made for a shockingly low $450,000, and went on to gross $35 million, making it one of the most profitable films of all time. After the massive success of the original, Schwartz went on to direct Faces of Death II, Faces of Death III, The Worst of Faces of Death (which I assume was a compilation film?), Faces of Death IV, Faces of Death V, Faces of Death VI and Faces of Death: Fact or Fiction?


Schwartz definitely had death on the brain, as in 2004 he penned My Faces Of Death: A Deadly Memior.

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