''Strange Impersonation'' is a 1946 American

film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American '' ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super- ...

directed by

Anthony Mann Anthony Mann (born Emil Anton Bundsmann; June 30, 1906 – April 29, 1967) was an American film director and stage actor. Mann initially started as a theatre actor appearing in numerous stage productions. In 1937, he moved to Hollywood where ...

and starring Brenda Marshall,

William Gargan William Dennis Gargan (July 17, 1905February 17, 1979) was an American film, television and radio actor. He was the 5th recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1967, and in 1941, was nominated for the Academy Award for Be ...

and

Hillary Brooke Hillary Brooke (born Beatrice Sofia Mathilda Peterson; September 8, 1914 – May 25, 1999) was an American film actress. Career A 5′6″ blonde from the Astoria neighborhood of New York City's borough of Queens, Brooke, who was of Swedish an ...

Plot

The distinguished chemical research scientist Nora Goodrich is postponing her marriage to her fiancé, Dr. Stephen Lindstrom, though her assistant and best friend Arline Cole advises her not to put him off too long. Nora takes home the materials to test on herself a new anaesthetic she has invented, which she predicts will induce vivid dreams and hallucinations before putting the subject completely under. It is a volatile substance, liable to explode into flame if improperly handled. On her way home, Nora backs out of her parking space and knocks down a woman named Jane Karaski who walked behind the car; Jane is not hurt and acknowledges that it was her fault, but a sleazy ambulance-chasing lawyer named J.W. Rinse gives his card to them both and tries to stir up a lawsuit. Nora prepares to take the anaesthetic, but Arline is seen to alter the amount. The mixture explodes and badly burns Nora. When Dr. Lindstrom comes to see her in the hospital and profess his unaltered love, she tries to send him away because she will no longer be beautiful, but he refuses to go. Arline then undermines their relationship by telling the hospital staff Nora does not want to see or hear from him, so that all his efforts to visit, call or send flowers are in vain, while telling Nora, who really does want him to come, that he is too busy to visit and doesn't really care for her. When Nora comes home from the hospital, disfigured but not blinded and with the prospect of restoration through plastic surgery, Stephen finally gets to see her, but Arline's work of alienation succeeds: they accuse each other of not caring, and part. Right afterward, Jane Karaski shows up, primed by the lawyer Rinse to demand $25,000 for her tiny accident. When Nora refuses, Jane pulls a gun and starts grabbing all her jewelry from its box, demanding her engagement ring too and scooping up her papers. Nora tries to get the gun, and in their scuffle it goes off and Jane is shot and falls off the balcony. A crowd below, including Stephen, sees the body, its face obliterated by the fall, and thinks it's Nora because of the ring and papers. Nora sees this from the back of the crowd and decides to accede to being thought dead and start a new life impersonating Jane. She goes to another city, where she spends a year and a half getting facial surgeries; but she shows the plastic surgeons pictures of Jane instead of herself to work from, so that when she is done she is beautiful again but looks like Jane. She reads that Arline has married Stephen, and she goes back to them and presents herself as an old friend of Nora's, who knows all about them from Nora's conversation. She gets a job in Stephen's lab, and as they work together Stephen develops feelings for her, saying that she reminds him so of Nora that he feels he can love again; his marriage to Arline was a mistake. Arline confronts Nora as she is packing to leave with Stephen and work with him in France. It comes out that Arline sabotaged the anaesthetic and broke Nora and Stephen up with her lies, and that "Jane" IS Nora. At this point, the police show up with Rinse and arrest Nora for the murder of Nora Goodrich. When she tries to tell them who she really is and what happened, Rinse, her building receptionist and, acting in malice, Arline identify her as Jane. All accuse her of the murder of herself, and Stephen believes it and is horrified. Nora hysterically pleads her innocence as they threaten her with the electric chair. At this point, she wakes up on the couch in her original apartment, with Stephen holding her and a friendly and harmless Arline standing by to tell her the experiment worked perfectly. All that she thought happened from Arline sabotaging the mixture on was just such a hallucination as she had predicted would happen with her anaesthetic. Relieved and happy, she proposes that she and Stephen get married the next day.

Cast

* Brenda Marshall as Nora Goodrich *

as Dr. Stephen Lindstrom *

as Arline Cole *

George Chandler George Chandler (June 30, 1898 – June 10, 1985) was an American actor who starred in over 140 feature films, usually in smaller supporting roles, and he is perhaps best known for playing the character of Uncle Petrie Martin on the televi ...

as J W Rinse, plaintiffs' attorney *

Ruth Ford Ruth Ford (July 7, 1911 – August 12, 2009) was an American actress and model. Her brother was the bohemian surrealist Charles Henri Ford. Their parents owned or managed hotels in the American South, and the family regularly moved. Life and ...

as Jane Karaski #1 * H.B. Warner as Dr. Mansfield, plastic surgeon *

Lyle Talbot Lyle Florenz Talbot (born Lisle Henderson, also credited Lysle Talbot; February 8, 1902 – March 2, 1996) was an American stage, screen and television actor. His career in films spanned three decades, from 1931 to 1960, and he performed on ...

as Insp. Malloy, chief interrogator *

Mary Treen Mary Treen (born Mary Louise Summers, March 27, 1907 – July 20, 1989) was an American film and television actress. A minor actress for much of her career, she managed to secure a plain, unassuming niche for herself in the Hollywood of the 1 ...

as Talkative nurse * Cay Forester as Miss Roper, interrogation witness * Dick Scott as Detective

Release

Republic released ''Strange Impersonation'' in March 1946, three months after it was approved by the

Production Code Administration The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...

. Its West Coast performance was not as good as on the East Coast, which author Max Alvarez attributes to supporting a better feature in New York City.

Reception

Critical response

Film critic

Glenn Erickson Glenn Erickson is an American film editor and film critic. A graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, he started in the film industry in 1975 as an editor of low-budget films and later worked in minor technical crew capacitie ...

is positive about the film, writing, "''Strange Impersonation'' is a fun oddity, a female version of ''The Scar'' (''

Hollow Triumph ''Hollow Triumph'' (working title ''The Man Who Murdered Himself'', reissued in the United States as ''The Scar'') is a 1948 American film noir crime film directed by Steve Sekely starring Paul Henreid, Joan Bennett and Leslie Brooks. It was rele ...

'') (or perhaps '' The Woman in the Window'') but without an organized crime angle. It's the kind of

Cornell Woolrich Cornell George Hopley Woolrich ( ; December 4, 1903 – September 25, 1968) was an American novelist and short story writer. He sometimes used the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley. His biographer, Francis Nevins Jr., rated Woolrich th ...

yarn that depends on an unlikely but entertaining twist concept. ... The future director of ''

El Cid Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (c. 1043 – 10 July 1099) was a Castilian knight and warlord in medieval Spain. Fighting with both Christian and Muslim armies during his lifetime, he earned the Arabic honorific ''al-sīd'', which would evolve into El C ...

'' and a half-dozen landmark

James Stewart James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military pilot. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality ...

westerns shows a flair for dramatic confrontations. ''Strange Impersonation'' never looks cheap even though its limited cast works in just a few sets. Not surprisingly, the underlying message implies that if professional women want to be happy, they need to stop working and marry."Erickson, Glenn
''DVD Savant'', film and DVD review, December 11, 2007. Accessed: July 11, 2013. (Note that in the film, there is no actual indication that Nora has to stop working if she marries Stephen.) Writing in ''The Crime Films of Anthony Mann'', Alvarez says, "Irrespective of his reservations and despite its unsatisfying conclusion, the picture is an ingenious and frenzied little thriller". William Darby, who wrote ''Anthony Mann: The Film Career'', said that the film "uneasily moves between film noir and woman's picture with the latter tendency ultimately winning out."

References

Notes

Bibliography

* *

External links

* * * *

information site and DVD review at DVD Beaver (includes images) * {{Anthony Mann 1946 films 1940s thriller films American thriller films 1940s English-language films American black-and-white films Film noir Republic Pictures films Films directed by Anthony Mann 1940s American films