Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

mark.waltz A female scientist in New York, working on an anesthetic, keeps trying to get it just right, and won't marry her fiancé until it works. She has a devoted friend and assistant who seems very loyal. One night, she accidentally hits a drunken woman, and gives her cash after driving her home. Later, the assistant gives the scientist a dose of the anesthetic to test it once again. This sets up a plot of disfigurement, blackmail, and accidental death. Then, a twist is revealed which sets the scientist out on the course for revenge.TRUE SPOILERS BELOW: This is a difficult film to describe without revealing spoilers, even though it runs just over an hour. Brenda Marshall is the heroine, William Gargan her leading man, Hillary Brooke the assistant, and Ruth Ford the drunken woman. After being disfigured in a chemical explosion caused purposely by Brooke, Marshall breaks off with Gargan, whom she thinks has lost interest in her. It was all a trick of Brooke's to win Gargan for herself. Then, Ford shows up to blackmail Marshall, and is killed in a struggle over her gun. Marshall decides to take her place. After getting plastic surgery from H.B. Warner in L.A. (who has a strange idea about her), Marshall returns to New York, uses Ford's identity, and steps into her old job working with Gargan. Brooke is on to her and before you know it, Marshall is arrested for murdering herself! Yes, it is complicated, but not so confusing that you need to watch it more than once. It all comes together with the most delightful conclusion at the end. Some might groan (I did at first), but when you stop and think about it, it makes sense. After all, this is Film Noir, and nothing is supposed to make sense until the film is over. I could have done without nurse Mary Treen however; She is annoying enough to have been a deserving victim. Definitely a must for students of Film Noir and lovers of classic movies, particularly the "B's".

David (Handlinghandel) First off, I practically fainted at seeing a Republic Picture that didn't star John Wayne and wasn't one of their few big-budget movies. That studio turned out some excellent films and they are rarely seen. (This even though till about ten years ago our ABC affiliate showed one, sometimes two, every Saturday night.) The movie itself is not Mann at his best but it's very good. He's been given a fabulous cast. Brenda Marshall is a great favorite of mine. Ruth Ford did more on stage, maybe, than on screen. William Gargan was handsome before he moved into character roles. And Hillary Brooke! Wow, what a performance she turns in here! Lyle Talbot is also on board. He's somewhere between his days as a leading man and his time with Ed Wood. He looks a bit pudgy here.When we first meet the three principals, they're all wearing glasses. You see, they are scientists.In a parking garage on her way home from work, Marshall accidentally backs her car into the inebriated Ford. And that's all the plot I'm giving.Brooke is given a very meaty role. It seems like the typical best-friend part. She seems like a low-budget Eve Arden at first. But oh no! That changes. And she is up to every twist and turn of the plot.The movie is a little bit soap opera, a little bit noir. But it's both highly entertaining on its on and a must-see for fans of the great Anthony Mann.

bmacv Heralded noir director Anthony Mann made his name in legendary collaborations with cinematographer John Alton (T-Men, Raw Deal, Border Incident). But his work in the cycle started earlier when it was still coalescing -- before its essentials had become codified.A 1945 Republic release (under an old, pre-eagle logo), Strange Impersonation comes in a compact package holding a lot of plot -- perhaps too much. Pharmaceutical chemist Brenda Marshall, anxious to test a new anesthetic she devised, goes home to do so. [On the way, however, she gets into an unpleasant traffic scrape involving a tipsy woman and an ambulance-chaser.] Finally ensconced in her luxurious penthouse, she injects herself and goes under, only to wake in hospital, suffering disfiguring burns from an explosion and fire among her bottles and beakers.The next year proves to be no picnic. During her convalescence, her rich fiance (who owns the drug company) drops her like a hot brick. She accidentally murders the accident victim -- see above -- who has resurfaces with a gun and a blackmail scheme. On the lam, Marshall assumes a new identity and buys a swell new face through reconstructive surgery. Then she returns to her old firm with a notion of settling scores.Cheeky, and with the courage of its conventions, Strange Impersonation draws us in by rapid and unexpected changes in its course. Marshall holds an especially strong hand as the brainy victim of outrageous fortune, and plays her cards well. But she's almost matched by Hillary Brooke as her duplicitous assistant/rival. William Gargan (later to become TV's first Martin Kane, Private Eye) remains no more than a plot point as the duped fiance.Mann plays fast and loose with themes and gimmicks that were to become staple ingredients later in the noir cycle, as if trying them on for size. There are elements here that recall or prefigure movies such as The Woman in the Window, Dark Passage, A Stolen Face and No Man of Her Own, to name just a few. And if they're not worked out with the ruthlessness of vision that was to shape the finest film noir, no matter. Strange Impersonation is a swift, dark funhouse ride.

rfkeser "You cannot escape the person you are," says plastic surgeon H.B.Warner, holding up a bony finger. Nevertheless, leading lady Brenda Marshall tries, which puts her in the postwar vanguard of stars doing identity switches [see Bogart in DARK PASSAGE and Stanwyck in NO MAN OF HER OWN]. The script also stirs in elements from A WOMAN'S FACE, plus a dash of mad-scientist hubris, then shakes it into a film noir cocktail.Marshall plays a research chemist who tries an experimental anesthetic on herself ["nothing can go wrong"], but ends up disfigured, then takes on the identity of extortionist bad girl Ruth Ford. The switch involves several plastic surgery montages, but mostly results in a new coif, a dark rinse, and make-up adjustments.The plot also plays out the popular postwar subtext of Send-Rosie-the-Riveter-Back-to-the-Kitchen: when scientific professional Marshall turns down a marriage proposal in favor of finishing her own work, she suffers for it at the hands of scheming Hillary Brooke, and then has to fight to get another chance at that marriage ring. This conventional message is somewhat at war with the subversive noir style, but this script includes: the unsuspected hostile motives of a friend, the nightmare chain of events, and the police station third-degree. The novelty here is the woman protagonist, who herself shifts into a femme fatale. In fact, the film centers on a trio of femmes fatales: Marshall and Brooke and Ford. The man involved is William Gargan, relaxed and charming, so hardly an homme fatal.Republic's studio style-- aimed at simple feel-good entertainment, with invariably stodgy decor---was not exactly a natural home for noir. However, Anthony Mann delivers lean direction, with exceptionally fluid camerawork, some striking high and low angles, and smart playing from all [poor Marshall has to spend a good half-hour with her face wrapped up in bandages]. However, a few years later Mann worked out the situation-- two women tussling over a man--more pointedly, and with lots more shadows, in the superior RAW DEAL.