Vincent Parry is a San Quentin convict wrongly accused of murdering his wife, who escapes from prison and is taken in by a gorgeous Good Samaritan (that would be Lauren Bacall as Irene Jansen). She lets him hide out at her place for awhile, but eventually Vincent takes a ride with a very perceptive cab driver who recognizes him and also has a heart of gold; he pulls his cab over to the side and just happens to know this plastic surgeon friend who wouldn't mind putting his neck on the line to alter the face of a wanted fugitive. After the operation is completed and the bandages are unspooled, Vincent Parry turns into Humphrey Bogart, and he is now able to set out to discover who really murdered his wife.
I'm not one who usually can't suspend his disbelief when watching movies, but there are a lot of contrivances here, even for me! I think the director made a poor choice in spending the first 30 or 40 minutes without showing Bogie, and even more importantly by using a very grating "point of view" camera technique to substitute for the character of Parry for far too long. This subjective viewpoint, where the camera becomes the eyes of the convict, as people look and talk at him, hand him cigarettes and so forth, is extremely effective at first but quickly grows into overkill. I think this would have been a much more interesting film if another actor was utilized to portray the pre-surgery Bogart.
Everything just falls too neatly into place, and once Bogart has his face transformed, he doesn't really get involved in too much hard detective work on his own before easily stumbling onto the real killer's identity (you can't really blame him; it's quite obvious). One begins to wonder why he even bothered with the plastic surgery. Lauren Bacall is beautiful to look at, and I can watch her doing just about anything. But I think her rapport with Bogart this time out is kind of lightweight. The real surprise of the film for me was Agnes Moorehead, who turns in a delicious performance. This is a film worth watching for its stars and a generally intriguing premise; it's just unfortunate that it couldn't have worked out a little better. **1/2 out of ****
I'm not one who usually can't suspend his disbelief when watching movies, but there are a lot of contrivances here, even for me! I think the director made a poor choice in spending the first 30 or 40 minutes without showing Bogie, and even more importantly by using a very grating "point of view" camera technique to substitute for the character of Parry for far too long. This subjective viewpoint, where the camera becomes the eyes of the convict, as people look and talk at him, hand him cigarettes and so forth, is extremely effective at first but quickly grows into overkill. I think this would have been a much more interesting film if another actor was utilized to portray the pre-surgery Bogart.
Everything just falls too neatly into place, and once Bogart has his face transformed, he doesn't really get involved in too much hard detective work on his own before easily stumbling onto the real killer's identity (you can't really blame him; it's quite obvious). One begins to wonder why he even bothered with the plastic surgery. Lauren Bacall is beautiful to look at, and I can watch her doing just about anything. But I think her rapport with Bogart this time out is kind of lightweight. The real surprise of the film for me was Agnes Moorehead, who turns in a delicious performance. This is a film worth watching for its stars and a generally intriguing premise; it's just unfortunate that it couldn't have worked out a little better. **1/2 out of ****