Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

blanche-2 They say to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. What if they are one and the same? Just ask scientist Nora Goodrich (Brenda Marshall, in real life Mrs. William Holden). She is conducting an experiment with her assistant/friend Arline (Hillary Brooke), but Arline is after Nora's fiancé (William Gargan), a successful doctor. While Nora is out from anesthetic, which is part of a grand experiment -oops, a fire starts in a beaker, thanks to Arline loading it up, and Nora's face is burned and scarred. While she's recovering in the hospital, Arline fixes it so that the fiancé thinks that Nora doesn't want to see him; meanwhile, Nora is wondering why he isn't coming by. Then an unfortunate accident in her apartment causes Nora to get plastic surgery - but with a brand-new face and a name to go with it.This is kind of a fun B movie with an interesting cast that includes William Gargan as the object of Nora's and Arline's affections -- bad casting -- the role needed a good-looking B film lead like Jeffrey Lynn or Richard Carlson. H.B. Warner, Jesus in the original King of Kings, plays a plastic surgeon, and Ruth Ford, Mrs. Zachary Scott, plays one Jane Karaski, who is important to the plot.Economically directed by Anthony Mann, this is a pretty good film with a gigantic twist at the end, one that was actually used in a couple of other films. Not the best but satisfying nonetheless.Don't look for lovely cinematography, camera angles, unusual sets, great clothes, or anything like that - this movie comes to you from Republic Studios.

MartinHafer Anthony Mann directs this movie with the most convoluted and unbelievable plot...but it's still quite entertaining. The secret to watching it is to just ignore the impossibility of everything you see...just enjoy! The film starts with Brenda Marshall as an obsessed research scientist. Her character is very one-dimensional and all she thinks about is her work. Oddly, despite this, her boyfriend adores her (William Gargan) and constantly is pressing her to marry him. Out of the blue, Marshall's female assistant tries to kill her while Marshall is unconscious. She tries to burn Marshall alive but at least succeeds in sending her to the hospital with a disfigured face from the fire. Then, the assistant does everything she can to destroy the relationship between her boss and her fiancé--and she is truly a snake! After getting out of the hospital, Marshall has (thanks to the manipulative 'friend') lost her boyfriend and is alone. Out of the blue, a nasty lady from early in the film returns and tries to rob the Doctor at gunpoint. In an ensuing struggle, the robber is knocked off the apartment balcony to her death MANY stories below. Considering she's wearing the Doctor's ring she just stole and her face was crushed in the fall, people assume it was Marshall. Marshall takes this opportunity to assume the dead woman's life. Then, after getting plastic surgery to look EXACTLY like the dead woman (????), she returns to exact revenge against the assist and the ex-boyfriend she assumed was faithless towards her.The film is so full of impossible and ridiculous story elements. Attempted murders and a convenient robbery are just the tip of the iceberg of impossibilities. Having Marshall become this other woman due to plastic surgery is silly--especially with 1940s technology. And, in fact, she did NOT look like this other woman--just Marshall with a new hair color and style--yet the people from her past did NOT recognize her!!! None of it makes any sense at all....yet the film is still pretty entertaining and juicy throughout. Unfortunately, the ending is terrible....and pretty much undoes most of the film!! Too bad....this could have been a lot better! By the way, isn't Marshall's nurse the most detestable lady?! I wanted to throttle her as she CONSTANTLY spoke in the third person!

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".

robert-temple-1 This film's chief recommendation is a superb performance by Hilary Brooke, who plays a mini-Iago, a woman so unremittingly wicked, scheming and grasping that Brooke's intense portrayal of her should really have been lifted from this B picture and inserted into an A picture. The film's main weakness is this: primarily, the entire plot depends on two women (Brenda Marshall and Hilary Brooke) being so infatuated with the leading man that they will stop at nothing to 'have him', but the casting for that part is William Gargan, who is wholly ludicrous. No one would 'have to have' Gargan, who is goofy-looking, weak, altogether lacking in any semblance of romantic charm, and frankly just a joke in the part. Two women fighting to the death over that blob of vaseline is ridiculous. The other fatal weakness to this film is an appalling plot development towards the end, which I shall refrain from revealing, but it is terminal to taking this film seriously. How could Anthony Mann have directed such an inferior work when only two years later he would produce the masterpiece 'Raw Deal' (1948)? It all goes to show that with a weak script and a hopeless leading man, everything can readily collapse into a heap of rubble. This film could have been something, but for reasons which we will never know, it was gutted from within. After all, the basic plot is strong and powerful if it had been allowed to happen without interference, and with the right leading man to make it believable. What a missed opportunity this was!