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Why so much hype?

Memorable, crazy movie

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

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!

I'm a huge fan of Anthony Mann films in general and this one was one of the few offered on Netflix that I had not seen. Probably for good reason as it turned out. I agree with the reviewer who said this a noir plot (tragic consequences of kind acts, loss of identity, etc) with no noir visuals. Just two-shots of people talking. A "B" picture with no particularly outstanding merit in any category, including direction. The "scientist" talk and taking lab equipment back to one's home is pretty funny. The main guy scientist is such a schlub it is difficult to imagine these two females fighting over him. Also the main plot line, that of becoming another person, is a bit undermined by the fact that the same actress plays this "transformed" character all the way through. So if it obvious to us that this is the same person, why is it not obvious to the other characters in the film? Unless Mann was pulling some Bunuelian trick on us. But I doubt it. I guess it proves that everyone has to earn a living, even back then!

Two things (and only two things) are worthy of notice here. The first is the simple noir construction - that of a manipulator who toys with the protagonist - here, to take over her role. Nora has no way out of the 'machinery', so the only escape is through a deus ex machina sort of release. Similar to the more harrowing (but ultimately, just as goopy)"The Big Clock".The second is the 'skeleton' of this movie, similar to the deconstructed anatomical model - it serves as a rough blank upon which much improved storytelling conventions have been added. This has been 'reconstructed' in the guise of "Angel Heart", "Johnny Handsome", "Abre Los Ojos/Vanilla Sky" and countless others.Otherwise, this is pretentious - poor acting, dull camera work, generic musical score, and shallow science...a B movie, pretending to be something well beyond its reach.

"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.