The semi-obscure The Great Impersonation is a curious and entertaining blend of rollicking adventure movie, spy thriller, political drama, Gothic horror, and romance, landing on multiple genres without ever staying in one place for long. Though not a neglected classic, it's hardly a dud and should be better known.
I'm going to make a futile attempt to synopsize the exceedingly complicated plot. The movie opens with a title card reading, "East Africa, 1913," which made my heart sink a little. Most 20th century Hollywood movies opening with a title card mentioning any geographical area in Africa or Asia might as well stick a second title card onscreen reading "Racism Ahead." I regret to inform you that this warning holds true for The Great Impersonation, but at least the racism here is brief and seems to come from ignorance rather than hate (anonymous loin-cloth wearing natives who beat on drums and obey colonialists). In the weeks before World War I, wealthy, alcoholic Englishman Sir Everard Dominey (Edmund Lowe) is hunting big game in Africa, but the drunken man has been separated from his guides and is being pursued by a lion. He passes out before the lion can kill him and is discovered by another hunting party in the service of exiled Austrian arms dealer Baron Leopold von Ragostein (also played by Edmund Lowe). This is a wild coincidence, since Dominey and Ragostein were classmates at Oxford who bonded over their near-identical appearances.
The unscrupulous Ragostein quickly decides to turn this freakish chance encounter to his sinister advantage. Ragostein is not just any ol' unscrupulous arms dealer. He's a member of a secret, arms-dealing global spy ring headquartered in Germany that has nefarious plans to keep England out of the war for as long as possible, destroy their munitions once they enter the war, and sell arms to everyone involved on all sides of the conflict for huge profits. Ragostein arranges for Dominey to be killed so he can assume the British man's identity, leave Africa for the UK, and make the munitions destruction plan happen. Once the ol' switcheroo occurs and Ragostein becomes Dominey, he's assigned a minder posing as his assistant, Seaman (Murray Kinnell), a high-ranking member of the arms cabal who has secret orders to kill Ragostein if the Baron's cover is blown and who has the secret info needed to complete the munitions plan.
Ragostein gets a bit more than he bargained for when he arrives in England. Dominey's home is a dark, Gothic mansion, Dominey's wife Eleanor (Valerie Hobson) is mentally unstable and hates his guts (though Ragostein patiently attempts to change this), her servant Mrs. Unthank (Esther Dale) really hates his guts, and the ghost of Mrs. Unthank's mentally ill son Roger (an uncredited Dwight Frye) haunts the place. Roger died in the bog near the mansion after a scuffle with Dominey. Or did he? Further complicating things, Austrian princess Stephanie Elderstrom (Wera Engels), on vacation in England, recognizes Dominey as her former lover Ragostein and still has the hots for him. She inserts herself into the spy plan, much to the chagrin of the Baron and Seaman. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated, the spy plot heats up, with a secret HQ installed in the mansion's attic with a remote-controlled antenna that can extend out of a trap door-style opening in the roof. But is Dominey still alive or did he really die in Africa? And is everyone who they say they are? Can anyone be trusted?
Whoo baby, that's a complicated plot, and the movie is only 67 minutes long. In 2022, nearly every Hollywood movie has an idiot-simple story and is two hours and 35 minutes long. What happened to us? Get it together, Hollywood. Back in '35, director Alan Crosland skillfully handles all this complicated intrigue and somehow puts it all together in an attractive, fun, and easy to follow package, with Lowe getting the rare chance to play two separate characters who look the same without it being part of some generic evil twin angle.
I don't have much more to add about The Great Impersonation. It's a solid piece of entertainment with an unusual story, and it's competently made. The actors get a lot to do, but none of them ham it up. They play it straight, and the movie, and its admittedly ridiculous identical men switcheroo angle, is all the better for it. Recommended to anyone who wants a romantic/adventure/Gothic horror/political drama/spy thriller with a handful of decent jokes.
The Great Impersonation was director Alan Crosland's final completed film. While working on his next movie, an adaptation of the Erle Stanley Gardner short story The Case of the Black Cat, Crosland was killed in a car accident, aged only 41. William C. McGann took over as director after Crosland's death and shot the bulk of that film. Crosland's son, Alan Crosland Jr., who was 18 at the time of his father's death, would go on to be a successful TV director (he also made a few movies), beginning with Sergeant Preston of the Yukon in 1956 and ending with MacGyver 30 years later.
No comments:
Post a Comment