Brilliant and touching

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Barry Nelson and his bother-in-law John Harvey co-own a small company on Puerto Rico. Nelson's wife Lynn Ainley is supposed to pick him up from work one day, but she doesn't show up. When he calls her up, she does not know who he is. And when he takes a cab home, he finds the spitting image of himself there, and everybody thinks he's not the real husband, including their dog! Quickly he finds out his doppelganger staged a heist years before and came up with an elaborate plan with switched identities to frame him for it, and everybody's in on it. He turns to ex-flame Carole Mathews for help, who he left for Ainley, and they try to figure out a way to clear his name and expose the real doppelganger.The plot, based on a 1948 pulp novel, makes little sense and is void of any logic. But if you stop to think about it and just sit back, it's enjoyable enough. It also includes a trained doberman, providing some exciting moments, but whose presence also telegraphs the ending early on in the movie.The acting is mediocre across the board unfortunately. Whoever cast Nelson ('Johnny Eager') probably didn't read the full script, as Nelson is completely unsuited to play a 'bad' person. Ainley did exactly 2 movies according to IMDb, the other one 'Undercover Girl', and she lacks charisma as the femme fatale here. Mathews ('Chicago Deadline') does a better job, but has very little to do.Director Edward Montagne ('The Tattooed Stranger') and DoP Frank Jackman Jr. ('Chicago Syndicate') are the redeeming factors, breathing some life and excitement into this movie. But don't expect miracles, this movie feels like a cheap B-feature from start to finish. A decent time-waster, if you can switch off your brain. 6/10

The premise, as others point out, is wildly improbable, yet the visuals, direction, and acting prove enough to compensate. Poor Chick Graham (Nelson, in a dual role). On an utterly routine work day he returns home, only to find an exact double has taken his place in the household. Even his wife (Ainley) says the real Chick is an impostor, and the officials believe her, not Chick. In fact everything he does to verify his identity backfires, including fingerprints. So what's going on since Chick's just an ordinary working stiff.Frankly, I wish the screenplay hadn't tipped its hand so soon by explaining the reason behind the impersonation. Withholding the key would have set up a good mystery. Nonetheless, Nelson's dual role is well handled. Catch the vertical line created by door-frames that indicates where the split screen divides when the two Nelsons appear in the same shot. The split screens are well done without being obtrusive. Also, the climactic chase through the old Spanish coastal fort is excitingly picturesque. In fact, the movie makes good use of the Puerto Rico locations, even if in b&w. These lend an exotic flavor to an exotic story.All in all, the movie certainly doesn't lack for imagination, including the assassin canine and its scary handler (Jim Boles). Speaking of the Doberman, I'm glad the besieged Chick finally figures out the tactical use of a door. Anyway, with some basic work on the screenplay, this could have been a B-film that's more than novel entertainment, which it is.

****SPOILERS****This film noir really pushes the envelope to the limit here in wanting us to believe that a plot was hatched back during WWII by the then Cora Cox,Lynn Ainley, and her brother Buster, John Harvey, to get the clueless in what is planned for him Chick Graham, Barry Nelson, involved in a $1,000,000.00 bond robbery and end up taking the rap for it! What's even more ridicules is that the two conspirators in this bazaar scheme just happen to have someone, without the help of plastic surgery, Chick's exalt look-alike the on the lamb bank robber Albert Rand, not surprisingly also played by Barry Nelson, step into Graham's shoes and take over his identity to pull, in having Graham take the blame for it, this whole crazy scheme off!The victim in all this Chick Graham finds out that something is wrong when coming home after a hard days work at the office at his and Buster's accounting firm and finds his double the on the run bank robber Burt Rand replacing him as Cora's husband! And even worse his cute and lovable pet dog Jiggs ends up attacking him as if he's an intruder! Kicked out of his own home and now, in thinking that he's bank robber Burt Rand, wanted by the police all Chick can do is get his head together and track down the clues to prove that he's really Chick Graham not Burt Rand! Meanwhile electronic salesman Al Grant, John Kane, who found out what Rand, the real one, and Buater were all about ends up, in trying to blackmail them, mauled to death by dog trainer and also a member of the Rand/Buster/Cora conspiracy Meadows,Jim Boles, trained vicious attack dog King.****SPOILERS**** Everything finally works out for Chick in the end with him reunited with his former flame Mary Davies, Carole Mathews, who could positively identify him as Chick Graham not Burt Rand. And as for Burt Rand he in the end is mistaken by Meadows in, by discarding his business suite and mussing up his hair, trying to make himself look like Chick to fool the police that he sets attack dog King on him! Where the two, in a life and death struggle, end up falling to their death off a 150 foot cliff into the Caribbean Sea! Really hard to take in just how unbelievable, even for a Hollywood movie, it is but still entertaining if you throw logic and common sense straight out of the window and just sit back enjoy the show.

Wildly improbable but seldom less than absorbing, The Man With My Face has the distinction of being the only film noir set in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. That's where Barry Nelson settled down after the war and where he runs a little business with his old army buddy, now his brother-in-law, John Harvey. But one evening he returns home to his cozy bungalow only to find his tough-faced wife (Lynn Ainley) staring at him as if he had suddenly grown a second head. In a sense he has, because there in his living room is his exact double, having drinks and playing cards. And as far as Ainley and Harvey are concerned, this newcomer is the real husband and business partner, respectively. Even his little pooch bites Nelson on the hand.Turned out into the Caribbean warm, Nelson enlists the help of an old girlfriend (Carole Mathews) whom he had thrown over for the blonde if shopworn Ainley. Mathews' protective brother (Jack Warden) stays wary, but soon joins in trying to figure out the puzzle. It doesn't take long, because Nelson's face is on the front page - as a Miami bank robber who got away with half a million. This robber - the double - has been in league with the wife and brother-in-law since long before the marriage. Rounding out the gang is another war veteran, but as a member of K-9 corps - a Doberman trained to kill; his slavering maw turns several hapless victims into bowls of Alpo.Edward Montagne directed, who the year before had made The Tattooed Stranger, a starvation-budget police procedural shot on location - then a rarity - in New York City. Like that strange and seedy movie, The Man With My Face shares a cast that, apart from Nelson, had few credits behind them (or ahead of them); it shows little visual dimension, either, having been shot entirely in flat subtropical sunshine. But the doppelganger theme holds attention, despite the fact that its ironies and perversities are never pursued to real satisfaction. It's pure plot, and far-fetched at that, but in its modest way it works.