The Great Impostor (1961)

Directed by Robert Mulligan. Starring Tony Curtis, Edmond O’Brien, Karl Malden, Sue Ane Langdon, Gary Merrill, Joan Blackman, Arthur O’Connell, Raymond Massey, Jeanette Nolan, Robert Middleton, Frank Gorshin.

Following the adage of “fiction is better than the truth that’s stranger than fiction,” this story of audacious impostor Ferdinand Demara Jr. (Curtis) takes enormous liberties from Robert Crichton’s biography of the same name for the sake of facile entertainment. Demara spins the yarn through flashback, showing how he duped everyone into believing he was a Marine, a warden, a monk, a doctor, etc., staying just one or two steps ahead of the inevitable collapse of his persistent lies. Curtis’ light touch aids the material as presented, and the rest of the cast does serviceable work, too, but the movie is episodic and tonally erratic—gravely serious one moment, fatuous and semi-ironic the next (there’s even a fourth-wall break for the final gag)—and never tries to work out the protagonist’s compulsion. Henry Mancini’s score is below-par, like cheap tinsel when it’s trying to be merry and flat when aiming for pathos. Liam O’Brien handled the screenplay adaptation.

52/100