"Strange Impersonation" is one of the strangest film noirs I have ever seen. I remember when I first watched it, being sucked into its nightmarish soap opera plot. It's got b-movie written all over that, but like the best of film noirs, it transcends its genre trappings, to give us something with substance, what we have is a film about a woman who faces her psychological fears head on.
"Strange Impersonation" is the story of a career scientist Nora Goodrich (Brenda Marshall). She is on the cusp of creating a new state of the art anaesthetic, something that has consumed her life for quite some time. Nora's work has made her put off her engagement with her fiancee Stephen, (William Gargan) for quite some time. Stephen is madly in love with Nora and will wait for her, but there is a lingering doubt about how long Stephen is willing to wait. Nora's assistant Arline (Hillary Brooke) thinks she's being foolish about not marrying Stephen right away, after all he's successful and can support her.
Things begin to get strange when Nora has a run in with a woman named Jane Karanski, who she almost hits with her car. She isn't harmed, but an ambulance chaser by the name of Rinse sees it and gives Jane his car in case she's interested in a settlement. Nora, returns Jane home safe, and goes home to work on her experiment, but something goes wrong. While Nora sedates herself to test the anaesthetic, an explosion sets off which leaves her scarred.
We find the culprit of the explosion was Arline who wanted to be with Stephen all along, Nora doesn't know this right away, she is recovering from her scars at the hospital. When she is released she meets up again with Jane Karanski who now does want a settlement from her. She pulls a gun, and in a struggle with Nora falls from a balcony, and dies, but is mistaken for Nora. Hopeless to win Stephen back because of her scars, Nora takes the identity of the dead woman and leaves, but that is just the beginning.
What I find interesting about "Strange Impersonation" is the subtext underneath its melodramatic plot. Here we have a career woman in Nora, who you could say is being punished for choosing a career over male companionship. The film was made in 1946, where the most recognizable woman character of that year was probably Myrna Loy as the faithful wife to Fredric March in "The Best Years of Our Lives". Woman were very rarely seen in a work place environment, let alone choosing it over a happy life with a man. Nora becomes a victim, because her fear is losing Stephen, and that fear manifests itself to a world of film noir, where her entire life is turned upside down. Friends betray you, people want to kill you, and in order to escape, you must become someone else, only to discover you can't escape your own past. In the end, Nora's anxieties come to a boil until you can almost not take it anymore, things get so bizarre, until it comes to a logical conclusion as most films of this type do, and we get our happy ending.
The film looks to have been made on a shoestring budget, it looks cheap, and dirty, full of actors most people haven't even heard of. It clocks in at only 68 minutes which makes it lean and quick moving, it was probably made to be the shown at the bottom of a double bill. What probably saves this film from the obscurity it would've found are the people who made it. It was directed by Anthony Mann, who made some of the greatest and most violent film noirs, and later made many memorable westerns mostly starring Jimmy Stewart in the 50s. Mann creates a suffocating world in "Strange Impersonation", it becomes more claustrophobic for Nora and the audience as it goes along. Mann was also a great director of violence that shocks you, the reveal of Nora's disfigured face is truly frightening, and the way Nora is treated up to her recovery is almost a full violation of her identity.
The film was also produced by a very interesting company: Republic Pictures, which was mostly known for b-movies, but in my opinion showed a little artistic side on more than one occasion. Republic has been the home to Orson Welles and John Ford, and helped produce some of their most personal films.
"Strange Impersonation" is one of those films that seems to have gotten through the cracks of film history, it remains there for us to admire. It's a film that is a nightmare, it's paranoia surrounds every frame and doesn't let go until the finale which serves as a relief. Still I'm fascinated that a film such as this was made at the time it was, it shows they had courage back then to do something completely unique and deal with subject matter that today still wouldn't even be considered mainstream, but that's the beauty of film noir.
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