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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Great Imposter: When Being Yourself Is Not Enough, July 22, 2002
This review is from: The Great Impostor [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Nearly everyone has at one time or another wished to be other than who they are. The reaching out to be more than one is has often formed the staple of Hollywood. The result is humorous more often than not. In THE GREAT IMPOSTER, director Robert Mulligan provides a darkly comical aspect of a subject that, in this film at least, is only a hairsbreath away from tragedy. Tony Curtis plays Ferdinand Waldo Demarra, a young man who from early childhood cannot make his own mark on the world and determines to make a series of marks by stealing the identities of more qualified others. In a series of vignettes whose only link is to show that Demarra's quest for recognition by using the names of others whom he deems as more worthy than himself is each time an exercise in futility. It does not matter whether he impersonates a physician, a warden, or even a police officer. In each case, he performs flawlessly to such an extent that he is the victim of his own celebrity and talent. When he is exposed, he moves on, shedding his previous identity before assuming a new one. The irony is that Demarra refuses to believe the sincerity of the accolades that he truly earns. The more his peers praise him, the more he cannot accept that praise at face value. Nowhere in the film does he provide a meaningful rationale for his futile gropings for self-esteem. His deficient ego is simply there, daring both himself and the audience to wonder what drives on a man who has such limitless talent at improvisation but such limited belief in his own identity as Demarra. By the movie's end, he has gone full circle. He has learned nothing about what fuels his desire to be someone else, and when the audience sees that he has been hired to catch himself, the humor of this irony covers a mystery that may never be revealed.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A neglected minor gem!, December 24, 2000
This review is from: The Great Impostor [VHS] (VHS Tape)
You will rarely see this film mentioned in books on cinema history, or on lists of "top video faves", but it is a highly enjoyable minor gem which provides an excellent role for the young Tony Curtis. It is the (mostly) true story of Ferdinand Demara Jr., and his amazing career of successfully posing as a U.S. Army officer, a Navy dental surgeon, a prison warden, and several other things which he was not. Solid support is provided by several fine character actors (Edmund O'Brien, Arthur O'Connell, Larry Gates, Raymond Massey, Karl Malden). Slightly overlong, but well worth seeing. The final shot is very funny.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stranger than life fiction turns out to be true!, January 11, 1999
This review is from: The Great Impostor [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Adapted from the novel by Robert Crichton, Tony Curtis portrays the depression era character, Fred Demara. Shortly after graduating from high school Demara flees the poverty stricken streets of Lawrence, Massachusetts and embarks on a thirty five year journey that would not be believable but for the fact that it's true. At the time this film was shot (1960), Curtis was the number one box office attraction in the country. A must see for the historical as well as the entertainment value.
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