Product Details

• Actors: Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster, Margot Grahame, Wallace Ford
• Directors: John Ford
• Writers: Dudley Nichols, Liam O'Flaherty
• Producers: John Ford, Cliff Reid
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Turner Home Ent
• VHS Release Date: March 7, 2000
• Run Time: 91 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303360025
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,431 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

Four years before he revived and elevated the Western in Stagecoach, director John Ford guided this atmospheric melodrama to multiple Academy Awards, proving that his underlying skills as a storyteller, visual designer, and dramatic guide didn't need epic scale, sweeping action, or favorite star John Wayne to achieve dramatic impact. Based on Liam O'Flaherty's novel set during the Sinn Fein rebellion in 1922, Dudley Nichols's script offers an intimate portrait of Gypo Nolan, a violent, alcoholic Dubliner who betrays a friend (Wallace Ford) for £20, setting in motion a downward spiral of fear, anger, and drunken oblivion.

The Imposter captures Ford and filmmaking at an evolutionary balance point between the purer visual storytelling of silent film and the emerging literary possibilities of sound: on the one hand, Ford paints a nocturnal Dublin of deep shadows and billowing fog in which his characters are placed in pointed tableaux, and project their actions and attitudes with stylized, theatrical gestures that seem naive alongside later, more naturalistic films; on the other, the director pushes his star, Victor McLaglen, past traditional stagecraft toward a truly harrowing, authentic performance. Pauline Kael has noted the Hollywood legend that Ford induced McLaglen's Oscar-winning turn by keeping him too drunk to embellish his work. Whatever the cause, the actor achieves a lumbering, out-of-control power that traces the rage, confusion, and ultimate despair that Nolan's descent describes. That gripping performance is the film's most modern aspect and riveting dramatic hook and more than justifies watching. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreaking and haunting with brilliant acting, November 4, 1999

By A Customer

This movie tears your heart out. Only Victor McLaglen could play a brute with such child-like vulnerability. Your heart goes out to him even though his actions are those of a traitor. There isn't one weak scene in this whole movie and several scenes rank with the cinema's finest.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BETRAYAL IN IRELAND, August 22, 2001

By	"scotsladdie" (GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Liam O'Flaherty's 1925 novel is a masterful psychological study of Gypo Nolan, a dull-witted, impovershed Dubliner who, in the middle of the 1922 Sinn Fein Rebellion, turns stool pigeon during one event-filled night, revealing to police the whereabouts of Frankie McPhillip, a trusting friend and revolutionary who's wanted for murder. Gypo receives a reward of twenty pounds, while Franke is is tracked down by the authorities...........THE INFORMER had already been filmed by the British in 1929 and RKO reluctantly agreed to let Ford remake it with his assurance that it would be a low-budget movie. It was made for slightly over $200,000. This is impassioned Irish melodrama, performed with all the stops out. Beautifully photographed in the mists and dark streets of the studio-built Dublin sets, Joseph H. August's photography coats the film with a striking overlay of distorted realism. The most celebrated image of the film is that of its hulking, blustering central figure, as broadly played by oafish Victor McLaglen in his Oscar winning role of Gypo Nolan. McLaglen's Nolan emerges as a cowardly, despicable brute and boozing liar, capable of any deceit to satisfy a whim or save his neck. McLaglen's interpretation of Gypo is astounding; he seemingly sunk in the sodden body and mind and soul of Gypo Nolan, a creature of the slums pushed on his fumbling way by only the most primitive instincts. Yet, without ever noticeably playing for sympathy, he manages to present a figure that is somehow pitiable. J.M. Kerrigan is terrific, not only because he has the only richly authentic brogue in the whole picture, but because of his portrait of a grasping Irish toady that, for sheer brilliance, surpasses even McLaglen's performance. Ford won his first of four AA for his expert direction. As a footnote, both Ford and McLaglen were said to drink before some of the more emotional scenes. Ford spent some 5 years trying to get this film made (studio heads found the subject matter too dark). The screenplay was written in six days. It wasn't a successful film until the end of the year, when critics named it one of 1935's ten best films; thereafter, audiences flocked to see it, making it a box-office smash.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful performance of a man who sells out a friend, March 23, 2006

By	Bomojaz (South Central PA, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Victor McLaglen, one-time Heavyweight Champion of Great Britain, won an Oscar for his portrayal of Gypo Nolan, a drunken lug of an Irishman during the Dublin uprisings in 1922, who rats out his best friend for a 20-pound reward. McLaglen is perfect in this role; director John Ford, who also won an Oscar, was not looking for subtlety from McLaglen and didn't get an ounce of it: he takes the camera on as if it was one of his old boxing opponents. Perhaps there was no more powerful a dumb-brute screen performance until Brando's Stanley Kowalski. Legend has it that Ford kept McLaglen soused for most of the picture (it was made in only 17 days), and it looks like it might be true. The photography is stunning and captures perfectly the "as wet as drip" look of Dublin. Max Steiner's musical score is also very moving. Definitely worth a watch.