"Stolen Identity" was produced by none other than Turhan Bey and filmed in Vienna, his home town. It's loaded with dark atmosphere. The movie stars Francis Lederer, Donald Buka, and Joan Camden. Lederer is Claude Manelli, a well-known concert pianist who is married to Karen. She's miserable. She says she married him after knowing him one week and was happy - for one week.
She has planned to leave the country with one Mr. Mortimer. She is to meet him at his hotel.
Buka plays Toni Sponer, a man without a passport or a taxi license, who illegally drives a cab. He picks up Mortimer, but when he speaks to him and gets no answer, he realizes the man is dead and bloody. He tries to report the crime, but it's New Year's Eve and there is a lot going on. It finally occurs to him to take the man's identity and get rid of the body. Which he does.
When Karen sees that he's not Mortimer, she gets the police. But her husband convinces the police that she's delusional, and Buka is released. But is he? And what is really going on?
Very neat noir, well done and well acted by Lederer, one of my favorites, and Buka, a big Broadway actor whom I've seen in many roles but not in leads.
Post-war Vienna still looks like pretty much of a mess - I remember being told the roof of St. Stephen's church "burned up like paper" during the war. Still, it was great to see it.
Turhan Bey, who lived to be 90, was an actor turned photographer, producer. and back to actor again. I once needed to speak to a casting person who was on the phone - he put his hand over the receiver and said, "It's Turhan Bey. We're talking about Tyrone."
After the leading men returned from WW II, Bey knew his time was up and left Hollywood. returning to Vienna circa 1953, only to start a second acting career in 1993 in Hollywood. Interesting man.
I thought this was a good film and fun to watch.
