The Man Who Lost Himself

Just sometime back saw another - and this one is almost a remake of that (though the story credit-wise these are different). All these are different variants of Prisoner of Zenda etc - where a Hero replaces his look-alike dissolute and gets the fiancee/ wife fall in love with him.

It was The Masquerader (1933) as most of the reviewers are equating it to Dave - the Dave is very highly influenced by - not this but the Masquerader - there too the delinquent person was an ex-great Political leader. Comparing the casts, naturally Ahrne and Colman, both are great, and fitted the role almost perfectly, may be Colman got a slight edge. But on female lead, the estranged wife Kay balanced the edge against Elissa Landi.

But there the comparion ends - Sakall as teh confidante doesn't come anywhere in portraying what Hobbes did in masquerader.

And compared to that story - or should I say execution ? Well, this was atrocious. TM's basic advantage was the believable meeting as well as twin-image - the good man was first cousin of the bad-politician, estranged for long (the aunt, probably after an undesirable marriage, not clarified, had skipped the country). Hobebs however could guess it soon, and that was one of the reason for him to encourage the masquerade, and also keep the, now again in love, wife away from the husband. here somehow it looked too concocted act. Only saving grace, for me, were the two leads, both of whom are in my 'like' group. But after all, they can't give too much of a push, can they ?