Identity Unknown

This film was surprisingly good as evidenced by the other user comments shown here.I know how frustrating it is to know you know someone's name but cannot bring it readily out of the brain archive into the live active part.Some time ago I could not think of the name of that great Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, even though I knew of his identity so that I used a mnemonic trick to always remember his name in case I needed to quote him at my art class.

The script was intelligent highlighting the unmentionable things soldiers have to witness in wartime.As the WW1 song lyric goes, "...they'll never believe us , they'll never believe us".Richard Arlen who played Johnny March gave a sensitive performance as the amnesiac soldier and no, I won't provide a spoiler how it resolves in the end.He meets all of the relatives of the dead U.S. soldiers his commanding officer advised he served with in the hope of establishing his true identity.I was glad to see this on Youtube for the first time especially as I was born in 1946 about the time this film was made when some great WW11 post war stories were being produced.7/10.

Right after WW2, Johnny finds himself on a hospital ship heading for home. There is only one problem; he doesn't remember who he is or where he comes from.

He was injured when defending a house completely surrounded by German troops together with three fellow soldiers, As the house was bombed the others perished whilst Johnny was wounded and in the process lost his memory.

Back in the states he goes awol, seeking out the families of the four men trapped in that house.

An OK 40's movie, but it does have some slight problems with logic in the script. The army doesn't know which of the four men survived, yet the families he visits all seem to know that their husband/father/son/brother has been killed; The army told them.

A man who gave all and lost everything :when you return from WW2 and you suffer from amnesia ,what does life lay in store for you?

There are four possible identities, thus the movie is roughly divided into four parts; the film does not pass over in silence the sufferings the amnesiac soldier leaves in his wake: the scene in the restaurant where friends seem to recognize Sally 's husband , the little boy (young Bobby Driscoll ,a child actor who was also featured in the excellent 'the Sullivans") who needs a father so bad ....the fourth part restores balance:The soldier ,who delivers a superb speech , comes to the rescue of the old couple about to sell their house because dad cannot stand the place where his dead son used to live (a deeply moving performance by Sarah Padden as the mother who would like to keep memories of this house so much).

In my book ,the third part in Chicago is less gripping and there's a slight sag in the tension and emotion in "Johnny March's" search ; but by the segment in the Anderson 's house, it's back for good. And the denouement is not what one expects : besides ,considering Johnny's childhood, it's thoroughly plausible.

The following year ,Joseph Mankiewicz would do "somewhere in the night" with an amnesiac in search of his past ;the budget was bigger ,but it was a film noir whereas "identity unknown" is a simple drama.

I enjoyed this film quite a bit. There were really some poignant moments as a GI suffering from amnesia goes AWOL to figure out who he is. He has a list with four names on it and it appears that he is actually one of the names on that list. As he visits several homes traumatized by war it soon becomes apparent that the odyssey isn't just about him but about everyone suffering from the deaths of their loved ones in the military.

Richard Arlen isn't the greatest actor ever but his downbeat style works almost perfectly here. He plays a really decent man who is confused and a bit dazed. Some of the incidents could have used a tiny bit more craft to fulfill their potential. The part where a young boy thinks his dead father has come home could have been real dramatic dynamite. That sequence is realized OK but not great here. Otherwise, this is a good film that held my interest all the way. The ending was a tad anti-climatic but not terrible. Good little film here about the sometimes hidden devastation of war and the healing that hopefully occurs later.

Recently a funeral procession passed my house. It was for a young man killed in Afghanistan. He had a young child that I don't believe he ever saw. It was a very solemn moment.

An odd amnesia story: in France, a barn is bombed containing four American soldiers. Only one survives but without a memory. In order to reconnect with his earlier life and identity, he decides to visit the closest of kin to all these four casualties, hoping that he might be recognised somewhere. He ticks them off one by one and finally reaches the conclusion that he was none of them. Here is the mystery.

But in each of the four places he visits he unconsciously performs some miracle, saving the parents of one of the four soldiers from selling their home, forming an intimate relationship with the son of one of the others, saving the position and future of the brother of one of the others, and consoling the widow of the fourth. But there is more to it than that.

Like most amnesia stories, it's a fascinating mental journey of discovery into the unknown, and like so often in such cases the final rise of the curtain is a stage-opening to an astounding surprise. The conclusion is as welcome as it is totally unexpected.