Stolen Identity (1953)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Such a frustrating disappointment

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

****SPOILERS*** Long forgotten-if ever remembered-little film noir that takes place in post war Vienna about this American Toni Sponer, Donald Buka, on the lamb for crimes that's never really explained. It's Toni who borrows his friend Heinth's, Manfred Inger, taxi so he can make a few dollars or marks to pay his expenses since he doesn't have the proper work papers to drive it. As it turns out his first costumer businessman Jack Mortimer is shot dead from behind while in his cab. With a dead man on his hands or in his taxi an no passport or work papers on him Toni takes on the dead mans identity as well as passport and working papers thinking that will get him out of the country and back into the USA.As things turned out for Toni he gets in far more trouble that he could have ever dreamed of. That in that Mortimer was planning to elope with famed pianist's Claude Manelli's ,Francis Lederer, wife Karen, Joan Camden,who at the local police station, in seeing Mortermar's dead body, realized that Toni was impersonating him. Claude who also realized that fact was now determined that Toni leave the country, as the dead Jack Mortimer, to cover up his murder of him. At first playing along with Claude Toni falls in love with his wife Karen which makes Claude go completely bananas and in the end expose himself as the person behind Jack Mortimer's murder! ****SPOILERS*** At first cool as a cucumber Claude realizing that he's in too deep blows his plan to get away with Mortimer's murder when it's discovered in Mortimer's-whom Claude claimed he never knew-suitcase has a photo of Claude together with Karen as well as Mortimer, as the best man, at their wedding! Which has Claude, who's by then a mental case, make a brake for it only to get caught by the police as he tries to get on a plane, that already taken off, to escape capture! As for Toni all is forgiven by the police in what his previous past was, that again is never explained, and given a free pass or plane ride back to the states with his now fiancé Karen at his side.

A suspense B&W film from 1953 filmed in Vienna. A taxi driver (Donald Buka)working without papers (a common problem at the time as the Soviets wanted to repatriate all eastern Europeans who had fled to Austria) gives a ride to a man who is murdered in the cab. Buka takes his papers and disposes of the body.There is some good suspense and some good red herrings. The wife (Joan Camden) of a jealous pianist entwines in the plot. She is trying to escape from her husband (Francis Lederer). The man killed in the above mentioned taxi was her ticket to freedom--it was her husband who murdered him.There are a lot of close calls that are fun. However, I wished for a different ending---but Hollywood must have had a hand in this---bad things aren't allowed to go unpunished.As another reviewer stated...somewhat wooden but kind of neat as it was indeed filmed in Vienna and has local actors and scenery.Entertaining. 4 or 5 stars.

For one thing, he produced this movie. It has the feel of later movies with international casts that are dubbed. The opening credits tell us it was filmed in Vienna.Bey was a delight in the Universal adventure movies of the 1940s. He was also superb in a movie I saw maybe ten years ago but have never heard of since: "The Amazing Mr. X." Maybe it was Dr. X. I remember it as a thrilling and frightening movie.This one is pretty wooden, unfortunately. The plot isn't easy to follow. When I got the hang of it, I was disappointed anyway.Francis Lederer looks great as a concert pianist. He was a very handsome leading man ten or 15 years earlier. He never really caught on as a major star, though he should have.This isn't terrible but it's pretty heavy going.

There's a "Third Man" look to the shadowy B&W photography of STOLEN IDENTITY, a thriller produced by Turhan Bey, ex-star of Universal pictures during the '40s. It's an expertly filmed tale of jealousy that leads to murder when a famous pianist (FRANCIS LEDERER) becomes overly possessive of his wife (JOAN CAMDEN) and is soon intent on carrying out a scheme to murder a man she's having an affair with.A taxi-driver (DONALD BUKA) happens to be giving the woman's lover a lift to the hotel when he steps outside a moment to chat with a worker digging up the street. Lederer uses the sound of the drill to muffle the sound of the bullet he puts in the head of the passenger from outside the back of the car. When Buka returns to his cab, he finds a dead man in the passenger seat.Enroute to report the murder to the police, he changes his mind and decides to switch identities with the dead man who has an American passport which means Buka could realize his ambition to return to the United States. The stolen identity plot becomes thicker when the man's girlfriend (Lederer's wife) shows up at the hotel to accuse Buka of impersonating the dead man.It's the sort of plot movie-goers have probably seen countless times, but it gets a nice workout here, with plenty of tense scenes as Buka and Lederer's wife plan how to run from the authorities until a final confrontation with the murderer and the police.It's extremely absorbing, well done and holds the interest throughout with some excellent atmospheric photography of Vienna that will remind most movie-goers of "The Third Man".Well worth viewing.