
STRANGE IMPERSONATION (1946, d. Anthony Mann)
Nora Goodrich (Brenda Marshall, reminding me a lot of Barbara Stanwyck), an ambitious research chemist on the brink of discovering a powerful new anesthesia, is in a rush to get home to test the drug out on herself when her car grazes a drunken hard-luck gal named Jane Karaski (Ruth Ford). Nora gives Jane a ride back to her shabby, fleabag apartment, puts her to bed, and gives her $25. When Nora arrives back at her own home, her fiance Stephen Lindstrom (a rather bland, stolid William Gargan) is there, pressuring her (as usual, it seems) to forget about her research, marry him, and "settle down." Nora is highly conflicted about her relationship with Stephen -- she loves him, but she really wants to have a successful career with this new drug that she's developing and feels a little guilty about not wanting to marry the guy like he wants to. Stephen leaves and Nora's secretary and best friend Arline Cole (Hilary Brooke, who is great in this movie) shows up to help Nora with the experiment and record her vital signs while she's asleep. Nora gives Arline the instructions, administers the drug to herself, and stretches out on the couch to drift off into a narcotic slumber.
Once Nora has been knocked out by the anesthesia, her treacherous secretary Arline springs into action, causing an "accidental" chemical explosion that burns Nora. Badly scarred by the fire, Nora spends weeks in the hospital trying to recover, time that Arline uses to sabotage Nora's relationship with Stephen; when Nora is released from the hospital, she calls off the engagement with Steven and considers quitting her job. It is at this point that Jane shows up again --- she wants more money from Nora for the traffic accident, but then decides to rob her instead. In a struggle for the gun, Jane is killed --- Jane's features have been obliterated and her corpse is found with Nora's wallet and jewelry, so everyone assumes that it was Nora who was killed. Nora, horrified at her role in Jane's death and depressed about her terrible facial injuries and her broken love life, decides to assume Jane's identity. She flees to California for reconstructive surgery on her face, but gives the plastic surgeon photographs of Jane to use as a reference rather than pictures of herself.

While recovering in the hospital from these operations, she learns that her secretary Arline and Stephen are now married to each other, so she flies back to New York City, gets a job in the same lab with Stephen in the guise of an old friend of Nora's named Jane Karaski, and basically gets all weirdly stalk-y with the double-crossing Arline. I guess ultimately she is trying to win Stephen back away from Arline... or maybe she wants to find out for herself why Arline ruined her life... or something... but it is some sick behavior, whatever it is she's trying to do. She finally confronts Arline and seduces Stephen, and they plan to move to France. Nora/Jane's plan backfires, though, when she is arrested for the murder of Jane/Nora. Nora tries desperately to convince the police of what really happened, but no one will believe that she is really Nora and not a dangerous SINGLE WHITE FEMALE-style psychotic Jane.

The way that this is all resolved in the end will definitely disappoint you. Unfortunately, I saw it coming from a long, long way off (making me wonder if I had seen it before?), so that prevented me from getting caught up in it. I wish I had, though, because it is a pretty crazy story about hidden motives, jealousy, disfigurement, bitterness, revenge, and deeply disturbed loss of identity. Without giving too much away, let me say that the decision that Nora comes to at the end of the picture is meant to be a typical Hollywood happy ending, but looking back on all that has happened and knowing how she really feels about the people she is closest to in her life, this final message about what happens to strong, independent women in the US postwar era is a seriously warped one.
