everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Barry Nelson finds out that two faces are not better than one in this film noir set in Puerto Rico and featuring a chilling climax in the famed Fort El Morro. It's unfortunate, however, that the plot that surrounds the intriguing beginning and riveting conclusion is as iffy as Caribbean weather. Nelson narrates a brief history of the island (including Columbus's landing in 1493, it was already discovered) and his arrival there in 1942. He's married to the pretty Lynn Ainley, but when he returns home one day, he finds his brother-in-law there as well as a look-alike who insists that he is Chick Graham, not an impostor, and the framed Nelson must find his way out of police custody to prove who he really is. He visits an old flame (the sweet Carole Mathews) who agrees to help him, and in the process, finds more intrigue than he ever intended to find in this American territory.While the premise is intriguing, the execution of the plot is another matter, and what goes on for the next hour can at times be downright confusing and more often than not frustrating. Chinita Marin has an excellent small role as the former girlfriend of the impostor who is as confused by the look-alike's presence as the audience is with the plot, and the presence of a nasty doberman doesn't make the love of this sometimes vicious dog any easier. The dog is trained to kill at the will of the impostor, and when the film finally does become interesting, it involves the famous mission where Nelson is being chased in the seemingly never-ending source of tunnels. But there's a twist of course at the end, unfortunately not giving me a real conclusion as to why everything was going on the way it did. Still, it makes good use of the Puerto Rican location shots. Jack Warden and Henry Lascoe have memorable supporting roles. It's just too bad I can't say that about the script.

Barry Nelson plays a double roll in THE MAN WITH MY FACE. "Chick" Graham arrives home after work and steps right into a weird situation. His wife Cora(Lynn Ashley)and brother-in-law Buster(John Harvey)are dumb-founded looking at him as if he was a stranger. When Graham comes face to face with a man that looks just like himself, he knows that his life, as he knows it, is bound to change in a hurry and not in a good way. His life spirals out of control with no boundaries. He struggles to find an explanation, but not before he is implicated in not one...but two murders.This story proves how much confusion and suspense you can fit in 76 minutes. Other players: Jack Warden, Henry Lascoe, Jim Boles and Chinita Martin.

The Man with My Face (1951)Wow, this is built on such a fun and totally ridiculous premise it might be hard to see that really well done aspects to the film. Here it is: a man and wife are bickering a bit. She's a bombshell, he's a nice regular guy. What gives? Well, the man comes home one day to find an exact duplicate has taken his place (played by the same actor, sometimes with split screen done quite well).So, is he crazy? Is this the twilight zone? Who is the double? Oh, and his wife and dog both don't recognize him. I mean, the wife we get, wives in movies are made out to be as unpredictable as husbands. But the dog, now that's huge clue. And the brother-in-law doesn't know him other--or worse, believe the impostor is the real guy.So our hero is in a quite a pickle. Not only is he homeless and disparaged, and eventually even hunted by the law, he doubts his sanity. It seems impossible.The problem is that it is, truly, impossible, and yet the movie plays it all as if it were quite reasonable, if at least daring. And we aren't talking plastic surgery or alien forces here, just go old greed and extraordinary luck. So, swallow it in a gulp and enjoy the dual role played, really well (in a B-movie way) by Barry Nelson. Who's he? Yeah, exactly--he did mostly 1950s television, and some war flicks before that. So here's the one film he snuck in his t.v. career. Some of the rest of the cast is fun in the same B-movie way, though the femme fatale (if the word isn't an exaggeration here) is unconvincing. A quirky fun film. It's not underrated, but it's better than a lot of other overrated genre movies. Once you swallow that pill, that is.

Wildly improbable but seldom less than absorbing, The Man With My Face has the distinction of being the only film noir set in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. That's where Barry Nelson settled down after the war and where he runs a little business with his old army buddy, now his brother-in-law, John Harvey. But one evening he returns home to his cozy bungalow only to find his tough-faced wife (Lynn Ainley) staring at him as if he had suddenly grown a second head. In a sense he has, because there in his living room is his exact double, having drinks and playing cards. And as far as Ainley and Harvey are concerned, this newcomer is the real husband and business partner, respectively. Even his little pooch bites Nelson on the hand.Turned out into the Caribbean warm, Nelson enlists the help of an old girlfriend (Carole Mathews) whom he had thrown over for the blonde if shopworn Ainley. Mathews' protective brother (Jack Warden) stays wary, but soon joins in trying to figure out the puzzle. It doesn't take long, because Nelson's face is on the front page - as a Miami bank robber who got away with half a million. This robber - the double - has been in league with the wife and brother-in-law since long before the marriage. Rounding out the gang is another war veteran, but as a member of K-9 corps - a Doberman trained to kill; his slavering maw turns several hapless victims into bowls of Alpo.Edward Montagne directed, who the year before had made The Tattooed Stranger, a starvation-budget police procedural shot on location - then a rarity - in New York City. Like that strange and seedy movie, The Man With My Face shares a cast that, apart from Nelson, had few credits behind them (or ahead of them); it shows little visual dimension, either, having been shot entirely in flat subtropical sunshine. But the doppelganger theme holds attention, despite the fact that its ironies and perversities are never pursued to real satisfaction. It's pure plot, and far-fetched at that, but in its modest way it works.