The Great Impersonation (1935 film)

The Great Impersonation is a 1935 American drama film directed by Alan Crosland and starring Edmund Lowe, Valerie Hobson and Wera Engels. It was adapted from the 1920 novel The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim. It was made by Universal Pictures with some aesthetic similarities to the Universal Horror films of the 1930s.[1] Two other film versions of the story were made with the same title in 1921 and 1942 respectively.

The Great Impersonation
Directed byAlan Crosland
Written byEve Greene
Frank Wead
Based onThe Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim
Produced byEdmund Grainger
StarringEdmund Lowe
Valerie Hobson
Wera Engels
Murray Kinnell
CinematographyMilton R. Krasner
Edited byPhilip Cahn
Music byHeinz Roemheld
Clifford Vaughan
Production
company
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • December 9, 1935 (1935-12-09)
Running time
68 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Before the First World War, Sir Everard Dominey, a drunken upper-class Englishman, encounters an old acquaintance the sinister German arms dealer Baron Leopold von Ragostein in Africa. The two men are identical, and von Ragostein plans to kill his doppelganger and take his place in British high society where he will be able to further his arms business and spy on Britain for the German Empire. He arranges the murder with his various associates.

When "Dominey" returns to London shortly afterwards, he encounters the German aristocrat Stephanie Elderstrom who is certain she recognises him as her former lover, von Ragostein. von Ragostein's associates attempt to buy her off but she remains convinced something untoward is going on. When he reaches Donimey Hall, Dominey's wife is equally certain that it is her genuine husband returning from Africa at long-last. Gradually, doubts begin to emerge whether it is the real Dominey who has come home.

Cast

References
  1. Weaver p.148-153

Bibliography
  • Weaver, Tom & Brunas, Michael & Brunas, John. Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931-1946. McFarland & Company, 2007.
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