Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

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

MartinHafer When I hear about Turhan Bey, I remember the various movies (mostly B-pictures) he appeared in during the 40s and 50s. When I turned on "Stolen Identity" I was rather shocked to see that this actor produced this film. Interesting.The story is about a murder. A very jealous and cold husband, Claude Manelli (Francis Lederer), has reason to be jealous as his wife is cheating on him. So, he murders the guy in some poor sap's cab. The cabbie, Toni (Donald Buka) is in a bind. He could tell the police-- and he even tries once. But he is an illegal alien and doesn't want to be deported. Plus, the dead man in his cab has a passport! On impulse, Toni steals the passport and assumes the dead man's identity. This is a problem...especially when the dead man's lover meets Toni!! What's next?The best thing about the film is the originality of the plot. So much of it is new and unusual. Plus, the film ended very well and was very satisfying to watch. This is a real plus--especially since the film wasn't very expensive to make and has few big stars (Lederer being the biggest star in the cast). Well worth seeing.

blanche-2 "Stolen Identity" was produced by none other than Turhan Bey and filmed in Vienna, his home town. It's loaded with dark atmosphere. The movie stars Francis Lederer, Donald Buka, and Joan Camden. Lederer is Claude Manelli, a well-known concert pianist who is married to Karen. She's miserable. She says she married him after knowing him one week and was happy - for one week.She has planned to leave the country with one Mr. Mortimer. She is to meet him at his hotel.Buka plays Toni Sponer, a man without a passport or a taxi license, who illegally drives a cab. He picks up Mortimer, but when he speaks to him and gets no answer, he realizes the man is dead and bloody. He tries to report the crime, but it's New Year's Eve and there is a lot going on. It finally occurs to him to take the man's identity and get rid of the body. Which he does.When Karen sees that he's not Mortimer, she gets the police. But her husband convinces the police that she's delusional, and Buka is released. But is he? And what is really going on?Very neat noir, well done and well acted by Lederer, one of my favorites, and Buka, a big Broadway actor whom I've seen in many roles but not in leads. Post-war Vienna still looks like pretty much of a mess - I remember being told the roof of St. Stephen's church "burned up like paper" during the war. Still, it was great to see it.Turhan Bey, who lived to be 90, was an actor turned photographer, producer. and back to actor again. I once needed to speak to a casting person who was on the phone - he put his hand over the receiver and said, "It's Turhan Bey. We're talking about Tyrone." After the leading men returned from WW II, Bey knew his time was up and left Hollywood. returning to Vienna circa 1953, only to start a second acting career in 1993 in Hollywood. Interesting man.I thought this was a good film and fun to watch.

filmalamosa 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.

secondtake Stolen Identity (1953)You want to like this movie for a lot of reasons, one of them being the filming location, actual Austria (Vienna), which is announced at the opening credits. Most of it is at night over wet streets, with modernist architecture and signage mixing with that sense of Old Europe that can be enchanting. It also has an actress I really fell for in "The Captive City," filmed the year before, Joan Camden. It's about murder and fugitives from the law and a confusion about who is who (as the title suggests).But it stumbles along, a compromise of many intentions. When it plays as a straight up suspense movie, we are captive, and impressed. But the actual events get muddled a little, the editing seems a bit off (running from abrupt to lingering on a scene too long). And Camden, in her role as the young wife of a concert pianist, hardly appears at all. On top of all this is large cast of secondary characters who are range from a hair awkward to a bit caricatured, all of them speaking in slightly compromised English (some Austrian German and subtitles would have been great, but not acceptable at the time). Director Gunther von Fritsch isn't known in particular for any great accomplishments--he was Austrian, and helped pull together what is an Austrian production in most respects (officially the Austrian Transglobe-Film), but it is infused with American talent and is all in English. von Fritsch was involved as co-director on two interesting (American) films, "This is Cinerama" and "Curse of the Cat People."All that said, the movie is different than the usual film noirs with the same visual feel. The hero is a bit of an ordinary chap, an American (played by Donald Buka) without papers in a foreign city brimming with assorted characters. And he gets a lucky break in his trying to get out of Vienna, but it's loaded with danger and utter mystery.Camden, when she appears further in the movie, is at first a disappointment, having to take on a role that isn't naturally her own until later, when she is more genuine. Hang in there! The pianist is a rugged masculine type, Czech-Hungarian actor Francis Lederer, and he holds up the music scenes as much as the music itself. And it's all filmed nicely. So in all, you don't mind watching even if you wonder where the thrust of the plot goes at times.Expect a fast cascade of interesting scenes, and situations that are really quite tense and dramatic. Many of the scenes are terrific in their use of light, deep shadows, and general photography. But don't expect it to fall together with the verve and elegance it could have had. And it almost became a romance, which would have lifted it considerably.