The Man Who Lost Himself

John Evans (Brian Aherne) is shocked to meet his exact double, the rich man Malcolm Scott (also Aherne). However, after Scott is killed, everyone thinks Evans is this rich guy...including Scott's wife (Kay Francis). However, John likes the wife and after a while realizes it might not be so bad to BE Malcolm. But can he manage to right the screwed up life that Malcolm left him? And, just how much of a bad guy was Malcolm and what sort of dirty work was he doing??

If this sounds a lot like the 1993 film "Dave", well then you, too, see pretty much what the movie is like. This isn't to say that "Dave" is a copy or remake...more a reworking. And, as such both are much more than comedies and have a lot of nice romantic elements.

It's rather interesting that the film co-stars Kay Francis, as this once HUGE Hollywood star's career was in decline...yet she was given such a dandy script. Overall, it's a lovely film...one of Aherne's and Francis' best....with excellent acting, direction and more.Pretty much the film "Dave".

This 1941 Universal comedy pairs two attractive stars in a not-so-screwball comedy that tries hard but has some problems. Aherne plays two look-alike men who switch places after drinking in a bar. When he wakes up the next morning he finds he mistaken for a millionaire married to Kay Francis. As he tries to convince people he's not the rich guy, he discovers the millionaire was just out of a nut house and had a shady history of embezzlement, adultery, and forgery. But the more he insists he's not the millionaire, the more everyone is convinced he's still nutty.

So-so but complete copy includes scenes listed as missing in other reviews, but probably don't really help much. The plot is just too far-fetched ends up repeating itself. Aherne and Francis are good together but the script and director (and maybe the editor) deflate the soufflé.

Co-stars include S.Z. Sakall, Nils Asther, Henry Stephenson, Dorothy Tree, Janet Beecher, Henry Kolker, Sarah Padden, Sig Ruman, and Marc Lawrence as a gangster named DeSoto. Billy Benedict has a nice bit as the messenger boy in the elevator. Silent star Charles Ray is supposedly in the cast in an unnamed part.

Just sometime back saw another - and this one is almost a remake of that (though the story credit-wise these are different). All these are different variants of Prisoner of Zenda etc - where a Hero replaces his look-alike dissolute and gets the fiancee/ wife fall in love with him.

It was The Masquerader (1933) as most of the reviewers are equating it to Dave - the Dave is very highly influenced by - not this but the Masquerader - there too the delinquent person was an ex-great Political leader. Comparing the casts, naturally Ahrne and Colman, both are great, and fitted the role almost perfectly, may be Colman got a slight edge. But on female lead, the estranged wife Kay balanced the edge against Elissa Landi.

But there the comparion ends - Sakall as teh confidante doesn't come anywhere in portraying what Hobbes did in masquerader.

And compared to that story - or should I say execution ? Well, this was atrocious. TM's basic advantage was the believable meeting as well as twin-image - the good man was first cousin of the bad-politician, estranged for long (the aunt, probably after an undesirable marriage, not clarified, had skipped the country). Hobebs however could guess it soon, and that was one of the reason for him to encourage the masquerade, and also keep the, now again in love, wife away from the husband. here somehow it looked too concocted act. Only saving grace, for me, were the two leads, both of whom are in my 'like' group. But after all, they can't give too much of a push, can they ?

Brian Aherne has come from Puerto Rico for an important deal. But his partner has betrayed him and he's stuck. He decides to drink a lot. Semi-sozzled, he meets himself. That is, he meets his exact double, who has been spending time in the loony bin. They get further drunk, the second Aherne sends the first back to his house, and quickly dies in a traffic accident. But the people in the house think he's the second Brian Aherne, a wealthy man who owns a department store, and that the dead man is the first Aherne. As he wanders befuddled through this new life, he learns about his estranged wife, Kay Francis, his mistress, Dorothy Tree, and the man who has been stealing money from his department store and now wishes to buy it, Henry Kolker.

It's one of those pixilated comedies in which everything, we expect, will eventually turn out very well for Aherne, not for anything he does, but because the situation demands it. Aherne tries his best, but he never seems to be involved with what's going on -- and why should he? It's not his life -- and director Edward Ludwig seems more interested in making things come out right in 72 minutes than any subtlety in performance or possible subtext, beyond the fact that the rich seem more interested in money than anything else. Still, there's S. Z. Sakall, Henry Stephenson, Sig Ruman, Marc Lawrence, and other old pros who take their time on the screen to make us smile.

The beginning of The Man Who Lost Himself is hilarious: Brian Aherne meets his lookalike in a bar and the two Brians share a drink. One of the Brians has just been double-crossed by his work partner, and the other has just escaped from a mental asylum. The next morning, one of the Brians wakes up in a mansion, waited on hand and foot by a valet, S.Z. Sakall, being called the other Brian's name. The morning papers reveal the other Brian (the millionaire) was killed the night before, jumping in front of a subway train, pretending to the pauper. If the real pauper (the one who woke up in the mansion) reveals the mix-up, he'll be accused of murder. But if he stays put, he'll have to impersonate the other Brian with his wife, Kay Francis, his girlfriend, Dorothy Tree, and his friends.

Are you confused yet? Good, because I was enormously confused. The opening scene with Brian playing a drinking game with himself is very funny, but as soon as they swapped, I remained confused until the end. I never did figure out all the twists and turns, but since this is a silly comedy, I suppose it doesn't really matter. I loved Cuddles Sakall, who provided adorable quips every time he opened his mouth. If you liked the madcap Merrily We Live, you'll probably like to see Brian using his comic talents again in this one. And who wouldn't want two Brian Ahernes to look at?