The Magnificent Fraud

When the dictator of a South American country is shot and killed on the eve of Americans coming to make a ten million dollar loan, his aides, including Lloyd Nolan, hire actor Akim Tamiroff to play the dead man until the money is in their hands. Tamiroff is being pursued by a Surete officer for murder. Beautiful Patricia Morrison complicates Nolan's attitudes, as Mary Boland does Tamiroff's.

It's a cute story that has been done many times since Charles Booth wrote the original of this, and Tamiroff has a wonderful time in a rare title role. It's directed by Robert Florey with all the programmer trappings that Paramount put into its routine productions, but Nolan, as the central character, gives a performance in a role that he clearly decided didn't suit him, especially as he was leaving Paramount anyway. He looks positively oily in the early scenes. Ralph Forbes is perfectly cast as the stuffy American who comes south to give away money, and Steffi Duna gets to dance up a storm.

In 1914 E. Philips Openheim wrote a classic spy thriller (a timely one too) about evil agents of Wilhelmine Germany plotting to place a mole in English high society. The plot begins in Africa, where a German aristocrat (and spy) named Leopold Von Ragenstein is on safari, and meets an worn out, drunken English aristocrat named Sir Everard Dominey. Dominey has very high connections in society to social and political leaders in England, and has access through them to major military and diplomatic secrets. Von Ragenstein notices that he and Dominey look very similar in appearance. The German decides to invite the Englishman on the safari, and kill him safely away from notice in the jungle, and then take over the Englishman's identity and use it to feed plenty of information to the Germans. The novel follows the return of Sir Everard, and the issue which perplexes everyone (English and German) is who has returned: Sir Everard or Baron Leopold.

The Oppenheim novel was made into a film starring Ralph Bellamy. It is not the first novel about twins changing places (Mark Twain's THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER dealt with the same situation), nor the first showing how politics might be affected. Is such a situation possible? Probably not. Somewhere along the line the impostor would make a major error (forgetting some critical fact the real person knows, or acting somewhat oddly).

This film takes the idea of Oppenheim's novel (and of Twain's earlier novel, for that matter), and puts it into a political switch. Instead of an important aristocrat replaced by a spy, it is an actor who replaces a great statesman to complete that statesman's policy.

Akim Tamiroff plays actor Jules Lacroix who is performing before President Alvarado of a Latin American country (also Tamiroff). Alvarado has been giving an honest government to the country, and has made a treaty he is negotiating a keystone to his policy. But he has made many enemies, and is fatally injured during the performance by a bomb. Before he dies he talks to the show's impresario, a friend of his named Sam Barr (Lloyd Nolan). Alvarado notices how much Lacroix looks like him. He begs Barr and Lacroix to have the latter replace him so to complete the negotiations as Alvarado. They agree.

So word is spread that it was Lacroix who was killed, and the President was wounded. There are a few problems. Robert Warwick plays General Hernandez. He and Frank Reicher (Mandietta Garcia) have been two of the leading figures of the administration, but neither really were favoring Alvarado's reforms. They are playing along "for awhile", but expect that Lacroix will announce that he is too ill to continue in office and will advise that Warwick get the Presidency. They are nervous that if word of the actual death of Alvarado comes out the public will want the Presidency to be given to Dr. Luis Virgo (George Zucco, curiously enough) who has worked closely with Alvarado on the reforms.

So the situation has the nervous Tamiroff being steadied by Lloyd Nolan, as he navigates between his ego (he loves this - the part of a lifetime), his fears (he knows he is a target of assassins), his sense of duty (he comes to loath the selfish Warwick and Reicher), and his desires (he finds an old flame - Mary Boland - who knows it's Jules and not the President who is alive). Nolan too has to fight the revolutionaries and hold off Warwick and Reicher.

If the story is far fetched, it is also well told and acted. It's conclusion may seem a little melodramatic, but the last moments on screen between Boland and Tamiroff are actually quite moving. I would give the film a "7" out of "10".

Despite what we think to the contrary, silent-film actor Lon Chaney was not widely known as 'The Man of a Thousand Faces' during his lifetime. In fact, I can think of only one Chaney film (an obscure one: 'The Trap') which used the 'Thousand Faces' tagline in its advertising. When Paramount released 'The Magnificent Fraud' in 1939, less than a decade after Chaney's death, the posters for this film hailed its star Akim Tamiroff as 'The Man of a Thousand Faces' ... a decision which strongly indicates that audiences in 1939 weren't expected to link that slogan to Lon Chaney.

For all his talents and broad acting range (hampered by his thick Russian accent), Tamiroff was not an especially protean actor, so it's surprising to see him touted as a Chaney-like master of disguise. However, in 'The Magnificent Fraud', Tamiroff is cast as Jules LaCroix, a stage actor whom (we are told) is indeed in Chaney's league. Within the dialogue of this movie, LaCroix is hailed as 'the man of a thousand faces' ... which, again, indicates that audiences were not expected to connect that tagline to Lon Chaney.

Don Miguel Alvarado is the president of a politically unstable South American nation, in the process of negotiating an important business deal with United States interests. At a crucial moment, a bomb-throwing assassin kills Alvarado ... but visiting Yankee Sam Barr manages to keep the assassination hushed up. It's vital that the negotiations continue. If Alvarado's death becomes known, the government will be overthrown by revolutionaries.

Barr persuades LeCroix to impersonate Alvarado until the deal goes through. Since LeCroix (beardless) and Alvarado (heavily bearded) are both played by Akim Tamiroff, it's no surprise that LeCroix is able to impersonate Alvarado perfectly!

In the early scenes as the actual Alvarado, Tamiroff's attempts at a Latin American accent are less than persuasive. In his later scenes, as LeCroix impersonating Alvarado, Tamiroff has precisely the same accent. It would have been more interesting if the false Alvarado's voice had been almost but not quite the same as the real one's, to heighten suspense by showing us that LeCroix's disguise was less than perfect.

Matters are not helped by the fact that the basic premise of this film is recycled from another Paramount film made only five years earlier: '30-Day Princess'. In both films, an American actor is persuaded to impersonate a foreign dignitary until an important deal goes through. 'Magnificent Fraud' takes that premise in rather a different direction from the earlier film, but with inferior results.

There are some good supporting performances here, although I disliked the romantic subplot involving Lloyd Nolan and Patricia Morison. I can tolerate Mary Boland in small doses, but her presence in the same movie with Maude Eburne (whom I loathe and despise) makes for at least one yenta too many. Barbara Pepper is good in a small role. Robert Warwick's stage-trained voice is impressive, but he is miscast as a Latin American. Robert Florey's direction is excellent, but let down by William Mellor's photography.

For all of its flaws, 'The Magnificent Fraud' is vastly superior to its 1988 remake 'Moon Over Parador', which tried to put its protagonist (Richard Dreyfuss) into suspenseful situations ... but framed those situations with a flashback structure which tipped us off that Dreyfuss would survive at the end. I'll rate 'Magnificent Fraud' 5 out of 10 ... but there was only one true Man of a Thousand Faces, and his name was Lon Chaney.

"The Magnificent Fraud" was remade decades later as "Moon Over Parador" and both films are pleasant little diversions worth your time. "Moon" is a more comical version of the story and is told from the viewpoint of the actor.

Lloyd Nolan plays Sam Barr, a con man who is living in a crummy Latin American dictatorship. When the local dictator is assassinated, Barr comes up with a plan to have an actor pretend to be El Presidente in order to cheat the American ambassador as well as the people of this nation. Can the actor (Akim Tamiroff) pull it off? And, can Barr manage to do this and still maintain his cynical outlook on life? And what about the actor...what will he do now that he's the boss?

Akim Tamiroff gets a rare chance to play a leading role in a film, as usually he played more supporting roles. Here, he actually gets to play the dictator as well as the actor...and he was most enjoyable in both parts.

Overall, this is a modestly enjoyable film....one worth your time but not a comedy like the later film. If you remember this, you should enjoy it much more.

The setting is a South American country where a guy from Chicago (Nolan) hangs out with the President of the country (Tamiroff).

When the leader dies, in order to keep his enemies from taking over, Nolan devises a plan.

He approaches a performer (Tamiroff) well known for impersonations and asks him to step in as President- for one thing, there is a $10 million loan that he needs to sign off on.

The actor has plenty of incentive to say yes. He has been on the run, and the detective chasing him has finally caught up with him and plans to take him back to face the music.

Nolan offers money and a new name and passport, so Tamiroff agrees. Soldiers remove him from the detective's custody. However, when he doesn't show up in prison, the detective knows something is up.

Good movie, entertaining, with nice performances. Mary Boland is funny as a woman who has a history with the President. Morison, visiting the country with her fiancé in charge of the loan, is excellent as well as being very beautiful. She made it to 103!