Incontro a New York

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 jerk...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 jerk 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.

The idea is brilliant and perfect as a starter for a brilliant intrigue, whether for a thriller or a screwball comedy. It looks as if both are getting triggered. Brian Aherne comes back to New York a ruined man after a stranded business deal from Puerto Rico, and his business partner down there tells him to swim back home to Puerto Rico. Brian Aherne gets infuriated by his frustration and takes an awful lot of drinks, telling everybody he meets to repeat after him that his colleague Mr. Phillips is a skunk. One of the other guests he meets at the bar happens to look exactly like him, they could be mistaken for each other's doubles, that other man also has something to drown in drinks, so they go celebrating together. That other man never comes back. Brian Aherne is taken for him and brought home to a luxury apartment where he has every difficulty in the world to convince everybody that he is not the right man, and the more he insists, the less he is believed. Then the comedy bolts off tying itself up in knots of inextricable complications, and two women are involved, his wife and his mistress, who only wants to extort her "booby-wooby" for money. Kay Francis is the wife, always excellent, and she eventually finds out that she is a widow, since the real man was lost in an accident at night. In spite of all the complications and muddled up intrigues, something seems to come out right in the end, while the one who really has a hard job to get through is the wonderful old Hungarian butler S. Z. Sakall, crowning the comedy with his constant worries.

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?

real pity

this movie could have been rather good. they had Kay Francis and Brian Aherne, even Nils Asther..

10 minutes into the movie its painfully obvious that this has something of a Helen Keller Musical.

there's no direction, the plot is dull and stupid and the actors don't seem to have been given a script before shooting.

they should have simply made a romance with Kay and Nils in the leads.. that i would have liked to see.

this movie is an infuriating waste of talent, time and money

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.