| The Great Impostor | |
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1961 poster |
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| Directed by | Robert Mulligan |
| Written by | Robert Crichton (novel) Liam O'Brien |
| Starring | Tony Curtis Frank Gorshin Gary Merrill Edmond O'Brien Arthur O'Connell Karl Malden Raymond Massey |
| Music by | Henry Mancini |
| Release date(s) | February 3, 1961 |
| Running time | 113 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Great Impostor is a 1961 movie based on the true story of an impostor named Ferdinand Waldo Demara.
Loosely based on Robert Crichton's 1959 biography of the same name, it stars Tony Curtis in the title role, directed by Robert Mulligan.
The film only loosely follows Demara's real-life exploits, and is much lighter in tone than the book on which it is based.
As he is arrested by the Coast Guard on an island in New England, a man born as Ferdinand Waldo Demara but known by many other identities recalls the events that brought him to this point.
Demara quit high school as a boy and joined the Army. He wanted to become an officer, but his lack of education worked against it. On a whim, he fakes a set of credentials and becomes a U.S. Marine.
When his lie is detected, Demara, facing jail, fakes a suicide and hides out as a Trappist monk. After a while, he is expelled from the monastery, captured and imprisoned in a military brig. But the warden inadvertently confides too many details of his own life to Demara, taking a liking to him. Upon his release, Demara impersonates the warden and lands a job working in a Texas penitentiary, where he takes up with his new warden's daughter, Eulalie.
Blackmailed by an inmate who recognizes him from the military jail, Demara once again flees. He joins the Royal Canadian Navy, using the forged credentials of a doctor. After falling in love with a nurse, Catherine Lacey, he goes to Korea to serve aboard a Naval vessel. He ends up doing dental work on the ship's captain, then performing operations in a Korean hospital.
Hailed as a "miracle doctor," Demara gains publicity that exposes his past. He goes on the lam yet again and becomes a teacher in New England. In time, the Navy catches up to him and intends to hold a court-martial. Nurse Lacey and others vow to testify on Demara's behalf, having seen his good side. But he then slips away from custody and disappears for years.
The FBI eventually comes up with an agent whose assignment is to track down the great impostor and capture him. In the end, the agent is revealed to be Demara himself.
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