"If you think I'm going to get myself mixed up with you, you're crazy. You're pretty good and you've got style, but first comes you, second comes you, third comes you. You're one of those egotistical smart alecks with big ideas. You think you've got a right to get away with murder, and I imagine you often do, but not with me."
That's Evelyn Hahn (Joan Bennett) speaking. She's standing under an awning while the rain buckets down. She's just had an evening out with John Muller (Paul Henreid), a man she met when he came to the office of Dr. Victor Bartok because he'd heard he looks just like Bartok. Bartok is a psychologist and Evelyn Hahn manages things for him. And Evelyn Hahn, unknowingly, has Muller pegged. He's a smart, me first, anti-social criminal who thinks he should have the best. Now he's on the run because a gambler he tried to rob is after him. After seeing Bartok, Muller realizes he's got an escape hatch handy. The two are as identical as twins, except that Bartok has a scar on his cheek. A little boning up on psychology, a little practice mastering Bartok's handwriting, a little self-inflicted scar-making with a scalpel, and a little murder...and Muller becomes Bartok.
Getting to this point has been interesting, but now we have the rest of the movie to get through. Some of it holds up. Muller begins to learn that Dr. Bartok has some secrets of his own, including high stakes gambling. The Doctor was anything but a sympathetic man, and was unreasonable enough to have his scar on the other cheek than the one Muller gave himself. (A mirror and a flipped negative for a photo caused the problem.) Evelyn notices but stays quiet, which makes us wonder.
But then suddenly we learn Evelyn, a woman we like, has had a rough time of it with past relationships. She says she doesn't feel sorry for herself, but, of course, she feels sorry for herself. "What's the use," she says, "because you can never go back and start again, because the older you grow the worse everything turns out. You don't see it happen to you, it just happens. You wake up one morning and anything goes and that's alright, too." Huh? This comes to us out of the blue. Like the coincidences in the plot and the journeyman storyline (Meeting an identical-looking stranger? Faking psychology counseling? Fooling the real doc's office manager?), the change in Evelyn becomes nothing more than slack story telling. With this development we're hip deep in soap opera noir, made even more irritating because it wastes Joan Bennett. With no idea Evelyn Hahn was going to become Stella Dallas, we have no emotional commitment to her fate, along with no illusions as to what fate has in store for Muller. Although the movie ends with what is supposed to be ironic justice laced with tragedy, Evelyn's teary eyes just make us shrug.
The Scar (aka Hollow Triumph) features great John Alton cinematography. The movie is always a pleasure to watch. Alton often was able to make a B movie look like it might have A movie potential. Paul Henreid, who produced the film, wanted to shed his image of being nothing but a sympathetic nice guy. He does a fine, assured job as Muller, a self-centered, manipulating egoist for whom murder is just another solution to a problem. Briefly seen is Leslie Brooks, a scheming fixture of low budget films, as gorgeous arm candy with Muller/ Bartok. To see a real noir mellerdramer, watch her as the star of Blonde Ice, made the same year.
Joan Bennett, however, has almost nothing to do. One can't help wondering why she took the role unless possibly as a favor to Henreid. To see just how good she was, watch her in Jean Renoir's The Woman on the Beach, made the year before with Robert Ryan, and Max Ophul's The Reckless Moment, made the year after with James Mason.
That's Evelyn Hahn (Joan Bennett) speaking. She's standing under an awning while the rain buckets down. She's just had an evening out with John Muller (Paul Henreid), a man she met when he came to the office of Dr. Victor Bartok because he'd heard he looks just like Bartok. Bartok is a psychologist and Evelyn Hahn manages things for him. And Evelyn Hahn, unknowingly, has Muller pegged. He's a smart, me first, anti-social criminal who thinks he should have the best. Now he's on the run because a gambler he tried to rob is after him. After seeing Bartok, Muller realizes he's got an escape hatch handy. The two are as identical as twins, except that Bartok has a scar on his cheek. A little boning up on psychology, a little practice mastering Bartok's handwriting, a little self-inflicted scar-making with a scalpel, and a little murder...and Muller becomes Bartok.
Getting to this point has been interesting, but now we have the rest of the movie to get through. Some of it holds up. Muller begins to learn that Dr. Bartok has some secrets of his own, including high stakes gambling. The Doctor was anything but a sympathetic man, and was unreasonable enough to have his scar on the other cheek than the one Muller gave himself. (A mirror and a flipped negative for a photo caused the problem.) Evelyn notices but stays quiet, which makes us wonder.
But then suddenly we learn Evelyn, a woman we like, has had a rough time of it with past relationships. She says she doesn't feel sorry for herself, but, of course, she feels sorry for herself. "What's the use," she says, "because you can never go back and start again, because the older you grow the worse everything turns out. You don't see it happen to you, it just happens. You wake up one morning and anything goes and that's alright, too." Huh? This comes to us out of the blue. Like the coincidences in the plot and the journeyman storyline (Meeting an identical-looking stranger? Faking psychology counseling? Fooling the real doc's office manager?), the change in Evelyn becomes nothing more than slack story telling. With this development we're hip deep in soap opera noir, made even more irritating because it wastes Joan Bennett. With no idea Evelyn Hahn was going to become Stella Dallas, we have no emotional commitment to her fate, along with no illusions as to what fate has in store for Muller. Although the movie ends with what is supposed to be ironic justice laced with tragedy, Evelyn's teary eyes just make us shrug.
The Scar (aka Hollow Triumph) features great John Alton cinematography. The movie is always a pleasure to watch. Alton often was able to make a B movie look like it might have A movie potential. Paul Henreid, who produced the film, wanted to shed his image of being nothing but a sympathetic nice guy. He does a fine, assured job as Muller, a self-centered, manipulating egoist for whom murder is just another solution to a problem. Briefly seen is Leslie Brooks, a scheming fixture of low budget films, as gorgeous arm candy with Muller/ Bartok. To see a real noir mellerdramer, watch her as the star of Blonde Ice, made the same year.
Joan Bennett, however, has almost nothing to do. One can't help wondering why she took the role unless possibly as a favor to Henreid. To see just how good she was, watch her in Jean Renoir's The Woman on the Beach, made the year before with Robert Ryan, and Max Ophul's The Reckless Moment, made the year after with James Mason.