Edmund O’Brien is a chubby changling in this neatly plotted B-pic that misses its potential under Henry Levin’s lackluster megging. How he can miss every shot is something of a marvel.* The scam, run by a fetching Lizabeth Scott & a dour Alexander Knox, involves a multimillionaire, his fragile wife and the son they lost in a crowd decades ago. O’Brien’s been picked to play the missing prince, but he’ll have to sacrifice part of his pinkie to match up with his assumed identity. (In the pic’s best scene, Lizabeth Scott mangles the digit with a car door. Yikes!) It’s fun, in spite of Levin’s ineptitude, until Terry Moore shows up as the millionaire’s peppy niece. She’s so kooky, she’s a pain. But stick around for the final twists.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Kevin Smith has the same genius at finding ‘dead’ camera set-ups. But at least he can write funny.
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