| The Great Impersonation | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Alan Crosland |
| Written by | Eve Greene Frank Wead |
| Based on | The Great ImpersonationbyE. Phillips Oppenheim |
| Produced by | Edmund Grainger |
| Starring | Edmund Lowe Valerie Hobson Wera Engels Murray Kinnell |
| Cinematography | Milton R. Krasner |
| Edited by | Philip Cahn |
| Music by | Heinz Roemheld Clifford Vaughan |
Production | |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 68 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Great Impersonation is a 1935 Universal Pictures American drama film directed by Alan Crosland and starring Edmund Lowe, Valerie Hobson and Wera Engels. It was adapted from the 1920 novel The Great ImpersonationbyE. Phillips Oppenheim. The film bears some aesthetic similarities to the Universal horror films of the 1930s.[1] Two other film versions of the story were produced with the same title in 1921 and 1942.
Before World War I, Sir Everard Dominey, a drunken upper-class Englishman, encounters an old acquaintance, the sinister German arms dealer Baron Leopold von Ragostein, in Africa. The two men are identical, and von Ragostein plans to kill his doppelgänger and take his place in British high society, where he will be able to further his arms business and spy on Britain for the Germans. He arranges the murder with his associates.
When von Ragostein returns to London, assuming the identity of Dominey, he encounters the German aristocrat Stephanie Elderstrom, who is certain that she recognizes him as her former lover. Although von Ragostein's associates attempt to pay her to remain silent, she remains convinced that something is amiss. When von Ragostein reaches Donimey Hall, Dominey's wife is certain that it is Dominey. Gradually, doubts begin to emerge about the true identity of the man who has come home.
