Pursued by the big-time gambler he robbed, John Muller assumes a new identity, with unfortunate results.
John Muller is a brilliant crook who plans a holdup which goes wrong, and is trailed by vindictive gambler, Rocky Stansyck. Hiding out, he stumbles onto a lucky chance to assume a new identity, that of psychiatrist Victor Bartok, who happens to be his virtual double. But Muller discovers that he is out of the frying pan and into quite a different fire.—Rod Crawford <[email protected]>
After being released from prison, John Muller reunites his gang. He plots to heist the casino owned by dangerous and powerful mobster Rocky Stansyck, but the holdup goes wrong. Johnny gets away and hides out in a city where he's not known, until he's followed by a man who tells him he's the doppelganger of his neighbor, psychoanalyst Dr. Bartok; the only difference is the scar on Bartok's face. Muller decides to assume the doctor's identity to save his life. But will it work?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Having served his sentence, John Muller is released from prison. Rather than take the stable clerk job at a medical supply company that was arranged secretly for him by his upstanding brother, Frederick Muller, he decides to return to his criminal ways which largely consists of robberies and fraud with his former associates. When the planned robbery of a casino doesn't go quite according to plan, John has to find a place to hide out. After a few less than satisfying options, what he decides is, upon learning that the man in question is physically almost an exact double of him with the exception of a visible scar on said man's cheek, to assume the identity of psychoanalyst Dr. Victor Bartok. This task includes not only learning about psychoanalysis to be able to take over Dr. Bartok's clients, something he is all too familiar with in his past cases of fraud and having some academic background in psychoanalysis himself, he has to kill Dr. Bartok. He believes the task is made all the easier in playing upon the desires of Dr. Bartok's lonely receptionist, Evelyn Hahn, in she being in love with the doctor herself. The question then becomes if there is anything that can go wrong in this latest plan for John to hide in plain sight, especially if anyone is able to tell the difference between the two men.—Huggo
Recently paroled from prison for practicing medicine without a license and selling phony stock, John Muller (Paul Henreid) is given a boring menial job by the parole board, but seeks a big score and pulls together his old crew to knock over a local casino owned by Rocky Stansyck (Thomas Brown Henry). Overlooking a few details on the casino's security Muller barely gets away while some of his cronies are killed. While laying low with yet another menial job, Muller is mistaken for a psychologist Dr. Bartok who looks like Muller except for a large scar running down one cheek. When Muller snoops into the doctors business he meets his secretary and lover Evelyn Nash (Joan Bennett) and continuing to spend more time with her to get information, he falls in love with her. Muller studies books on psychology and also studies the doctor's patient files and stalks the doctor and takes a photo of him and, with surgical tools, scars his face just like the doctor but when he knocks off the doctor he realizes that he has scarred his own face on the wrong side. Muller continues with the charade but when his brother Frederick Muller (Eduard Franz) tracks him down Evelyn realizes the truth but decides to leave town with Muller. But Muller has overlooked some details of the good doctor's lifestyle and some involvement with gamblers that catch up to the man at an unexpected surprising moment.
