Giving an award worthy performance that is mesneryzubc and fascinating, unbelievable because this is based upon a real person living a life you'd swear was fictional. As real life con-artist Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr., Tony Curtis lives a dream life, going from one profession to another, from one location another, all with different identities and all so different, you can tell that Curtis was having a ball. His experiences are so vast that it's hard to believe that all of this happened in one lifetime. As young boy, advice from school priest Karl Malden sets him on this path, buy it's not exactly the meaning of what Malden had in mind. The military, various religious orders and later on prison administration, medicine and teaching becomes his way of changing his identity just because he feels like it.
What is fascinating within the script (outside of all the interesting support characters played by a slew of veteran actors in memorable cameos) Is the way that Curtis reveals to everybody that he encounters in one of his cons that he's a phony, and they take it to mean something else. He uses these cons to try to reform not only himself but in a memorable scene, the prison system. The film is delightfully over the top at times, so Curtis, the screenwriters and director continue that con on the audience, and when the viewer realizes that, they may come to enjoy this and be amused all the more. Malden, realizing the con of Curtis's numerous lives,is a recurring presence in his life. Cameos by Raymond Massey, Arthur O'Connell, Edmund O'Brien, Gary Merrill and more than a dozen others aides greatly to the film's amusement. I have to call this one of the best films that no one's ever heard of, moving a long way up on my top film's of lists, starting with the year of its release and way up on Curtis's career.
What is fascinating within the script (outside of all the interesting support characters played by a slew of veteran actors in memorable cameos) Is the way that Curtis reveals to everybody that he encounters in one of his cons that he's a phony, and they take it to mean something else. He uses these cons to try to reform not only himself but in a memorable scene, the prison system. The film is delightfully over the top at times, so Curtis, the screenwriters and director continue that con on the audience, and when the viewer realizes that, they may come to enjoy this and be amused all the more. Malden, realizing the con of Curtis's numerous lives,is a recurring presence in his life. Cameos by Raymond Massey, Arthur O'Connell, Edmund O'Brien, Gary Merrill and more than a dozen others aides greatly to the film's amusement. I have to call this one of the best films that no one's ever heard of, moving a long way up on my top film's of lists, starting with the year of its release and way up on Curtis's career.