The Great Impostor
is the true story of chameleonlike Canadian Ferdinand Waldo DeMara Jr., well-played by
Tony Curtis
. Unable to decide what he wants to do with his life, DeMara goes about pretending to be other people, hoping to eventually "find himself." He poses as a Harvard professor, a Trappist monk, a prison warden, and a navy physician, and manages each time to get away with the artifice. The film wavers uncertainly between tense drama and frothy comedy, with comedy finally winning out. Karl Malden co-stars as Father Devlin, the young DeMara's spiritual advisor, while Joan Blackman is the nominal (and hardly visible) heroine. The real Ferdinand DeMara (if indeed there was a real Ferdinand DeMara) can be seen in a supporting role in the 1960 melodrama
The Hypnotic Eye
.