Jim, The Man with the Scar

Heinz Ruhmann in Jim, The Man with the Scar

A madcap black comedy from 1931, Robert Siodmak's Jim, The Man with the Scar is available on a Kino Classics Blu-ray under the equally unwieldy title, The Man in Search of his Murderer. Whatever the moniker, what we have left of the film is truncated, only 53 minutes of the original 97 remain. Adapted from a play by three screenwriters, the film opens with a despondent nebbish, Hans, about to end his life with a revolver. The present opening is so abrupt that one must surmise some establishing scenes are among the missing reels. Hans is interrupted by a burglar who agrees to off Hans for a fee. Hans is played by Heinz Ruhmann, a veteran actor who amassed over 100 film credits and who resembles a mopey Harold Lloyd without Lloyd's physical dexterity. Hans soon regrets the deal after meeting the fetching Miss Kitty (Lien Deyers, best known for her role in Fritz Lang's Spione) at a nightclub.

Jim, The Man with the Scar is an entertaining farce that resembles nothing else in Siodmak's filmography. It skims about with manic energy and contains three very different and very unusual musical numbers. What the film does resemble, particularly in its mordant humor and sarcastic tone, is the later work of one of its screenwriters, Billy Wilder. Indeed, the car chase in the film closely resembles one in Wilder's One, Two, Three. There is also an M reference thrown into the mix; Hans gets an x chalked on his jacket instead of an m. Jim, The Man with the Scar is, ultimately, a mangled trifle, but enjoyable nevertheless.