A man (James Garner) wakes up in Central Park with amnesia. All he has on him is a phone number, some pills and a ring inscribed "from G.V.". Encounters with four different women (Jean Simmons, Suzanne Pleshette, Katharine Ross, Angela Lansbury) he doesn't know will eventually lead him to remember the tragic incident which caused his loss of memory. Based on the novel by Evan Hunter and directed by Oscar winner Delbert Mann (
MARTY). Though the film has the form of a thriller, it's really a melodrama about a selfish man whose "selling out" turns his personal life into a battlefield. Strangely, the film gives us flashbacks of Garner's life but when we return to the present, he doesn't seem to have recalled the information given us. Are the flashbacks for us, the audience, and not Garner's character? And if they are
his flashbacks, why doesn't he retain the info? The flashbacks are interesting in that they provide three of the actresses (Simmons, Pleshette, Ross) a chance to play two characters. The three different women they are in the present and the same mystery woman in Garner's past via the flashbacks. Other than that, the film is ultimately a disappointment. With Jack Gilford, Raymond St. Jacques, Joe Mantell, George Voskovec, Wesley Addy, Ken Lynch and Nichelle Nichols.
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