Identity Unknown ** (1945, Richard Arlen, Bobby Driscoll, Cheryl Walker, Roger Pryor, Lola Lane, Ian Keith) – Classic Movie Review 13,678

Republic Pictures’ 1945 black and white American wartime drama film Identity Unknown stars Richard Arlen, Bobby Driscoll, Cheryl Walker, Roger Pryor, Lola Lane, and Ian Keith.

Director Walter Colmes’s 1945 Republic Pictures black and white American wartime drama film Identity Unknown stars Richard Arlen, Bobby Driscoll, Cheryl Walker, Roger Pryor, Lola Lane, and Ian Keith. The screenplay by Richard Weil is from a screen story by Robert Newman, based on French playwright Jean Anouilh’ s 1937 play Le Voyageur sans bagage [Traveller without Luggage].

Richard Arlen stars as Johnny March, an amnesiac war veteran searching everywhere for his identity. Bobby Driscoll (aged eight) gives an affecting performance as Toddy Loring, a lad who believes that he is Johnny March (Arlen)’s son.

Identity Unknown is good hearted if rather simple and somewhat melodramatic. The sentimentality and wartime flag-waving are now hard to take, but you can still see how it impressed World War Two audiences.

Bobby Driscoll won a special Juvenile Academy Award in March 1950 for outstanding performances in So Dear to My Heart and The Window, and he was a favourite of Walt Disney, who cast him as Jim Hawkins in Disney’s first completely live-action film Treasure Island (1950) and as the animation model and voice of the title role in Peter Pan (1953). But his film career was over with his teenage years, though he turned to TV. Tragically he died aged 31 from heart failure caused by advanced atherosclerosis in 1968.

Talking about Identity Unknown, Driscoll’s initially unidentified body was discovered on March 30, 1968, in a Manhattan East Village abandoned building. He was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave in New York City’s Potter’s Field on Hart Island.

The cast are Richard Arlen as Johnny March, Cheryl Walker as Sally MacGregor, Roger Pryor as Rocks Donnelly, Bobby Driscoll as Toddy Loring, Lola Lane as Wanda, Ian Keith as Major Williams, John Forrest as Joe Granowski, Sarah Padden as Mrs Anderson, Forrest Taylor as Mr Anderson, Frank Marlowe as Frankie, Harry Tyler as Harry Parker, Nelson Leigh as Colonel F A Marlin, Charles Williams as Auctioneer, Charles Jordan as Needles, Rocks’s Henchman, Dick Scott as Spike, Rocks’s Henchman, Marjorie Manners as Nurse, Eddie Baker as Motorcycle Cop.

Release date: April 2, 1945.

Identity Unknown is directed by Walter Colmes, runs 71 minutes, is made by Republic Pictures, is released by Republic Pictures (US) and British Lion Film Corporation (UK), is written by Richard Weil, based on a story by Robert Newman, is shot in black and white by Ernest Miller, is produced by Walter Colmes and Howard Bretherton, is scored by Alec Law (orchestrator) and Jay Chernis (musical director), and is designed by Harry Reif.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,678

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