What film is this?
February 4, 2014 8:15 AM   Subscribe

What film is this? Can anybody help? My friend Gioia watched the first half of a movie in the middle of one night in the first 90s. She liked it, but since she was also very tired, so ended up sleeping. The days after she didn't think too much about this movie, but then after a while she found herself wondering and wondering again about it, and still is. She tried to retrieve the old show schedules, but unsuccesfully. So, what movie is this? This is the plot of the first half as she told me. The main character is a middle-aged white man who happens to lose his memory all at once. My friend Gioia doesn't remember the name of the character, nor the presence of some famous stars in the movie.

Anyway, we can say with no doubt that it was IN BLACK AND WHITE, taking place rather probably in USA. Also, it didn't look like a "modern" movie (or at least produced in the first nineties), instead it was maybe some decades old (maybe of 60s or 70s). As said, the main character loses his memory (because of unprecised reasons, or maybe Gioia doesn't remember) and then, all the people who know him - like for example his fiancé (a black haired woman) and his colleagues - try remembering him who he actually is... his name, what he does in life, where he goes to work, etc. So the man comes back, step after step, to his previous normale life, going regularly to work again in a very high building (the building has an elevator), and the guards at the entrance of the building restart saying hello. But then things change: the man discovers to be probably cheated: by mistake one day he goes to work in a not-prearreanged day, seeing how things are quite different in the building, compared to when he normally goes to work. For example, he can't find his little nameplate anymore, and also there are no guards at the entrance. So... what is there behind all this? Who planned this possible huge cheat to our mysterious man, and why? Gioia (and I) still want to know! Thank you for your attention and goodbye from Italy! Francesco
posted by francesco84 to Media & Arts (11 answers total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Could it be Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound?
posted by florencetnoa at 8:25 AM on February 4, 2014


Maybe Mirage?
posted by pipeski at 8:34 AM on February 4, 2014


Response by poster: uhm.. I'm going to ask Gioia if the protagonist was Gregory Peck. I guess she would have remembered by the way.
(anyway, thank u!)
posted by francesco84 at 8:45 AM on February 4, 2014


36 Hours?
posted by lovecrafty at 8:45 AM on February 4, 2014


I would not be sure it's black and white.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 9:30 AM on February 4, 2014


Random Harvest? The plot isn't exactly the same, but Gioia was sleepy.
posted by janey47 at 9:37 AM on February 4, 2014 [4 favorites]


Street of Chance?
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 10:07 AM on February 4, 2014


Mister Buddwing?
posted by essexjan at 11:49 AM on February 4, 2014


Sounds kind of like The Game ...
posted by thinkpiece at 7:10 AM on February 5, 2014


Dark City?
posted by banshee at 1:32 PM on February 5, 2014


The Man in the Road seems to have much of the action set inside a hospital rather than an office building, but it still seems like a possibility...
posted by alyxstarr at 3:05 PM on February 6, 2014


« Older Daily Academic Newsletters   |   Parsing unknown, Pine-related text files Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.