The Four of Us are Dying - Recap

Cheap crook and grafter Arch Hammer arrives in town and checks into a hotel room. Hammer has a unique talent: he can concentrate and change himself into anyone he wants. Using newspaper clippings, he uses his ability to gain money and women. First he duplicates a dead trumpet player, Johnny Foster, and goes to the club where Foster used to play. He hits on Foster’s girlfriend, Maggie, who is surprised to see her dead boyfriend alive and well. Hammer/Foster explains that he faked his death and wants to start a new life and wants her to come along with him. He tells her to meet him at the train station later that night and they’ll head to Chicago together.

Hammer goes back to his hotel room and picks his next target: Penell, a mobster who had gangster Virgil Sterig shot and dumped in the river. Hammer takes on Sterig’s face and goes to see Penell, demanding a payoff for being killed working for him. The startled Penell wonders if Hammer/Sterig is a ghost, but caves in when Hammer pushes the issue. However, as Hammer leaves with his money, two of Penell’s gunsels come in. Hammer shoves past them and runs out into the street. He ends up trapped in an alleyway with no way out while the gunsels move in. Looking around, Hammer takes on a face from a boxing poster: Andy Marshak. The men arrive and have no idea what happened to “Sterig,” and Hammer/Marshak brushes past them.

As Hammer/Marshak leaves the alleyway, a newspaper vendor spots and recognizes him. The man approaches Hammer/Marshak and identifies himself as Marshak’s father, Pop Marshak. He accuses “Andy” of doing dirt to his girlfriend and breaking his mother’s heart. Hammer/Marshak doesn’t recognize him at first, naturally, and then brushes past the old man, shoving him to the ground.

Hammer goes back to his hotel room and a police detective breaks in. Hammer is wanted on bunco charges and the detective takes him in. As they go out through the hotel’s revolving door, Hammer gets ahead of the detective and takes on Marshak’s face again. The detective, confused, tries to find Hammer while Hammer/Marshak strolls casually down the street. However, Pop Marshak is waiting for him with a gun. He’s ready to kill his wayward son for everything he’s done to his friends and family. Hammer begs for a minute to concentrate and go back to his original features. Pop Marshak shoots him down and as Hammer lies dying in the street, his face changes from Foster to Sterig to Marshak… until he finally dies as himself.

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