The Understudy

"To be or not to be" takes on a new and dizzy meaning in this delightful tale of existential angst and mistaken identity. Sam Bennet may be a two-bit Shakespearean actor, but he at least respects the Bard's words; more than can be said for the hack who is truly masquerading as the doomed Prince of Denmark. Distraught over his non-existent thespian career, Sam trashes his apartment in order to start anew. In a failed attempt to symbolically bury his past by sinking his grandfather clock in San Francisco Bay, Sam is conked on the head and loses his memory. His unlikely rescuer is a looney Hungarian woman named Marta whose husband has a penchant for robbing banks; an occupation that does not endear him to the local law officers, not to mention the immigration authorities. Enter Ham, nee Sam, spouting his lines from the Elizabethan tragedy he never got to perform, to a couple of weird Hungarian immigrants adrift in the surreality of the American dream.