Scotland Yard is a 1941 American crime drama film directed by Norman Foster and starring Nancy Kelly, Edmund Gwenn, and John Loder.
In Britain, while bank robber Dakin Barrolles is on the run from the police, he sneaks into the house of Sir John Lasher (Loder) and his wife Sandra (Kelly). He manages to escape once again from the Inspector Henry James Cork (Gwenn) of the Scotland Yard, but before absconding with a locket with pictures of the couple inside
Some time later Cork finally manages to track the robber down, discovering that he enlisted under a false name and became a soldier in Her Majesty's Army. Cork's intelligence says that Barrolles was killed at Dunkirk, but he is in fact still alive. His face was terribly mangled during battle and he was sent to a hospital in Scotland to recover. Since the doctors have no identification of the man, they look at the locket, which Barrolles is still carrying, and believe he is the man on the picture. They reconstruct his face so that he looks just like the picture, which is the face of Sir John Lasher. After Barrolles realizes this, he decides to play along and pose as Lasher, as he figures he can use it to rob Lasher's bank. Barrolles goes back to Sandra, pretending to be her husband returning from the war, and Sandra is happy with him returning as a different man than when he left her. Barrolles's plan of robbing the bank becomes complicated when he falls in love with Sandra and a man with a secret of his own discovers his impersonation.
This film features examples of:
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Hugh threatens to reveal Barrolles's impersonation and hand him over to the police if he doesn't cooperate and transfer the bank's gold to their Nazi ring.
- Becoming the Mask: Barrolles poses as Lasher to rob Lasher's bank, but he falls in love for real with Lasher's wife Sandra.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Barrolles may be a bank robber, but even he is appalled at Sir Lasher abusing his wife and tells him off for it.
- Eviler than Thou: What's worse than a bank robber? How about some Nazi collaborators?
- Magic Plastic Surgery: Apparently if you are a man who has his face horribly disfigured and use the picture of another man as reference, that is enough for the doctors to reconstruct your face so that it looks just like the man in picture.
- Maybe Ever After: The film ends with Barrolles and Sandra deciding to put their relationship on hold until the real Lasher, who is in a prison camp in Germany, is safely back home from the war. It's not made clear if after he returns Sandra will return to him or they will separate so she can be with Barrolles.
- Upper-Class Twit: The real Sir Lasher. He's a Sir, after all, and his introductory scene is him drunkenly verbally abusing his wife, fearing his upcoming military service.
