All of a sudden a memory of a story I had read came back to me, but only in small pieces. Now I’m trying to remember what it was. It might have also been a movie, or possibly a Twilight Zone episode.
The premise is basically this: A man runs into another man, who he recognizes as being someone from his past, someone he used to know. I want to say he remembered him from the Army or something but I’m not sure. Anyway, Guy #1 encounters Guy #2 and says, “hey, remember me? We were at [___] together”. However, Guy #2 insists that he does NOT remember the other guy, and that he is not who he thinks he is. Guy #1 is undeterred by this and insists on continuing to call the other guy the name that he thinks is his (I want to say it’s “Joey” but I’m not sure.) He follows him around, hassling him, trying to get him to admit that he remembers him, but Guy #2 flatly insists that he’s got the wrong guy and that he is not named Joey and that Guy 1 is crazy. Guy 1 is like, “Whatever, Joey, whatever you say.”
I think, but am not sure, that Guy #2 was, in fact, who the first guy thought he was, and that he was denying it because he had adopted some kind of new identity or something.
If this was from a circa-1946 B&W movie starring Orson Welles in which he’s playing Guy #2 and both he and Guy #1 are fugitive Nazi war criminals in New England, and Guy #1 is desperately on the run from Nazi hunter Edward G. Robinson, and Guy #2 kills Guy #1 to protect his own hide, then it’s from The Stranger.
If the OP were thinking about A Hx of Violence, I’d think his vague recollection would also include something along the lines of “And then he smashes a coffee pot into a guy’s face, and in another scene completely destroys a guy’s face…”
It’s A History of Violence, for sure. I do remember that scene in the diner, now that you mention it; it was a great fight. Also I remember how the audience erupted in applause after his son beat the shit out of that horrible bully at school. They were just in an uproar; it was so viscerally satisfying to see that asshole get what he had coming.
I rented this vid at the request of my teen daughter. I told her I had heard it was pretty graphic, and she said not to worry. When it came to the scene where “Joey” killed Ed Harris and caved in the other guy’s face, she said she had had enough and walked out of the room.
I agree - pretty cool fights, but not for the squeamish.
