Martin Guerre is based on an old story...I'm not sure of the exact origins, so if anybody knows, let me know! Anyway, it's a name and story that has popped up in movies over and over again, including probably the best known one, "The Return of Martin Guerre". One that I'm more familiar with is a movie called "Sommersby", which was released in 1993 and starred Richard Gere and Jodie Foster. I saw this movie years ago, and I remember than when I first heard the story of Martin Guerre, the musical, I thought it was the same story! It is, actually, quite a bit different, but the similarities are definitely there.

Synopsis of the movie from Your Take:

Sommersby stars Jodie Foster and Richard Gere, and is about a southern landowner, John Robert (Jack) Sommersby, returning home to his small town after the Civil War, and after having long been thought dead. But as it turns out Sommersby is not Sommersby. He is actually an acquaintance (Horace Townsend) who had spent four years in a jail cell with Sommersby during the war and traveled with him after the war. During their time together, Horace Townsend heard Sommersby describe his home town and townspeople, the land he owned, his wife and family; and he knows them as if they were his own. Hearing of the joyous and plenteous life enjoyed by Sommersby obviously made him desire so rich a life for himself. So when the real Sommersby died after being away for so long a time that even those who knew him best would be hard pressed to identify his imposter, Horace Townsend assumed the identity. He took his home, his land, and his wife--he took everything but Sommersby's character. And because he did not take Sommersby s character, this Sommersby is loved, by his wife, his son and the townspeople--all of whom remembered the real Sommersby as far less than delightful. In this new life as Sommersby, Horace Townsend was respected as a good father and husband and a benevolent leader. As Sommersby, he deeded parcels of his large land holdings to the townspeople that they all might work and prosper together; and he did as much hard fieldwork as any of the others. So when law men arrived with a warrant for the arrest of John Robert Sommersby for the crime of murder, the townspeople could not believe that such an act had been committed by the man they now knew as Sommersby.

At his trial, when it becomes clear that he will be set free as Horace Townsend but executed as Jack Sommersby, there are those who have had reservations that this man might not be Sommersby. His wife wants to continue life with the new Sommersby and encourages him to acknowledge that he is Horace Townsend and be set free. The townspeople continue to suppress obvious signs. But not only does Horace Townsend like his new life as Sommersby, he detests his old life as Horace Townsend--the philanderer, the coward, the racist, the con artist, the thief. He was neither the old Sommersby, nor the old Townsend. And to end the pleading he declares to his wife he would rather die than be " . . .Horace Townsend again."