Monday 4 January 2016

The Dark Mirror (1946 Robert Siodmak)

Continuing Hollywood's interest in that new-fangled psychiatry thing, in the shape of a thriller with the novelty twist that identical twins are both played by Olivia de Havilland - quite ingeniously done, and credit must go to Milton Krasner and the visual effects team, which (again according to IMDB) featured an uncredited Eugen Schüfftan.

I thought de Havilland was great because you can see right from the beginning the slight differences in their character, which get more pronounced as it goes on, but the Academy board didn't see it that way. Thomas Mitchell (always good) is the pursuing policeman and Lew Ayres the doctor.

Vladimir Pozner wrote the story, adapted by Nunnally Johnson.

One of the early witnesses is a Mrs Didriksen, which I wonder is Siodmak's salutation to his Berlin buddy Billy Wilder for Double Indemnity.

Great score by Dmitri Tiomkin.

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