In Robert Siodmak’s psychological melodrama, The Dark Mirror, Olivia De Havilland plays twins, one good, the other bad.
Grade: B
The Dark Mirror | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster
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Lew Ayres plays the psychiatrist who helps detective policeman Thomas Mitchell unravel the case.
The screenplay is by Nunnally Johnson (who would soon become a director himself), based on Vladimir Pozner’s Oscar nominated Original Story.
Siodmak’s melodrama belongs to a cycle of Hollywood movies in the 1940s about Abnormal psychology and its treatment through Psychoanalysis.
The film anticipates producer-screenwriter Nunnally Johnson’s psycho melodrama The Three Faces of Eve (1957), for which the young Jianne Woodward would earn her first and only Best Actress nomination.
Narrative Premise
The tale begins with the discovery of Dr. Frank Peralta, stabbed to death in his apartment one night.
Detective Lt. Stevenson (reliable character actor Thomas Mitchell) finds two witnesses putting Peralta’s girlfriend, Terry Collins, at the scene.
However, when Stevenson questions Terry (De Havilland), she has a firm alibi, and witnesses of her own.
It is revealed that Terry has an identical twin sister, Ruth (also De Havilland), and the pair share a job and routinely switch places for their own benefit.
Thus, Stevenson and the district attorney are unable to prosecute since the twins refuse to confirm which of them has the alibi.
Andrew Sarris observed that Siodmak’s Hollywood films “were more Germanic than his German-made films; the director fled Nazi dominated Europe in 1940.
German expressionism stylistics are evident in the use of chiaroscuro shadow, distortions in sound effects and dialogue, the use of mirrors to emphasize the psychotic descent of the characters.
Oscar Context:
Vladimir Pozner’s Oscar nominated Original Story.
The winner of the Original Story Oscar was Clemence Dane for Vacation from Marriage.
Cast
Olivia de Havilland as twins Terry and Ruth Collins
Lew Ayres as Dr. Scott Elliott
Thomas Mitchell as Lt. Stevenson
Richard Long as Rusty
Charles Evans as Dist. Atty. Girard
Garry Owen as Franklin (as Gary Owen)
Lela Bliss as Mrs. Didriksen
Lester Allen as George Benson
About Siodmak
Siodmak directed several psychological dramas: Phantom Lady (1944), Christmas Holiday (1944), The Suspect (1945), The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945) and The Killers (1946), an adaption of Ernest Hemingway’s short story, which marked the auspicious screen debut if Burt Lancaster.