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Dead Ringer

1964, Movie, NR, 115 mins

Dead Ringer: Review

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Bette Davis did the twins 18 years before in the much better A STOLEN LIFE. This was her followup to WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? and she was into macabre roles not unlike those attempted by Joan Crawford at about the same time in her career. Davis (1) had once loved her brother-in-law and planned to marry him. But she lost him to her sister (2) and the movie begins when the man is being buried. She learns that he only married her sister (2) because he thought she was carrying his child. Davis (1) now runs a small bar while her sister (2) is wealthy. Davis (2) wants to patch up the sisterly relationship, but (1) rejects her until (1) learns that she is about to lose her tavern and suddenly needs money. She invites (2) to see the squalid apartment in which (1) lives. The two sisters have it out, and (2) admits that she did trap the dead husband with a lie about her pregnancy, Davis (1) is enraged, kills (2), changes clothing, writes a suicide note, and takes over the identity of her sister. The dead body is found by the boy friend of Davis (1), Malden, who is a Los Angeles detective. He believes that his fiancee is dead. But Davis has no idea what she is stepping into when she climbs into her dead sister's life. It turns out that the sweet lady was having an affair with Peter Lawford, who'd been off in Europe. He returns and spots the difference right away and wants money to keep mum. Davis gives Lawford some of the late woman's baubles. He attempts to pawn them and that's reported to the cops. They search Lawford's apartment and find a load of deadly arsenic. Malden approaches Davis (thinking she is his dead lover's sister), who admits that Lawford is her lover. Malden now suspects that the dead husband may not have died naturally, so he orders the body exhumed and it is found to be filled with arsenic. Davis goes after Lawford, accusing him of murdering the dead man. Lawford tries to kill Davis but he is torn to bits by the late man's Great Dane. Later, Davis is accused of the dead husband's murder. In desperation, she confesses that she is not who she appears to be, but Malden won't believe her. She's convicted and about to be executed when she meets Malden again and tells him that she is Margaret, not Edith (the one he loved and intended to marry). She is lying but believes that will allow him to sleep at night, safe that he hasn't sent the woman he loves to her death. There are little touches of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE in the ironic twist of being executed for a murder one didn't commit rather than for the murder one did commit. Davis has a chance to let it all hang out in the two roles and she does. Wearing heavy makeup to conceal her 56 years (Malden was 50 and Lawford was 39), Davis is almost grotesque in her performance. At 115 minutes, the picture is usually cut 10 to 12 minutes to accommodate a two-hour TV time slot (with commercials) and the scene that is excised is, perhaps, the most memorable of the picture; it's Davis singing "Shuffle Off to Buffalo." leave a comment
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