Mi hermano Barrabás

Although Among The Living is a B film from Paramount it's a real nugget of gold among a lot of B dross. You will rarely see mob violence depicted as well as in this film. Two films that this stands comparison with in that regard are Fury and Night Of The Hunter.

It's also a great example of the mobility of careers. Frances Farmer whose career was heading down is in a relatively colorless part of the wife of one Albert Dekker. Susan Hayward plays the slutty daughter of a boardinghouse owner who gets involved with the other twin Dekker. She's got the far juicier role and makes the most of it.

Once upon a time a man had two twin sons both of whom grew up to be Albert Dekker. As is told by the town doctor Harry Carey, one was sent to a prep school, the other stayed at home. By all accounts dad was a tyrant at home and at work where he owned the mill that employed most of the town. The twin that stayed at home witnessed dad beating on mom and tried to stop it. Dad picked him and threw him against a wall injuring his brain.

Rather than risk exposure dad had his friend Harry Carey fake a death certificate and they kept the kid in a locked room. Now father is dead and the kid who has grown up to be Albert Dekker is a now quite unhinged and murders a family servant to escape.

And while out murders a woman that the town blames his brother for. Quite a dilemma for the sane Dekker and wife Farmer.

Hayward gives a good account of herself, but the film really belongs to Albert Dekker. This is quite possibly his career film, even more so than Dr. Cyclops. Especially playing the mad son, you really do feel for him knowing it's not his fault the way he is.

With a good does of both noir and Gothic horror, I highly recommend this film for fans of both genres. And definitely for fans of Susan Hayward as I am.

The plot to "Among the Living" is silly and impossible to believe. However, it does appear to be the inspiration for an episode of "The Simpsons"--the one where Bart discovers that he has an identical 'evil' twin who's been locked in the attic for many years! Homer and Marge feed Hugo fish heads and have kept his existence a secret for years! Who would have thought a film would have dared have such a bizarro plot?!

When the film begins, the family patriarch dies and his son John (Albert Dekker) arrives for the funeral. Little does John know that his identical brother, Paul (also Dekker), is STILL alive and did not die as a small child. The family doctor (Harry Carey) divulges the family secret to John...Paul is still alive and insane and has been kept hidden in a secret room in the family mansion! Coincidentally, at this same time, Paul kills his keeper and escapes! Now two identical looking guys are running about town...and one is on occasion unpredictable and homicidal. So it's up to the Doctor and John to try to find Paul...however the heartless Doctor soon tries to stop John from contacting the police by threatening to destroy him! However, Paul is not intend with only killing his keeper...and the bodies start piling up in town. And, soon John is assumed to be the crazed killer by mistake!

As I mentioned above, the plot for this one is just insane...so you really have to suspend disbelief in order to watch this one. Despite this, I did enjoy Dekker's performance as he played both characters, particularly Paul, quite well. Goofy and still very watchable.

... 1941 that is. It boasts fine photography and a great score. It's part horror tale, part noir. John Raden returns for the funeral of Maxim Raden, his father and owner of all of the mills around town. It's obvious from the remarks of the average citizens outside the cemetery gates that their collective sentiment is good riddance.

Dr. Ben Saunders (Harry Carey) then reveals to John a terrible secret he's been keeping - that 25 years ago he forged a death certificate for John's identical twin brother Paul. Paul had become mentally disturbed and Maxim moved into a hotel in town and kept the insane Paul locked up in a room at Radin mansion with kindly and loyal servant Pompey as his keeper. Paul became disturbed probably due to a head injury received when his father threw him across the room when Paul came to his mother's rescue during one of the beatings Maxim was giving her. What did Dr. Saunders get in return? Maxim Radin endowed his clinic, but with Paul recently turning more violent, both Saunders' psychological and actual burden have become heavier and heavier. John, sent away to school before any of this happened, had no knowledge of any of this up until now.

Well, Paul kills Pompey, escapes his room, and finds some money at his father's grave. (It was unclear to me what money was doing there.) With this money and his misleading mostly gentle child-like demeanor he manages to rent a room in a rooming house and attract the attentions of the landlady's daughter (Susan Hayward as Millie Pickens). Millie teaches Paul to blend in - helps him find new clothes, gets him to shave - and now the town has an unpredictable homicidal maniac in its midst who only acts homicidal when the urge to kill strikes him but doesn't look the least bit out of place. Meanwhile, John Raden cannot convince Saunders to call the police because he doesn't want to lose the clinic he's worked so hard for. Of course the fact that the townspeople think Paul is dead and Paul and John are identical twins will eventually figure into this plot, but I'll let you watch and see how.

Albert Dekker does a great job of playing the dual role of sophisticated good guy John and child-like insane Paul, but it is Susan Hayward as Millie who steals the show. You can never quite tell if she really likes Paul because he's different - not pawing her all of the time - or if she's just after the gifts he can give her after she sees the wad of cash he keeps in his pockets. It's a great early role for her. Harry Carey gets to do more than he usually does late in his career, which were roles that usually entailed playing the wise old good guy. Here he is quite gray and not until the end are you sure just which side of his character will win. For those of you looking for a glimpse of Frances Farmer at work, that's all you'll get - a glimpse. She is barely noticeable as the wife of John Raden.

As for the atmosphere - it's perfect with thunderstorms, poorly lit rooms, cemeteries at night, and Paul's victims all found left with a terrified expression and their hands over their ears. Highly recommended for fans of old style horror. It's a shame this one isn't better known.

Sharp, tightly paced low budget film is hard to categorize. There are definitely noirish tendencies but it's not a full blown film noir, there are also elements of horror contained within but neither is a horror movie. Even as a hybrid of different genres it is very involving and uses it short running time to full effect, actually so effective that it received quite a lot of critical attention in its day for a lower budget release and helped move its leading lady's career forward.

Speaking of the leading lady the film is also a study of two stars in flight. Susan Hayward whose full fledged stardom was still a few years away was still definitely on her way up, Frances Farmer, whose part is small, was most definitely on the descent. At one time considered an actress with the brightest of futures this was her second to last picture before descending into a decades long hell of mental illness and involuntary confinement.

The real standout though is Albert Dekker in a dual role of very different twin brothers. An excellent character actor who met a grisly end he rarely had the opportunity of the leading role but he takes his chance here and makes the most of it. His body language and vocal inflections makes the two characters recognizably different men and their struggles relatable. Not readily available and hard to find its definitely worth the effort to seek out.

Deranged twin brother escapes home confinement after father's death and tries to fit into a new life.

Wacky, highly original horror story. When the luscious Hayward (Millie) makes her entrance at the stairs' top, it's like an explosion of saucy sex appeal. There's enough lively personality there to light up the room. In fact, her gold-digging coquette manages to steal the film. And that's against tough competition from Dekker as the wide-eyed, strangely sympathetic mad strangler. Together, they're easily one of filmdom's genuine odd couples.

Frankly, the story at times makes little sense. But that's okay because it's the characters and Gothic atmosphere that distinguish the film. It's also one of the few films where the camera pans through a hellish mansion, only to focus finally on a guy in a straitjacket (Dekker as the mad Paul), of all things.

Catch that opening scene with the unemployed mill workers taunting the funeral rites for the mill owner. In fact, there's an odd class undercurrent to the screenplay as a whole. Considering that blacklisted leftist Lester Cole did both the story and the script, that's not surprising.

Moreover, the screenplay can be viewed as something of an allegory with mad brother Paul as the brutalized innocent, who would like to side with the workers (he prefers living with them), but has been too damaged by his mill owner father to be able to. In that sense, he suggests Dad's repressed (straitjacketed) humane side hidden away from public view, but finally released by Dad's death into a world his now childlike nature can't comprehend. More tragically, he can only relieve a woman's scream of pain by strangling her, the memory of his abused mother and his attempt to help still fresh in his mind. Dekker's affecting performance with its unexpected degree of pathos underscores, I believe, something of this way of looking at things.

Director Heisler certainly has a flair for exciting crowd scenes. That clip joint with its frenetic swing dancers is a marvel of editing and atmosphere, a really memorable scene. And those teeming street crowds add both color and more atmosphere. The movie's commanding visuals owe a lot to the underrated Heisler. Too bad, however, the talented Frances Farmer is largely wasted in a brief, conventional role.

Anyway, in my little book, the movie's a one-of-a-kind that rises above the ordinary B- feature or horror film, and should not be missed.