Deadly Duo

It's quite obvious that Deadly Dull is the proper title for this United Artists release, which IMDb informs us played on many a double bill from the same studio's hit in Britain, "Dr. No". That fact reminds me of how B-movies also served as so-called chasers - designed to help empty theatres (as patrons like me would sit through show after show) in the days when double features flourished. After watching the magnetic Sean Connery dominate the screen as Bond, it must have been hard to adjust to staring at the permanent nonentity Craig Hill walking through his role in such an uneventful co-feature.

Over 60 years later, it was distracting to watch the "actress playing twins" gimmick - looking for any mismatching in the shots processed to have lead Marcia Henderson on screen twice at once, or the obvious double seen from the back of the head in other easier to shoot and process shots. Two wigs to differentiate the sisters are glaringly fake.

The plodding story is relentlessly uninteresting, leading to a busier (but way too late) final reel of contrived and unconvincing plot twists leading to a fake wholesome happy ending.

Both Hill and Henderson represent poor casting -neither capable of arousing or sustaining an audience's interest for an entire movie. And even more obvious, the rented T-Bird Craig drives in the fake Acapulco setting constantly upstages our yawn of a hero, quickly becoming the actual star of the picture.