La double énigme

Okay, with my background as an ex-therapist and psychology teacher, I was quick to notice that there was a lot of psychological mumbo-jumbo in this film. The whole notion of a "nice twin" and an "evil twin" just seems like a silly cliché.

However, if you ignore the improbability of the film, you will be rewarded with a pretty exciting and original film. Olivia DeHavilland plays identical twins and the split screen and other tricks were done pretty seamlessly. Her acting, as usual, was lovely to watch. The film also starred Thomas Mitchell as the cop and Lew Ayers as the psychologist--and both were at about their best.

The story excels in regard to how it portrayed the sociopathic sister. She was pretty realistic, as she was a good example of an Antisocial Personality Disorder--having no conscience and being highly manipulative.

Some other things that I found interesting were the excellent plot twists and suspense elements. Also, I was surprised when I noticed that at least some of the Rorschach cards (for the "ink blot test") were real cards--these are NOT supposed to be shown to the general public and are to only be used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. And the responses the women gave were pretty realistic. I guess someone slipped up, huh?

A man is murdered, and a woman called Ruth Collins is seen at the scene of the crime.The case gets tricky, when is found out that Ruth has a twin sister, Terry.They both have to then go see a psychiatrist, Dr.Scott Elliott.The doc falls for the normal sister, but which is which? The other one of them is capable of committing a cold blooded murder, but which one? Robert Siodmak's Film-Noir The Dark Mirror (1946) takes some Freudian turns as it goes on.Olivia de Havilland shines in a dual role.She's terrific as the psychotic sister as well as the normal one.Lew Ayres is great as the Shrink.Character actor Thomas Mitchell does very fine job as Lt.Stevenson.This movie was very fascinating to watch.It gave some challenge finding out which one did it.60 years has done no harm to this film.

Psychology is a dubious science as it is, but, when a Hollywood screenwriter gets his hands on it, anything even closely resembling fact is thrown out the window. In the mid-1940s, Freudian psychology reached the peak of its popularity, and films such as Hitchcock's 'Spellbound (1945)' and Lang's 'Secret Beyond the Door… (1947)' utilised their own versions of psychoanalysis to provide easy answers for their characters' delusions. Robert Siodmak's 'The Dark Mirror (1946)' is no different, in that we are offered a half-baked pseudo-scientific dissertation on why even identical twins can be anything but identical when it comes to personality traits. In fact, screenwriter Nunnally Johnson (who also wrote and directed 'The Three Faces of Eve (1957)') actively pumps the familiar but questionable notion that twins respectively represent the good and evil sides of man. This duality is similar to that explored in the earlier versions of 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920/1931/1941),' though the two sides of the human coin are here separated from their mutual shell and allowed to behave as independent entities.

Olivia de Havilland excels in dual roles as Terry and Ruth Collins, twin sisters who might just have pulled off the perfect crime, even if only one knows it. When the sisters' shared boyfriend is murdered in cold blood, two witnesses place one of the twins at the scene of the crime, while three more provide a solid alibi for the other. The only problem is that nobody can tell the pair apart. A police detective (Thomas Mitchell) is torn apart by the case: how can he charge either woman with murder if he can't decide which of the sisters is, in fact, a murderess? Only through Hollywood's good friend Dr. Freud can the true nature of the crime be exposed. The distinction between the "good" and "insane" twin is clearly drawn early in the film, with de Havilland playing one sister, Terry, as a cocky dominator, and the other, Ruth, as more softly-spoken, with eyes always downcast and hands delicately clasped together. Clarifying the dual relationship is some convenient symbolism used in the film's climax: Terry is dressed in black, and Ruth in white.

Convincing optical effects and the use of body doubles are employed successfully to create the illusion of two Olivia de Havillands. The actress does well as both characters, perhaps channelling her dislike of sister Joan Fontaine to portray the snarling, psychotic and homicidally jealous "evil sister." Though they start out perfectly alike, it doesn't take long for the two Collins sisters to develop distinct personalities in the eyes of the audience, and Siodmak should quickly have dispensed with the obvious name-tags (either a necklace or a single letter pin) added to ensure that the audience could follow who was who. Perhaps misguidedly, the presence of twins is at first played largely for laughs, with composer Dimitri Tiomkin keeping the atmosphere surprisingly light and fluffy. Fortunately, however, the mood darkens substantially in the film's second half, as the hatred simmering slowly within the darker twin threatens to spill over into reality. Though the unlikely psychology behind 'The Dark Mirror' tests one's credulity at regular intervals, the strong acting and unique storyline make this one worth seeking out.

The Dark Mirror is directed by Robert Siodmak and adapted to screenplay by Nunnally Johnson from a story by Vladimir Pozner. It stars Olivia de Havilland, Lew Ayres, Thomas Mitchell, Richard Long and Charles Evans. Music is by Dimitri Tiomkin and cinematography by Milton Krasner.

A man appears to have been murdered by one of the identical twin Collins sisters, but both of whom have an alibi. The police and the psychiatrist have their work cut out...

Straight out of the corner of postwar Hollywood that began to take fascination with mental illness, The Dark Mirror triumphs more as a technical exercise than as anything resembling thought provoking analysis. The simplistic Freudian elements aside, film is impressively mounted and performed by Siodmak and de Havilland respectively. Story follows the trajectory of a cat-and-mouse game, with the makers nicely putting us the viewers into the same struggle the authorities have in sussing out which sister is the damaged killer.

Siodmak's (The Spiral Staircase) attention to detail and grasp of mood setting really lifts the piece to greater heights. Aided by the considerable photographic skills of Krasner (The Set-Up), Siodmak creates a world of psychological disturbance, a place aligned with suspense and symbolism. Right from the doozy of an opening scene to the denouement, Siodmak manages to keep the contrivances to the rear of the play and let de Havilland and the visual textures be the prime focus.

The effects work is very good, with de Havilland having to quite often play off against herself. Sure in today's age of High Definition et al, you don't have to stretch your viewing experience to see how the effects were done, but why would you? Just enjoy de Havillland's riveting performances in the dual roles (see also her excellence in The Snake Pit two years later), her skillful little subtleties as she deftly plays out the respective psychological traits of sibling rivalry gone astray.

Is it a gimmick movie? Well no not really, it's honest about what it wants to achieve in terms of psychiatric observations and treatments. Yet lesser lights than Siodmak, Krasner and de Havilland would have struggled to make it work, especially as the romance angle in the screenplay nearly derails the requisite mood come the finale. Thankfully, in spite of some obvious negatives, it's still well worthy of viewing investment. 7/10

Those were the days.Every director had his Freudian movie during the glorious forties:Hitchcock had " spellbound",Lang "secret beyond the door" Tourneur "cat people".... and Siodmak "the dark mirror".and it stood the test of time quite well ,almost as much as the three works I mention above.Of course ,the film owes a lot to Olivia de Havilland's sensational rendition,well half a century before Jeremy Irons' "dead ringers" or Keaton's "multiplicity".We run the whole gamut, as Siodmak brought out all his equipment :inkblood test, lie detector,mirror,and the whole kit.But De Havilland's charisma -at a time when actresses mastered their audience-survives and remains intact.We often feel ill-at-ease when we do not know who we're watching anymore(she plays twin sisters who are suspects in a criminal affair).De Havilland was perfect when it came to portraying ambiguous women (see also "My cousin Rachel")

Robert Siodmak had an eventful career:after his debut in Germany,he made some works in France ("Pièges" (1939) is the best and deserves to be watched)then came to America where he made remarkable thrillers ("the spiral staircase";"the killers").His career ended in Europa with interesting -but difficult to see- movies about Nazism ,but the only one of those late movies we can see now is "Katia" (1959),pure schmaltz