Lightning Strikes Twice

A murder mystery/romance from 1951. Richard Todd has just been released from prison for murder. A witness came forward who gave convincing testimony prompting his parole. Even though he knows he's going to be on the tongues of the gossiping hordes back home who believe he was guilty, he returns home. Into this melodrama comes an actress, played by Ruth Roman (famously for fighting rubber monsters in 1955's This Island Earth), out looking for a dude ranch for much needed R & R. Getting her rental car stuck in the mud during a torrential downpour, she finds herself in a seemingly desolate cottage where Todd has holed up who takes her in for the night & even provides her breakfast the next morn before she makes her way to her destination. Once there, we find out the caretaker, played by Mercedes McCambridge (who will forever be known as the voice of the demon in The Exorcist) & her younger brother, played by future Dobie Gillis star, Darryl Hickman, had a history w/Todd & who claims she witnessed the murder. As her curiosity soon starts to overwhelm her, Roman soon becomes enamored of Todd much to the chagrined of the townsfolk, especially those who knew the murder victim. Once marriage is proposed & consummated, the truth of the past crime soon rears up, putting Roman in doubt of the man she married. Pretty good for the most part, the film only falters (still, for some, in a good way!) when it veers into sheer camp as Roman realizes the potential error in her ways moments after she's exchanged vows & when the killer is revealed, no piece of scenery is safe from excess chewing. Also starring my favorite cinematic sleaze, Zachary Scott, here playing an old friend of Todd's.

Fun overheated histrionics in the desert with two of the more under-appreciated actresses of the 50's.

Ruth Roman is a big city actress looking for a bit of rest in the wilderness and finding little. Right from the get go things in this docile community seem a bit off even though the residents appear friendly. Next thing you know she's neck deep in contretemps with suspected murderers and intrigue! It's all pitched to the higher notes of melodrama but kept grounded by the competence of the cast and no nonsense direction.

The movie is a routine Warners programmer but given some snap by the quality performances of Ruth Roman, subtle and dignified, and Mercedes McCambridge, controlled for most of the film but she gets her chance to do some florid emoting later in the picture.

Professionally done this is enjoyable in an over the top way especially for fans of either actress.

It's lurid and ludicrously plotted. Yet despite, or perhaps because of its overwrought melodrama, it's oddly entertaining, like a Carol Burnett parody of one of those classic "women's pictures". If you can just give in to the absurdities of the story, you might have a good time. The acting is slightly over-the-top, but it suits the material.

While staying at a deserted dude ranch, a woman (Roman) gets involved with a man (Todd) suspected of murder

Apparently, the movie was intended to showcase rising stars Roman, Todd, and Mc Cambridge. Trouble is they're undone by a screenplay that can't make up its mind. Is it a whodunit, a noir, a "woman in danger", or a soap opera. Actually, it's a little of all four that turns out more like an overloaded dish of stew than a tasty soufflé. Too bad because it's a waste of some fine performers like Conroy, Givney, and especially Scott.

There is one ridiculous scene almost worth the overlong 90-minutes. That's where Todd and Roman decide to have a romantic interlude perched atop a narrow cliff. Now, why a woman would choose a drop-off as a trysting spot with a suspected wife killer remains the movie's biggest mystery. In fact, the scene is almost a parody of every poorly staged soap opera on film. As an old movie fan, I wondered why I'd never heard of this film. Now I know.

Richard Todd sits on death row, waiting execution for his wife's murder. At the eleventh hour, a reprieve and new trial come through; he's acquitted, thanks to one holdout juror (Mercedes McCambridge). Released, he disappears into the west Texas desert.

Enter Ruth Roman, a touring actress in search of the desert's restorative climate. An innkeeper and his wife become solicitous of her when she stops in a small town, and lend her a car to get to the dude ranch where she hopes to recuperate. En route (in a scene prescient of Janet Leigh's flight from Phoenix in Psycho), she gets lost in thunderstorms and takes refuge in an abandoned house -- where Todd is holed up. They size one another up and, next morning, she continues on to the dude ranch. Run by McCambridge and her emotionally disturbed young brother (Darryl Hickman), it has closed down, but they agree to put Roman up for a few days. But she seeks out Todd again, despite conflicting stories about his guilt or innocence.

Director King Vidor and scriptwriter Lenore Coffee, having goaded Bette Davis to pull out all the stops in Beyond The Forest two years earlier, here take on another overloaded melodrama, with mixed results. We see too little of key events and rely instead on hearsay about other characters, who sometimes haven't yet been sufficiently established (and the one brief flashback is a mistake -- we need either more or none). And of eight major characters, two or even three (including Zachary Scott) prove superfluous. But the movie's biggest stumble lies in the casting of Richard Todd. Remembered if at all as the title character in that echt-1950s biopic of pious patriotism A Man Called Peter, here his stiff British accent and acting falsify the whole Southwestern milieu (Lightning Strikes Twice, like Desert Fury of five years earlier, evokes the new Sunbelt of money and leisure).

Happily, the female characters fall on the plus side. Kathryn Givney shows spunk and intelligence as the strangely solicitous Mrs. Nolan. Ruth Roman, on evidence of this movie and Tomorrow Is Another Day, had more range and subtlety than she was let display in her best known role as Farley Granger's mannikin-like fiancee in Strangers on a Train. But the acting honors, inevitably, fall to McCambridge. Looking especially tomboyish, her face registers every thought and feeling that passes through her head; she's hyper-alert in her moods and responses. And so, as was her custom during her disappointingly thin screen career, she delivers the most memorable performance of the film.