L'homme à démasquer

"Chase a Crooked Shadow" is a 1958 black and white film starring Anne Baxter, Richard Todd, Herbert Lom, Alexander Knox, and Faith Brook.

Baxter plays an heiress, Kimberly Prescott, living abroad, whose dead brother (Todd) turns up after being killed in a car accident a year earlier. Except he's not her brother.

He brings a woman, Miss Whitman (Brook) with him, sends Kimberly's maid away and brings in his own servants. Kimberly is desperate to reach her architect friend Chandler (Knox) who will know this man isn't her brother, but she can't reach him. And the local chief of police (Lom) seems to side with the fake brother.

Well, after all, he does have the correct ID, and the photo Kimberly keeps by her bed has suddenly turned into a photo of the fake!

The question is, what do these people want? Is she safe with them, or do they plan to get rid of her?

This intriguing, atmospheric drama is excellent, except I've seen so many of these things (it's one of my favorite genres) that I figured the plot out right away. Most people will simply enjoy the ride and the surprises.

Baxter looks lovely as the put-upon, desperate heiress, and the role calls for a gamut of emotions, all of which she delivers. Todd and Lom are terrific as well. Really excellent, with very good performances all around.

Having long been interested in watching this well-regarded British thriller of the 'let's-drive-an-heiress-mad' variety, I can't help admitting I was somewhat underwhelmed by it; the reason for this, perhaps, is that we've seen this plot in countless other films so that, while one hoped that the treatment would rise above the overly-familiar premise, what we get here is pretty standard (read: low-key or, if you like, genteel) stuff. That is not to say the suspense of the piece – and the awkwardness that goes with it (the heroine trying time and again to convince the police that the man who says is her brother isn't really) – isn't effectively rendered, far from it. For one thing, the consummate professionalism and no-nonsense attitude of the people involved (despite the modest resources at hand) is redolent of classic British cinema at its best and the casting, while unlikely at first glance, is quite successful in the long run. Anne Baxter is the put-upon heroine, Richard Todd the smooth intruder (who goes so far as to acquire the daredevil driving skills of Baxter's allegedly deceased brother!), Herbert Lom the Spanish Police Commissioner (the film is set in picturesque Barcelona) and Alexander Knox appears as Baxter's apparently duplicitous uncle. All of this converges satisfactorily in the film's twist ending – and its real coup – which not only subverts everything that has gone on before, but would be too far-fetched to swallow had one not been sufficiently drawn into the intricate proceedings.

Chase a Crooked Shadow is directed by Michael Anderson and written by David D. Osborn and Charles Sinclair. It stars Richard Todd, Anne Baxter, Herbert Lom and Faith Brook. Music is scored by Matyas Seiber, with additional guitar by Julian Bream, and cinematography by Erwin Hillier.

A man shows up at Kimberley Prescott's Spanish villa claiming to be her brother. Trouble is is that her brother, Ward Prescott, died in a car accident a year ago...

The core formula for Chase a Crooked Shadow has been well mined over the years, only recently I myself viewed the quite excellent Hammer Films Production of Paranoiac, which treads the same ground as Anderson's movie, but there's a filmic style here that adds further atmosphere to the moody mysterious tone of the narrative. Thus, in spite of the absurdities and stretching of credulity, this is well worth seeking out.

Anderson carefully builds the suspense, ensuring that what we think we know may in fact not be the case. The twists and jolts are deftly handled and the finale is a delightful bolt from the blue. Along the way we are treated to a noirish canvas, where even though the film is shot on location on the Costa Brava, there's a Gothic sheen pretty much every where you look. The interior of the villa is complete with Grandfather clock, iron gate doors, odd light shades, statuettes and one of those staircases with balustrade, all of which is given maximum shadow effects by Hillier. The outside courtyard also serves the uneasy mood well, as does the stone beach house at the bottom of the hill, it should be idyllic, but fret and discord dwell there as well.

Cast are most effective, some have called Todd too wooden, but he needs to be restrained here, he is after all playing the character's cards close to his chest. Baxter, looking positively lovely, handles the mental disintegration process with great skill, Brook really exudes a Mrs. Danvers like menace purely with cold dialogue delivery and an icy stare, while Lom has authoritative presence as the police man being pulled both ways of the mystery. Top performers doing justice to a fine mystery story that is in turn offering some visual pleasures too. 7.5/10

When I was a little boy, I had seen the film, but remembered little of it. However, in the early sixties, my Dad took me on a holiday to Spain, to a little village south of Barcelona, called Sitges. During one coach journey, the courier told us that the mountain road that we were now on was the scene of a fast car drive in a film made a couple of years previously, called 'Chase a Crooked Shadow'. I remember the road well, with the cliff drops hundreds of feet below to the sea and this coupled with my fond memory of that holiday in Franco's long gone Spain and the fact that the film itself is a brilliant piece of old cinema with a terrific twist at the end, makes me watch this film over and over again. I see something in it every time I watch it - the sign of a good film!

Apart from the ingenious (albeit a tad implausible) plot-with-a-twist story, the most memorable aspect of this movie is the haunting solo guitar music played by Julian Bream. It follows the action at every twist and turn, and has much the same tension building quality as did the zither music in "The Third Man".

Richard Todd is the ultimate "officer & gentleman" type actor, but he is quite adept at turning on a sinister streak, as in this movie (and the earlier "Stagefright"). I think Anne Baxter overplays the hysterics just a little (a touch of the "method" creeping in perhaps). But then who am I to say how a woman in such an odd situation as her character finds herself would react? So maybe Anne does get it right.

That situation is a simple one plot-wise. A menacing stranger (with equally menacing friends) has intruded into a wealthy woman's life purporting to be her long dead brother. But is he or isn't he? She is quite sure he isn't. She turns to the police and to her Uncle Chan for help, but none seems to be forthcoming. End of plot...or is it?

I may be wrong (although I don't think so), but I fancy I've also seen the same footage of the "car careering down the mountain road" scene in another totally different movie, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of it. Maybe some one can help me out?

This little black and white thriller keeps the guesswork and the suspense right through to the last. Every time I see it I wonder just how Alfred Hitchcock would have approached it. Differently no doubt, but I don't think he would have done any better. It's just fine as it is. Watch it and see.