Double destinée

This movie is rarely seen in the United States. This is a shame. This film is filled with suspense, atmosphere and poetry, from its visuals to its score.

There is a hint of German Expressionism here, as in all Noir movies of the forties and fifties. (This was made in 1946 by a studio in Mexico City.) Del Rio is statuesque and, at the same time, vulnerable. Her work in the silent era informs this performance. I have a feeling Billy Wilder had a glance at this. It preceded SUNSET BOULEVARD by a few years, and Del Rio could very easily have played Norma Desmond.

The other actors here are solid, and they each have doppelgängers. (Del Rio plays twins.) There is a good guy who courts the protagonist and there's a bad guy doing the same.

There is a mood of regret bordering on a fear of damnation and Del Rio conveys this mood with her face. Mexico City looks holy, haunted and hard, what with the monumental stonework in every shot.

1946 may have been the best time to film this, and Mexico the best place. Nothing is overt, but it is a daring, dramatic look at a life lived under the surface.

Although I liked very much the detailed review of "Melvelvit" I would like to add that this interesting film, one of the best in the Mexican movies history, is due to the collaboration of American writer Rian James and one of the most important Mexican writers of the era, José Revueltas, and the Mexican film director Roberto Gavaldón. Actually, "La Otra" is one of the best Del Río and Gavaldón films, as well the set designer Gunther Gerszo (sometimes written Gerzso or Gerzo)and photographer Alex Phillips, all important figures in the artistic Mexican world. The "gothic nightmare... somber night-world ambiance" is due to Mexican Gerszo, who studied and worked at the Cleveland Play House in the USA, and combined his movie jobs with painting, becoming one of the most important Mexican abstract painters. In movies, he worked with John Ford ("Sombrerito", in Hollywood), John Houston ("Under the Volcano"), Luis Buñuel ("Susana", "Una mujer sin amor" and "El Bruto" with Kathy Jurado) as well with the most important Mexican directors. He did the sets for Mexican cult films "El Vampiro" (The Vampire) and its sequel, El Ataud del Vampiro" (The Vampire Coffin) about which he claimed, never even watched once they were finished (and they're great as camp Mexican movies examples!)

Based on a Rian James ' thriller , it was remade with Bette Davis in America as "dead ringer" ,but the first version is much better .They are even shades of "vertigo" in the relationship between Maria turned Magadalena and her ex-suitor ; the last scene is so intense that it's quite possible that the distraught man has finally discovered the horrible truth .And neither "vertigo" nor the French novel on which the screenplay was written "d'entre les morts" existed in 1946.

Death and madness are the keynotes as it would be in "El niño y la niebla "(1953) and "Mascario" (1960)-which began with the feast of dead in Mexico . Like Olivia De Havilland in "the dark mirror" released the very same year , Dolores Del Rio plays two parts ,but unlike the Siodmak psychological suspense , there is no "good one" and "bad one" ;after all when you put Maria and Magdalena together ,you get the name of a biblical woman who was in turn a sinner and a saint .

Physically and morally ,both sisters are worlds apart : Maria looks like a spinster , Magdalena a sexy socialite whose most fervent wish is to get rid of her mourning clothes .Maria is exploited,economically and sexually , by a society that leaves only one hope : to win on the lottery (signs often appear on her way) .

Roberto Gavaldon's directing is ,as usual ,brilliant : the opening scene ,a funeral , the murder (the shot is lost in the din of the firecrackers ,while a clown's head is dangling , a threatening omen (in El niño y la niebla (1953) , in the masked ball ,a terrifying dancer represents madness); when she comes back to her victim's house , the mourners are praying for her brother-in-law 's soul ,and the viewer before he hears the incantations thinks Maria is losing her mind.And afterward she becomes almost crazy in the empty house where shadows and lights create a presence (a sublime shot of a mirror reflects three images of the woman ).

And finally ,when she is aware of her brother-in-law's will ,she will understand she threw away her most precious things ;the buck who woos her (her sister's lover) is a hateful fortune-hunter who blackmails her.

Suspense is sustained till the last minute ,as I write above , and " la otra" compares favorably with the best American films noirs.

With only a handfull of reviews, and seemingly no wide-spread popularity, it is time to advocate for this movie.

There is nothing wrong with it, it has a 'noir' feeling, and plays on a larger scale of levels of the basic human feelings. There are some twists and turns, there are no lengths, a tight script, good cinematography, and as basis a story of depth. All well done! (Except, and we all knew that, didn't we? That Mexican actors are not the greatest ones. So here. Otherwise I might have given a '10'.

The story has been described elsewhere, a twin of sisters, one completely different character-wise from the other - so it seems - lead totally different lives: one in luxury, the other at the lower end of the financial scale. They quarrel frequently.

At one moment in time, one has to chance to slip into the role of the other. And does that quite efficiently. Though only to discover that the other, the rich one, doesn't actually suffer less.

And then there's this police officer who - we assume by the script - was told to vie for about the most ridiculously-in-love person that one can imagine. But he's not in love with the lady that the other one has taken up, so he'll probably miss his luck.

And at the very end, when discovering the true ongoings, he suddenly falls from love. So it seems that only his girl kind of expects to be loved, and still is in love.

Sometimes this movie reminds me of Bunuel: In the end, there is not 'the good one' and neither 'the bad one'.

In case you have an opportunity to watch this movie: make sure not to miss it!

Dolores del Rio back in Mexico following her wartime sojourn in Hollywood made her own equivalent of Bette Davis' 'A Stolen Life' the same year, from a story by Rian James actually remade with Davis nearly twenty years later as 'Dead Ringer' (1964) under the direction of Paul Henried (with Karl Malden as the heroine's true love).

Del Rio looks more ravishing than Davis ever could, and Gunther Gerszo's dramatic sets are garnished with appropriate photography by Alex Phillips and a 'psychological' theremin score by Raul Lavista.

The final scene is a classic, although it does take a long time getting there.