Two of a Kind

Two of a Kind is directed by Henry Levin and written by James Edward Grant, James Gunn and Lawrence Kimble. It stars Edmond O'Brien, Lizabeth Scott, Terry Moore, Alexander Knox, Griff Barnett, Robert Anderson and Virginia Brissac. Music is by George Duning and cinematography by Burnett Guffey.

Plot has O'Brien, Scott and Knox try to con a rich old couple that their son, who disappeared when he was three, has resurfaced in the older body of O'Brien. Thus they hope to get the $10 million inheritance due to the heir upon the death of the parents…

It all starts so very well, Scott's sultry blonde hunts out O'Brien's shady player to do a major con and he falls for her feminine whiles hook line and sinker, even agreeing to have his little finger mangled in a car door for the con cause. Sadly this is where the picture falls apart and unfurls in a lightweight manner.

Interesting possibilities are ignored, such as Moore's sprightly niece character who likes to straighten out bad men (it ends up playing as something that should be in a Cary Grant screwball) and a murderous plot that threatens to make the ending more lively (by this time the O'Brien/Scott pairing has become sickly nice), to leave us with what turns out to be a quite repugnant ending.

Guffey's black and white photography is crisp but just like the film itself, it really isn't noir at all. Levin and the cast try hard, but saddled with an unadventurous screenplay it rounds out as a minor B movie of little substance. 5/10

The dialog is splendid, so is the acting, Lizabeth Scott more sparkling with her beauty and intelligence than ever, Edmond O'Brien is always a reliable ace card, and Alexander Knox for once is the bad guy, but what is all this really about? Is it a criminal comedy, an aborted noir without any crime, a satire on all the films of racketeering business, a twisted romance with too many lovers and relationships involved with each other, and yet it is fascinating all the way, and in the last 15 minutes things start to happen for real, everything being turned upside down, when all the cards of the game suddenly are exposed and everyone finds himself a loser. It's a witty intrigue with a lot of twists to the tricky and intelligent set-up, which seems absolutely perfect, until someone changes his mind. It looks really bad from a moral point of view all through, but by an odd turn honesty upsets the racket and love conquers all. In all its criminal intrigue with a perfect perspective of a noir, it is actually a comedy of romance heavily spiced with all the elements of a very crooked noir design, but with a very satisfactory outcome.

A 1951 film noir involving a lengthy grift being pulled on a rich couple. Lizabeth Scott starts the film off looking for a particular military man who's fallen off the grid who was aces as a soldier but his demeanor left something to be desired. Tracking the man down, played by Edmund O'Brien, at a bingo hall, Scott entices him w/the long con; an elderly married couple (who's wife is in a bad way) had lost their son & although presumed dead they hold out hope he may turn up whereby he'll leave him 10 million dollars in his will which Scott & her partner, played by Alexander Knox, will then split. The first hurdle, which O'Brien agrees to, is to chop off a part of one of his fingers (which he does when Scott slams a car door on it!) since the boy had this happen to him when he was younger & then settle into the machinations of the game, meeting the parents & laying out the possibly excruciatingly long stretch to see if the caper will come through w/O'Brien sticking around since he & Scott have connected romantically while Knox (revealed to be the couple's lawyer) bides his time waiting in the wings. I never bought the hook for this film & frankly O'Brien isn't quite convinced as well as his determination to complete the deal starts to waffle towards the film's end leaving the viewer w/a perplexed 'huh' on their face as we see if this long bet will pay out.

The two of a kind of this film's title are Edmond O'Brien and Lizabeth Scott, two schemers who aren't above their fair share of dirty dealings but who draw the line at murder.

The implausible scheme in this one involves O'Brien posing as the lost son of a millionaire who will cash in on the millionaire's inheritance once he dies and split it with Scott and the millionaire's attorney (played by Alexander Knox), who engineers the whole thing. The plot of course unravels, as plots usually do in movies like this, until talk of murder comes up, as it invariably does. One murder is planned, another is attempted, but all ends well for our bad-but-not-so-bad-that-we-don't-kind-of-like-them lovers.

My favorite thing about this movie is that the plot these crooks hatch has a thousand holes in it from the beginning, but the movie acknowledges that and makes use of them. For once, the movie is as smart as we are.

Terry Moore has a large role as the millionaire's niece, a do-gooder who is determined to find the sugar at the middle of O'Brien's bitter pill. Her appearance in the film brings a strong comic element to it (she's turned on by being robbed at gunpoint) and keeps things refreshingly off kilter. There are hints at romantic comedy mixed in with brutal scenes, like the one where O'Brien allows his finger to be smashed in a car door so that doctors will have to amputate it. I suppose fans of true noirs may be disappointed that this film is far too light overall to truly earn the title, but there's a lot of fun to be had if you can look past that.

Grade: B

Lightweight noir about a con where Edmond O'Brien pretends to be the long-lost son of a millionaire. The movie is fun but never goes to the dark places it seems to hint at. Lizabeth Scott is set up to be a great femme fatale (the scene where she ropes O'Brien into the scheme and gets him to make a brutal sacrifice is the highlight of the film) but her character fizzles out. Fans of con artist flicks will be disappointed as the plan doesn't have the intricate details that make them enjoyable. Although it's an enjoyable film (O'Brien especially), it all wraps up far too neatly and without much sizzle. I did enjoy the sleazy subtext of Terry Moore as the "good girl" who gets turned on by bad guys. When she meets O'Brien, you can read "rape fantasy" all over her face.