Deadly Duo

The problem with "Deadly Duo" is that the script idea is very good and should have been the basis of a nice film noir drama. Unfortunately, the film just isn't that interesting and feels quite flat.

When the film begins, a rich old lady (familiar TV character actress Irene Tedrow) meets with a young lawyer and offers him a very enticing proposition. It seems that her son married some lady a few years back and since then, he died and she has been left with a kid...her grandkid. If he can manage to convince the daughter-in- law to give her custody, she'll pay the lawyer a bundle.

When the lawyer visits the mother, she seems like a decent person and a perfectly good mother. Not surprisingly, she won't sell her kid and tells the lawyer to take a hike. But, the lady has a nearly identical sister and she and her sleazy boyfriend concoct a plan to kill her and make it look like an accident. Then the new guardian, this sister, could sell the kid!! What's next? See the film.

I am NOT saying this is a bad film but the suspense wasn't handled properly. The ending came too quickly, seemed too pat and wasn't entirely satisfying.

Most of this movie takes place in Acapulco. It's not that we don't believe that ... Exactly ...

The sets look for all the world, though, like sets from TV series of the time. And wait! Not that Bette Davis and Olivia De Havilland hadn't done it already. But isn't the good twin/evil twin reminiscent of "I Dream Of Jeannie" and "Bewitched"? The sisters, both played by Marcia Henderson, really don't look alike. Yes, they are the same actress. But the evil sister wears a long platinum wig and presents herself so differently, no one would think them related. Unless, of course, there were constant dialogue commenting on their remarkable similarity of appearance.

Craig Hill plays a California lawyer down on his luck. He is hired to do something moderately dishonorable, down in Mexico. He's not bad. He looks good in a brief bathing suit and he's filmed hat way for quite a bit. He is often filmed (fully clothed) from the back, walking, though. This was unflattering to several major female stars in the 1940s. And it does him no favors.

This is not great film making. It's moderately entertaining. And the cars in it are fantastic! It's not one of those projects in which they all are from the same company. The then-Big Three are all represented; and we get to see some real beauties.

Smoothly done crime flick. By 1961, 60-minute b&w B-movies were largely a relic of the past. But this little indie with B-movie vets like LeBorg and Lowery show that the skills still survive. So what's the deal with the twin sisters, nice girl Sabena and the vixenish Dara, both played by actress Henderson. They're so alike, yet unalike. Then there's struggling attorney Morgan (Hill) who's hired by rich woman to fly to Acapulco to seal a deal where suddenly widowed Sabena gives up her little son for a half-million dollars. At same time, Morgan will get a fat attorney's fee he badly needs. But once there, Morgan meets Dara and her sinister husband Jay (Lowery) and the charming Sabena. Understandably, widowed Sabena doesn't want to give up son for any money amount even to her mother. However, the grasping Dara and Jay have other plans as they hover in the background. Meanwhile, attorney Morgan's beginning to question the ethics of his mission. Thus tensions rise and we wonder how will things turn out.

Henderson really scores, especially as kittenish Dara. In times past, production would have had to split the screen to get the same performer into the same scene. Here, however, technology has apparently triumphed since no split screens are sealed over by such gimmicks as doors jambs or wall ends. Thus the twins are an excellent effect all to Henderson's thespian advantage. Production also does a good job of inserting stock shots of Acapulco into studio scenery, though I did tire of Morgan driving the same car along the same driveway about ten times over. Anyway, it's a good little B-flick with interesting plot, plausible performances, and smooth directing. So cheapos can still entertain.

Saw this movie on TV recently; not much to get excited about. The actors seemed charming, especially supporting actor Robert Lowery, who has a resemblance to Clark Gable or Cesar Romero. It seems like the entire movie was shot inside a single Hollywood sound stage. Marcia Henderson, whom I have never heard of, played two characters who were twin sisters: one nice, the other mildly evil. The evil sister's part was overacted to say the least, but perhaps that was what the script called for. The movie took place entirely in Acapulco, Mexico, but it sure could have used a few more Acapulco scenes. i agree with an earlier commenter: what happened to Craig Hill? He had leading-man good looks, but he seems to have disappeared from view after Whirlybirds.

It's quite obvious that Deadly Dull is the proper title for this United Artists release, which IMDb informs us played on many a double bill from the same studio's hit in Britain, "Dr. No". That fact reminds me of how B-movies also served as so-called chasers - designed to help empty theatres (as patrons like me would sit through show after show) in the days when double features flourished. After watching the magnetic Sean Connery dominate the screen as Bond, it must have been hard to adjust to staring at the permanent nonentity Craig Hill walking through his role in such an uneventful co-feature.

Over 60 years later, it was distracting to watch the "actress playing twins" gimmick - looking for any mismatching in the shots processed to have lead Marcia Henderson on screen twice at once, or the obvious double seen from the back of the head in other easier to shoot and process shots. Two wigs to differentiate the sisters are glaringly fake.

The plodding story is relentlessly uninteresting, leading to a busier (but way too late) final reel of contrived and unconvincing plot twists leading to a fake wholesome happy ending.

Both Hill and Henderson represent poor casting -neither capable of arousing or sustaining an audience's interest for an entire movie. And even more obvious, the rented T-Bird Craig drives in the fake Acapulco setting constantly upstages our yawn of a hero, quickly becoming the actual star of the picture.