Dead Ringer (1964)

What a waste of my time!!!

A Disappointing Continuation

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Among her contemporaries Bette Davis is the only one I know who managed to carry off playing twin sisters twice in films. The first time was in A Stolen Life and in 1964 she did it again in Dead Ringer. The first time she was a good and a bad twin, but in Dead Ringer both twins commit evil acts during the course of the movie.Bette's former co-star Paul Henreid directed her in Dead Ringer with co- stars Karl Malden and Peter Lawford. Back in the day one twin stole the man the other was in love with because he was rich, prosperous, and part of old California society. That one got rich, the other never married and now lives owning a bar that she's way behind in debt with.When the husband dies the bar owner learns that back in the day he was tricked into marriage with a false pregnancy story and as the family was Catholic he married her and couldn't divorce. That sets the bar owner into a murderous frenzy and she kills the widow and then assumes her place while she also fakes a suicide story.With a few bumps along the way Bette settles into the other Bette's life. Then a lowlife boyfriend played by Peter Lawford comes back in the picture. Lawford is a gigolo/golf pro and he and society Bette have some deep secrets. The rest you can see for yourself.Oddly enough A Stolen Life also involved a twin taking another's place and as for the rest of the story, if you know what happens in The Postman Always Rings Twice you know what happens here.With the possible exception of Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, Dead Ringer maybe Davis's best film of the Sixties. She throws herself into both roles so well that it like watching twins in action. She also has a nice group of supporting players in roles they are well cast in. But this one is Bette's show.Watch her steal another life.

"Dead Ringer" is a Bette Davis suspense/horror film reminiscent of both her old studio melodramas and the "shock" cinema wave of the era that began with Hitchcock's "Psycho." Neither element works here and the movie's glacier-like pace makes it almost unwatchable.I'm a big fan of Davis from her glory days at Warner, and I can even appreciate her camp/schlock period, with movies like "The Nanny" and "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane" but "Dead Ringer" is dead on arrival: Bette plays a dual role of twin sisters, and the movie opens with a dull, extended conversation between the two... it's Bette vs. Bette, but neither one of them has anything interesting to say."Edith" eventually kills her twin and assumes her identity, for no other reason than she was three months behind on her rent. Now Bette has to fool everyone into believing the death was a suicide, and that she is not Edith but Margaret, her sister. Confused? Good. It's such an outrageous plot twist- and handled with such indifference by the director- that it seems more like a nuisance than a heart-pounding, white-knuckled thrill ride.And a note on the direction: Actor Paul Henreid was behind the camera, and seems to have been suffering from narcolepsy. Scenes run on and on, there are extended wordless, action-free sequences, and the pace of the film is like a funeral procession. It meanders... it trods along... it doesn't seem like anyone involved is invested in the story in any way. Even the great Karl Malden shows up and can't save the movie with one of his typically-stellar performances.If you want to watch Bette Davis at her worst for two solid hours in a story that goes nowhere, this is the movie for you. Otherwise, move along.GRADE: D

Dead Ringer (1964)From that crazy, Gothic, overblown, fabulous last decade of Bette Davis's career, another wild one. And we get not one, but two Davis characters, twins, and the scenes where they are both shown (seamlessly) it's a kind of Bette Davis gluttony. Luckily, she's a great actress, and she pulls makes the melodrama burn. The movie makes no secret of being over the top, the plot outrageous and engaging enough to pull along all the other unlikely and exaggerated scenes.The weakest link here is possibly the direction, under actor Paul Henreid's hand (most famous as the second male lead in Casablanca). As amazing as the plot is by nature (filled with double-crossing treachery and murder), it actually drags a little at times. But not for long. The cinematography is really amazing (the great Ernst Haller at work--he did so many truly stellar movies it's breathtaking), amazing enough to study, the camera arcing around a stairway, or playing with the light turning on and off. The music is an odd mix--the harpsichord jingles are both perfect in setting a creepy mood and tacky for seeming to cheapen the drama--and it's classical conductor Andre Previn (Mia Farrow's onetime-husband) in charge. But counteracting this is some great funky early sixties organ jazz in a few scenes (the two performers are uncredited), what you might expect from a Sam Fuller movie.As awesome as this movie seems as a bit of delicious excess, something to roar about, eyes glued to the visuals, it's also a little awkward, just a shade. Like Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, The Nanny, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, it's in the pantheon of cult Bette Davis movies, an early 1960s attempt to keep both her career and the old-fashioned Hollywood drama alive. It manages to do both.

If you buy Bette Davis as a bar owner in love with Karl Malden, then you might find this claptrap enjoyable. Otherwise, be warned, this is really a very un-stylish camp horror film clearly made to cash in on Davis' post Baby Jane rebirth.Davis plays twins (one is rich, one is the aforementioned bar owner). One of them kills the other and takes her place. The dead sister's sleazy gigolo boyfriend (the ideally cast Peter Lawford) suspects something right away and sees dollar signs. In addition to Lawford, the supporting cast includes Jean Hagen and a kooky Estelle Winwood. Davis is Davis, Malden is stern and capable. The movie, however is sunk by the dull direction of actor Paul Henreid.