dstanwyck I love 1940's melodramas in general, let alone pseudo psychological studies. Speaking of breaking confidentialities! And simplistic diagnostic evaluations. Oh, well - nevertheless it was fun seeing Olivia torment herself at every turn. Probably wishing it were Joan playing opposite her. The questioning of the witnesses in the beginning had some nice characters playing their parts with an air of rightness. Olivia is a bit cloying at times in any of her movies when she is emphasizing the sweet side of her nature rather than just trusting her innate nice self. And when she goes evil, she can pull that off as well, letting that side come out. Thomas Mitchell as often as not can walk away with a movie and he went in that direction here. A little too claustrophobic even with their being many different settings. I like Robert Siodmak's directorial decisions in all of his movies and Nunnally Johnson writes good scripts as a rule. This one was of its time and sounds pretty naive now. But it is fun and nice way of showing both of them, the 2 Olivia's in the same shot vying for screen time. Get some popcorn, stretch out and enjoy yourself.

Spikeopath The Dark Mirror is directed by Robert Siodmak and adapted to screenplay by Nunnally Johnson from a story by Vladimir Pozner. It stars Olivia de Havilland, Lew Ayres, Thomas Mitchell, Richard Long and Charles Evans. Music is by Dimitri Tiomkin and cinematography by Milton Krasner.A man appears to have been murdered by one of the identical twin Collins sisters, but both of whom have an alibi. The police and the psychiatrist have their work cut out...Straight out of the corner of postwar Hollywood that began to take fascination with mental illness, The Dark Mirror triumphs more as a technical exercise than as anything resembling thought provoking analysis. The simplistic Freudian elements aside, film is impressively mounted and performed by Siodmak and de Havilland respectively. Story follows the trajectory of a cat-and-mouse game, with the makers nicely putting us the viewers into the same struggle the authorities have in sussing out which sister is the damaged killer.Siodmak's (The Spiral Staircase) attention to detail and grasp of mood setting really lifts the piece to greater heights. Aided by the considerable photographic skills of Krasner (The Set-Up), Siodmak creates a world of psychological disturbance, a place aligned with suspense and symbolism. Right from the doozy of an opening scene to the denouement, Siodmak manages to keep the contrivances to the rear of the play and let de Havilland and the visual textures be the prime focus.The effects work is very good, with de Havilland having to quite often play off against herself. Sure in today's age of High Definition et al, you don't have to stretch your viewing experience to see how the effects were done, but why would you? Just enjoy de Havillland's riveting performances in the dual roles (see also her excellence in The Snake Pit two years later), her skillful little subtleties as she deftly plays out the respective psychological traits of sibling rivalry gone astray.Is it a gimmick movie? Well no not really, it's honest about what it wants to achieve in terms of psychiatric observations and treatments. Yet lesser lights than Siodmak, Krasner and de Havilland would have struggled to make it work, especially as the romance angle in the screenplay nearly derails the requisite mood come the finale. Thankfully, in spite of some obvious negatives, it's still well worthy of viewing investment. 7/10

calvinnme It will take you awhile to get to Lew Ayres as a character though. The movie opens on the body of a murdered man in a dark room. At first it looks as though this is going to be a police procedural with Lt. Stevenson (Thomas Mitchell) in the lead as he methodically finds out who last saw the dead man alive, who the murdered man was with, etc. Suspect number one is whittled down to a woman who runs a magazine stand in the office building where the dead doc worked. She is hauled in for questioning, but she has an ironclad alibi that includes a concert and a walk in the park, both miles from the scene of the crime, and she has witnesses that have no reason to lie for her. The good lieutenant is just about at his wit's ends when he discovers his suspect has an identical twin. (Olivia DeHaviland as Terry and Ruth Collins). So, the lieutenant quips that one is guilty of murder the other obstruction of justice unless they fess up. Terry quips back "which are you charging with which crime?" The twins have a lawyer and are armed with the fact that you can't haul multiple people in for the same crime when you know one is innocent and just see how it shakes out.At this point Thomas Mitchell fades into the background and the film becomes a psychological drama with Lew Ayres becoming the male lead. Ayres plays Dr. Scott Elliott, initially called in as a witness for the police, but when the Lieutenant discovers Dr. Elliott has spent his career studying twins, he proposes that he make friends with the Collins sisters, offer to use them in a study, and see if he can determine which is the murderer through a psychological profile.This is the part I find hard to swallow. The Collins twins have all their ducks in a row legally, and mum is the word when it comes to talking to the police, and yet they both agree to be studied by a doctor specializing in twin psychology, both yapping their brains out about their individual thought processes, all based on the fact that the good doctor SAYS he is not working for the police? I'll let you watch and see how this all shakes out.I will say that Olivia DeHaviland, like Joan Crawford, was much better at choosing roles that showed off her acting talent than her original studio - in her case Warner Bros. From 1935 until she freed herself from WB, she was pigeonholed as a light comedienne or the love interest of Errol Flynn in whatever swashbuckler he happened to be appearing. That doesn't mean she wasn't entertaining in those roles, I'm just saying she was capable of so much more. This film is a seldom seen example of DeHaviland's excellent skill. You actually see the two distinct personalities of the twins emerging as Olivia has several conversations with "her twin" that only exists as a result of editing and trick photography.Very much worth your time, and since it is hard to find any other way, I have to highly recommend the recent pressed release by Olive Films. I don't like to plug individual commercial products, but I know of no other way to see this fine piece of writing and acting.

GManfred As stated in everyone's write-ups, this is a story of a murder with a twist; the perp is one of two identical twins. One alibis for the other, and since both can't be prosecuted for the crime, the guilty one walks. This does not sit well with Insp. Thomas Mitchell, who tries to think of a way to implicate the guilty one - whichever one that is. And so he enlists the help of psychiatrist Lew Ayres.At first, the murder is presented as an unsolvable conundrum and in a light-hearted vein, but things get serious thereafter and, unfortunately, the plot begins to bog down over some technical psychological data. But Olivia DeHavilland saves the day and the movie with a splendid performance (or two) as the twins. Gradually there appear personality differences so that even the audience can tell the difference between the two. Not many actresses could have pulled off the layered performances of the twins, but not many actresses are as proficient or as skilled as DeHavilland.This is another neglected gem from Universal's cobwebbed movie vaults that needs to be put into circulation by that comatose studio. It is one of Ms. DeHavilland's best performances and raises an average, talky movie to classic status.