A Stolen Life (1946) Online

Bette Davis is at her best in "A Stolen Life" playing the most satisfactory characters in the decade of the forties. The mere idea of showing Ms. Davis on the same frame with herself must have presented a challenge for the director, Curtis Bernhardt. We can't think of any other actress that could have pulled this off with the elegance and the good instinct that Bette Davis brought to the project.

The mere fact of playing two women so different from one another must have been what inspired Ms. Davis to take the dual role, which proved to be one of her most popular on the screen. The good Kate is sweet and unassuming, while Patricia, the identical twin sister, is vain, envious and shallow. In taking Bill away from Kate, Patricia doesn't change her way of life, something that pains Bill, as he has second thoughts about the mistake he made in marrying the wrong woman.

The film will delight all Bette Davis fans because they will get two Bettes for the price of one. Ms. Davis' trademark movements and those expressive eyes are seen throughout the film. Glenn Ford proved to be the right kind of leading man because he always projected an honesty and an integrity little seen in other actors of his generation. Both actors make the movie work in unexpected ways.

The supporting cast is also interesting. Walter Brennan, Dane Clark, Charles Ruggles, and the rest are perfect in the background. The musical score by Max Steiner plays well with the action in the film. The excellent cinematography of Ernest Haller and Sol Polito adds another layer to the movie.

Curtis Bernhardt directed with flair and made "A Stolen Life" a film in which to cherish for the great performances he got from Bette Davis and Glenn Ford.

'A Stolen Life' is designed to give Bette Davis an interesting dual role--and she plays it extremely well, more introspective than usual. With Glenn Ford, Walter Brennan and Dane Clark in support, it's an interesting melodrama of good sister vs. bad sister when the bad one falls in love with the good twin's sweetheart. Romantic rivalry goes into high gear and the plot thickens when the bad twin is accidentally killed in a boating accident--thus giving the good woman an opportunity to pose as her sister in order to be close to her former lover. While it's all highly improbable, especially when described in plot outline, there are a lot of good touches that make the film absorbing, entertaining and believable. Glenn Ford plays the confused young lighthouse keeper convincingly. Dane Clark has a peripheral role as a cynical artist that completely wastes his talent and seems to serve no useful purpose. Walter Brennan, Charles Ruggles and Bruce Bennett have good supporting roles. The trick photography gives the illusion that Davis is really two separate personalities--very effective indeed. For Davis fans, this is a "must see" film. Smoothly directed by Curtis Bernhardt, there's a tasteful background score by Max Steiner that appropriately accompanies images of a New England village setting.

Bette Davis is Kate and her twin Pat in "A Stolen Life," a 1946 film which also stars Glenn Ford, Walter Brennan, Charles Ruggles, and Dane Clark. We first see Davis as the artist Kate visiting the family's New England cottage (these people have homes everywhere). There she meets the drop-dead gorgeous lighthouse man Bill (Ford, in his first role after the war). She falls hard. Then we find out she has a twin sister who is much less reserved, sexier, and who goes after what she wants. On her way to a lunch date, Pat sees Bill, who mistakes her for Kate. One look at him, and she's ready to play along. But really, who could blame her? That day, Bill finds out that Kate is a twin, and that Pat turns him on - while he's only fond of Kate. Nature takes its course, and guess which Bette gets left out.

This is a very entertaining movie with Davis creating two different characters. In the very beginning, you don't know Davis has a twin. She returns home and enters her room with the light off, and her sister starts talking to her from the other side of the room - with a perkier voice, so not even that gives it away. Slowly, we realize they're identical twins, and that she hasn't let Bill into the house because her sister is a man magnet.

Glenn Ford is one film away from big stardom in "A Stolen Life" --next, he would romance Rita Hayworth in "Gilda." At 30, he was stunningly handsome with the easygoing, gentle, and sweet manner that would hold him in good stead for the next 45 years. Truly an ideal leading man. He and Davis get excellent support from Charles Ruggles, in a nice performance as the girls' cousin, and Walter Brennan, Ford's irascible lighthouse boss. Dane Clark's role is somewhat troublesome. In the John Garfield vein, he plays a rough, temperamental artist who teaches Kate to paint better and becomes interested in her, but his role drops off. The entire role could have been cut.

Davis was 37 when she made this film, which she produced herself. With three years left on her contract, it was sadly her last hit at Warners. Deservedly so, because she is terrific in the dual roles. She would repeat this device later on in her career with "Dead Ringer," and some of the plot points are reminiscent of that film.

Wonderfully entertaining and a must for Davis and Ford fans.

I found the first half of the picture dragged for me, with a lot of dark shadows, and meandering scenes at the light house. Once the story picked up, and the "evil" twins goes over the side of the boat, then I knew I was in for some good old fashioned Bette Davis fun. I was very impressed with the creation of the "twins." For 1946, I found the scenes quite convincing, and wondered how they did that. The sets were fabulous, I'd take any of those houses, but thought the costumes were somewhat lacking. No, "Now, Voyager" stunning outfits for sure. Glenn Ford was fine, and very young, however I didn't care for the struggling artist side story. I would like to have seen much more of Kate trying to pass herself off as Pat, for that was the fun part of the film for me.

Twin Sisters played by Bette Davis both have the hots for Glenn Ford although why I'm not sure. He's not a terribly ambitious fellow, wants nothing more in life than to be a lighthouse keeper, maybe succeed Walter Brennan as head lighthouse keeper when Brennan moves on.

Bad Bette is a selfish spoiled brat who traps Glenn into marriage simply to spite good Bette. Then both sisters are out sailing and a sudden storm, much like the one that swamped the S.S. Minow succeeds in drowning one of the sisters. You have to watch the film to decide which one.

A Stolen Life is a Bette Davis triumph. It's not easy for any player to do multiple roles in any film. For that alone fans of Bette Davis should make this a must see melodrama. Additionally the special effects with the storm are quite well done.

Glenn Ford got a big career boost just in co-starring with Bette Davis, it was a break from doing the potboilers he was doing at Columbia. Dane Clark plays a truculent artist in the best tradition of a John Garfield wannabe.

The twins gimmick makes the film worth seeing. Bette was in a post war career slump from The Corn is Green until she left Warner Brothers and did All About Eve with 20th Century Fox. A Stolen Life is not the worst film she did during that period and she's got some good moments. But it isn't Now Voyager or Dark Victory or The Little Foxes.

**** Spoilers!!! Don't read if you'd rather just watch the movie!**** This movie is about twins played by Bette Davis, who was wonderful in this duel role. Katie is the nice twin and Pat was the evil twin. Pat was very underhanded and stole Glenn Ford's character Bill away from Katie pretty much for the fun of it and married him. Years later Katie and Pat were out sailing when the accident occurred. They stayed out too long in bad weather and the boat hit a reef when they tried to get to a lighthouse. Pat drowned after being thrown from the boat. Katie tried to save her but couldn't hold her. Pat's wedding ring slipped off her finger into Katie's hand as she was pulled away by the undertow and Katie was knocked out. So, everyone just assumed Katie was Pat. It wasn't a planned thing by Katie.

I like the movie very much. I saw it for the first time earlier this year during Oscar month on TCM. I just watched it on TCM again today during the Glenn Ford tribute. He was fantastic in his role as well! I think the performances were great all around. Extra kudos to the performances by Dane Clark as a starving artist & Charles Ruggles as the twins cousin and guardian. They were smaller parts, but very crucial to the storyline. You'll have to watch the movie to see what happens. Sorry, I never give out endings.

"A Stolen Life", based on an obscure novel by Karel J. Benes (previously filmed in 1939 starring Elisabeth Bergner), has a whole lot going for it, but comes up short on dramatic fire. Pleasantly set on the East Coast around a seaside village and lighthouse, Bette Davis stars as a sort of spinsterish good girl, a Yankee "third-rate artist" who develops a big crush on lighthouse worker Glenn Ford. Unfortunately for her (and Ford!), the artist's identical twin comes into the picture, politely scheming away, and naturally the hunky dolt falls for the bad sister and marries her instead. The split-screen effect is very polished here, as are the performances, though this script is on the thin side. Davis and Ford make a somewhat odd romantic pairing (she seems a bit mature for him), and the final scene is unbelievably florid and fluttery-eyed. It doesn't convince for a minute, but the milieu and atmosphere are enjoyable regardless. **1/2 from ****

Bette Davis plays twins (she did the same in Dead Ringer) with a Patty Duke twist. A period piece right out of the 1940's and it looks it. I rather enjoyed the movie, but thought some of the plot and storyline rather unrealistic. Everyone seems to learn a lesson in this film and it seems to gravitate toward that point. The ending was rather sappy, but keeping in line with the story. I rather liked the Dane Clark character and felt bad that he was sort of left alone at the end. It is not really known if he knew the switch was made or not. Shows the posh life of the idle rich and seems to rub it in in the viewer's face. In any case, it is a interesting movie, well acted.

As a conventional Bette Davis melodrama, 'A Stolen Life' would already be fantastic and compelling. All the elements are here - thwarted love, self-sacrifice, betrayal, humiliation, cruelty, romance, promiscuity, death - for an emotional pulveriser, with Bette as the sweet, timid, patrician artist, Kate, who finds love with a simple, straightforward lighthouse engineer, Bill, and promptly loses him to her sexually sophisticated sister, Patricia. The film literalises the cliche on which it is based, by opening with Kate just missing the boat that is supposed to bring her to the island; this cliche is developed when her sister literally misses the boat, and provokes the strange sequence of events that gives the film its title.

However, there are a number of slightly crazy elements that make 'Life' more than a conventional Bette Davis movie, and link it to two of cinema's most important films. For a start, Bette's sister is played by Bette herself in an inventive feat of trick editing that rarely betrays joins. This duality allows Bette to have some acting fun with her two stock roles, the more Victorian martyr in love, and the hyper-confident, modern woman who tosses aside weak men and inadequate women. This duality is in itself a comment on the formulaic nature of Davis's films generally (as she herself thought).

it fits in neatly with the pseudo-Freudian thrust of the film - Kate is a virgin, a sexual child, who must acknowledge her physical nature as well as her more intellectuual one, before she can become a whole woman and enter into an adult relationship. In this sense, the film isn't realistic - the two sisters represent different aspects of the one character; going too much in either direction is dangerous and self-destructive. This synthesis is actually much more sensible than the pucelle/putain dichotomy the film originally seemed to be peddling.

But what if we adjust the narrative focus somewhat, and look at the story from Bill's point-of-view. The plot encourages us to do so - Kate has to explore HIS phallic lighthouse; the film, especially in its crucial early stages, relies more heavily on his point of view shots, looking down on Kate, fixing her, neutering her power with his gaze.

Bill is suddenly faced with two identical sisters, women who seem to be the same person, but represent different aspects of female sexuality. This is the starting point of Bunuel's last masterpiece 'That Obscure object of desire', and if Kate is cast adrift by love, than look at what it does to Bill, smashing his self-absorbed, insensitive, self-satisfaction as completely as Fernando Rey's.

Bernhardt takes this further - by repositioning the doubling from the heroine's point of view, the males get to be split, with Karnock the artist, his sexual ferocity linked to his artistic temperament (there is a lot of interesting bunkum about what Art Should Be - Karnock is part-Jackson Pollack, part-cinema verite pioneer), reflecting the mild Bill's darker urges that leads him to abandon Kate in the first place.

The other great film 'Life' points to is Hitchcock's 'The Birds' - here too, a sophisticated, but sexually naive young woman leaves 'civilisation' for an island, stirring up all kinds of horror-tinged crises (the doppelganger is a conventional horror trope). As with 'the Birds', objective narration and subjective point of view are cunningly blurred. The happy ending here is undermined, not only by its wish-fulfilment implausibility, but in the fact that it comes straight after Kate going up to her bedroom - it could conceivably be a dream; she certainly hears voices.

The film is full of carnivalesque moments (the dance, the art exhibition) where emotional crises are ritualised in formal environments; while there is an awesome, 'Alice'-like sequence, where Kate as Pat is going up to her sister's room for the first time and approaches a mirror- it is her reflection, and not her bodily reality, that finishes the journey. This is where 'Life' is especially brilliant, as a ghost story, with a living person impersonating a corpse, with a ghost taking over a survivor's personality; where one person freefalls into another's identity, while forced to hear people speak of HER as if she were dead. This final quarter is a sadistic masterpiece of psychological delirium.

The subject is not really new.In her last film "Two-Faced woman" ,Greta Garbo played "twins" (but actually there was only one woman) with different personalities.More interesting was Siodak's "the dark mirror" where Davis' good friend Olivia de Havilland played twin sisters too,one of whom was suspected of murder.

Twins were certainly trendy at the time since ,the very same year as De Havilland,Davis tried her hand at the subject,not in a thriller,but in a melodrama.Davis was as subtle an actress to portray two different women.One of them is an artist ,a romantic loyal woman ;the other one is a real bitch,who steals her sister's boyfriend (Glenn Ford).

There are scenes with an "accursed " anarchist artist who becomes Kate's teacher cause he thinks her painting is lousy.The reason,he says ,is that she was never a real woman (like sister Patricia ,maybe?)Those scenes with Karnock are mostly filler,and the film becomes interesting again when Kate pretends to be Patricia,although these scenes show more than a distant resemblance with "Two-faced woman" by Cukor.

Not a major Davis movie,but interesting for her numerous fans.

Wealthy New England artist Bette Davis (as Kate Bosworth) emerges late from her star vehicle, and misses the boat taking her to visit her cousin, the distinguished Charlie Ruggles (as Freddie Linley). Handsome young Glenn Ford (as Bill Emerson) happens by, and Ms. Davis bums a ride in his dinghy. The two pick up Mr. Ford's crusty lighthouse keeper, Walter Brennan (as Eben Folger). On the verge of spinsterhood, Davis is clearly attracted to Ford, and arranges to paint Mr. Brennan's portrait - but, she really wants to show Ford her etchings. Later, cocky Dane Clark (as Karnock) intrudes.

You can definitely sense some subtext and symbolism in this picture…

And, you can't go wrong with Bette Davis melodramatically falling in love amidst crisp direction by Curtis Bernhardt, beautiful black-and-white photography by Ernest Haller and Sol Polito, a sweet soundtrack by Max Steiner, and the crew at Warner Bros. Throw in the fact that Bette Davis (also as Patricia "Pat" Bosworth) plays her own slutty sister, and you've struck movie gold. Expect, of course, the titular "A Stolen Life" as the evil Davis moves to steals her sister's man. Assisted by special effects wizardry from Willard Van Enger and Russell Collings, both Davis and Davis are terrific in their roles.

******** A Stolen Life (7/6/46) Curtis Bernhardt ~ Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, Dane Clark, Walter Brennan

Bette Davis plays the part perfectly -- twin sisters -- one good, one bad -- and with superb skills she portrays each just a tad differently to make the point, but not overdue it.

The other "star" of the film is the special effects. Quite prominent in the scenes where both sisters are together -- note for example when one sister hands a match to the other, and when they are chatting on the bed.

Glen Ford is excellent here, sort of. He's very convincing as the homespun lighthouse worker early in the film, and quite convincing as the jaded husband later in the film...but I'm not sure these two men could be the same man.

Supporting actors include Walter Brennan and the wonderful Charles Ruggles. None of the other supporting actors are of note.

The surprise of the film is that you are expecting the bad sister to murder the good sister. When it's clear that's not in the cards, you begin to think the good sister might actually murder the bad sister to get back the man she loves. But then, nature does it for her, and the latter part of the story is the good sister trying to hard to portray the bad sister. Interesting twist.

And, in the end, they all live happily ever after...well, except for the bad sister who is in the briny deep!

Kate (Bette Davis) travels to stay with her twin sister Pat (Bette Davis) and meets Bill (Glenn Ford) en route. Kate and Bill spend their time together on evening dates and at his lighthouse home - yes, he is one of those freaks who live in a lighthouse. However, once Bill meets twin sister Pat, he falls in love with her and the two of them get married. Kate is devastated. A boating accident allows Kate another chance into Bill's life.....

The storyline is just a heap of unconvincing nonsense and is quite slow. It drags on numerous occasions. Bette Davis does well in her two roles and is a class above the rest of the cast. Watch her reaction as both evil sister Pat and good sister Kate when Pat tries to throw her bouquet in Kate's direction. Top quality. Glenn Ford is OK, although he does resemble a gormless monkey on occasions. A mention for the character of the struggling artist "Karnock" as portrayed by Dane Clark - he is terrible - what an unrealistic performance. It defies belief but provides unintentional humour. The ending is a great example of pure Hollywood cheese. It's sappy and totally stupid but what we are all expecting to happen.

The film is OK in that it passes the time. A better film containing the twins theme that was released in the same year is "The Dark Mirror", in which Olivia de Havilland plays good and evil twin sisters. A better film starring Bette Davis from the same year is "Deception".

I just paid top-dollar for the 1990 VHS edition of this film. While the mono sound isn't bad, I couldn't believe the murkiness of the black and white picture. I find it hard to believe that this medium has endured as long as it did. Watching VHS is an act of faith. You have to believe, thanks to the music and the dialog, that there is actually a film lurking in there, somewhere between the shadows.

It almost prevented me from enjoying this film which is the epitome of Bette Davis' two main groups of mannerisms: the reticent, idealistic virgin and the out-and-out two-timing, conniving bitch all rolled into one magnificent performance.

Given that the script is of the women's pictures, "True Romance" and Harlequin school of female psychology, it is also remarkably reeking with sex and very potent female fantasies, from the phallic, wave-battered fog-enshrouded New England lighthouse to the tweedy, pipe-smoking, rugged, low-IQ boyfriend (Glenn Ford) to the ever present able-bodied seamen to the thuggish personality of Davis's secondary love interest, the hairy, greasy, lower-class, oversexed painter who wants to make a "real woman" out of her by ravishing her right there over the paint tubes.

Female porn it might be but it's very effective at what it intends to do: give its female audience the vapours!

Now, if we could only see a little more of what goes on in there...

One of my favorite Bette Davis movies...it is romantic,the musical score is just perfect,it's scandalous,the ocean scenes,wardrobes are very nice, and Betty in her prime,her walk,her eyes,her diction and the ability to pull off the twin sister act with perfection....and of course Glen Ford as the leading man was absolutely great with a demeanor only he could portray...and the ending was perfectly set and was electric,intoxicating,very romantic....I loved this movie Gem ! She,Bette Davis, is one of my four favorite female thespians......the other three being Dorothy Dandridge ,Barbara Stanwyck and Olivia de Haviland from that Golden era. I only wish I could have seen "A stolen life" on the big screen.....My mom always talked about Bette Davis when I was growing up , I didn't discover her for myself until I was in my forties and I am so glad I did........I love good movies......this is a must see !

Fifteen years before the successful "Pocketful of Miracles," Bette Davis and Glenn Ford teamed up in this typical soap opera drama.

"A Stolen Life" has many similarities to the 1964 Davis film "Dead Ringer," where Bette killed her evil twin sister and assumed her identity only to be tried for murder of her sister's husband. In 'Stolen' Bette again loses the man she loves to an aggressive twin and when tragedy intervenes, she assumes her dead sister's life.

Walter Brennan is completely wasted here as the head of the lighthouse. Dane Clark is absolutely terrific in the role of the embittered, difficult artist who Bette links up with after she loses Glenn Ford to her overbearing sister.

The film is a good one thanks to Davis as always. She always knew how to pull out the stops in her never ending display of playing women with multi-emotions.

Man, give me two Bette Davises for the price of one and I could do much more with them than this movie does.

Bette plays twins, a good one and a somewhat naughty one, who find themselves caught up in some melodramatic angst when they both fall for the same jackass, played decidedly unwinningly by Glenn Ford. The good twin, Kate, initially has him, but the naughty one, Pat, eventually steals him. But then Pat dies, and Kate assumes her identity so that she can have him back, only to realize that Pat has made a complete shambles of her life, her relationship with this lunkhead included.

My wife and I kept waiting for what we were sure was going to be the money shot scene, Pat showing up at the last minute, not dead after all, to further complicate Kate's predicament. But that doesn't happen. Pat stays disappointingly dead, and Kate gets her man as Kate, though why anyone would want him remains the film's greatest mystery.

The fun in "A Stolen Life" is watching Bette act with herself through the help of some really impressive and Oscar-nominated special effects. She hands herself a cigarette, straightens out her own lapels, all of it visually seamless. But her acting is just as impressive as the effects. She does an impressive job not only making it look like she's interacting with another person but also at giving the two twins subtly distinctive personalities.

Dane Clark is also in the film, though I'm not sure why. He's yet another jackass who the film puts forward as a possible love interest for Kate, but then drops completely from the screenplay without telling us what the point was for him ever being there in the first place.

"A Stolen Life" is either a gender studies goldmine or nightmare depending on your point of view. On the one hand, the casual sexism and emotional indifference to women is nearly impossible to stomach from a modern-day standpoint. But on the other hand, the film is a fascinating if queasy time capsule of what the entertainment world thought of gender relations in post-WWII America, or at least what it thought audiences wanted to see.

Grade: B-

This is a very unintentionally silly Bette Davis movie. The plot involves two identical twins--one evil and selfish, the other sweet and somewhat bland. The sweet one falls for a MUCH younger man played by Glenn Ford. Well, the evil twin being evil, she steals Ford and marries him herself--just to hurt her sister! Later, the evil one is swimming in the ocean and drowns. The younger one is the first to the scene and decides to take the place of the evil twin and be married to Ford! What happens next, you'll need to see for yourself.

Okay, I KNOW that the identical twin thing is a MAJOR Hollywood cliché and the plot is silly. But, somehow it works and is worth watching. Of course it's not one of Davis' best films, but considering her amazing talent she was able to breath life into this moribund script.

Bette Davis plays twins. One is mousy and nice. The other is brassy and mean. The nice one establishes a rapport with shy Glenn Ford but the mean one steals him. The nice one has a show of her paintings at a rather improbable gallery opening where full meals are served on a table.

Renegade painter Dane Clark sneaks in to get some grub. He disses the paintings and the nice Bette studies with him. They are a highly improbable couple and he disappears.

Accident occurs. twins confused. Good Bette gets back with Glenn, also a fairly implausible beau.

It's a women's picture with a gimmick but the gimmick wears thin quickly.

Seeing Charles Ruggles, who has a small but sort of central role, is always a pleasure.

Bette does little to differentiate between the twins. The dialogue is supposed to tell us whether it's the mousy nice one or the evil, conniving one.

The best portrayal of twins ever in movies was by Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers.

Whether or not she actually produced is questionable and more of a footnote in her career before the cameras, and after all, that is what really drew in the public. A STOLEN LIFE, a remake of an earlier movie starring Elisabeth Bergner (herself the subject a story that would bring life to Mary Orr's now classic story "The Wisdom of Eve", which would be made into what is known today as ALL ABOUT EVE) is a not-very plausible melodrama about twin sisters Pat and Kate Bosworth who engage in some interesting identity-swapping once one of them drowns in an unfortunate boat accident. Davis co-stars with herself and looks like two different people. Trick editing and a matting effect that would later be used to great effect in David Croneberg's male answer to this film -- his classic (and perverse) DEAD RINGERS -- is the real star of this movie; because of it, the interactions with the two sisters is a sight to watch instead of being hokey to a point where you would be able to see the split in the middle of the screen. It would probably have benefited more if at the time, dramas would be given the green light to explore the possibilities of twins as Kristoff Kieszliwski did in THE DOUBLE LIVE OF VERONIQUE instead of having the surviving sister be drawn into a more conventional plot of deception. But this wasn't the case and the result is a movie that has an implied lot to say about women who are loose in morals and the fate that befalls them. Equally implicit is the notion that the surviving sister cannot find happiness until she has to become the "bad" one and fool the bland man who was taken away from her by her "bad" sister. It's been the stuff of Spanish soap operas left and right, particularly Mexican soaps which have told this story over and over again with little variations on the title "The Usurper" ("La Usurpadora") and even "Vida Robada", virtually a literal translation of "Stolen Life". But then again, no one could do soaps better than Bette, and in this one, she's her only competition.

Davis fans get to double their fun in this well-crafted soaper. At the same time, the plot remains something of a stretch. Can twin Katie finally find happiness impersonating identical twin Pat. As herself, poor Katie is lonely, timid, and searching for an identity. Most of the time she spends folding her need into art painting. At the same time, twin Pat is outgoing, self-assured and bold; in short, Pat's everything Katie isn't. Nonetheless, Katie's future brightens when she meets what appears her soul-mate, Bill (Ford), on a lighthouse island. But then Bill meets seductive Pat, and they marry leaving poor Katie alone again. Now Katie faces a bleak future until fate intervenes and she must suddenly impersonate her twin. As Pat, however, the timid Katie discovers abilities she didn't know she had. But will these come at the cost of losing the subtle appeal that first charmed Bill. In effect Katie now lives a life stolen from Pat, but at what cost.

What impresses me most is WB's craftsmanship- the howling seas, the ace photography, and especially the undetectable doubling of Davis in the same shot. In those technologically lesser days (1946), I thought doubling in the same shot could only be done by splitting the film so that some distance on screen had to remain between the doubles. Here, however, that distance is often erased. I wish IMDB had some info on how they did it.

Acting-wise it's a Davis showcase, but the studio backs up its star in fine fashion. Speaking of Davis, she's mostly without her sometime theatrics, conveying the twins' personality differences in fairly subtle fashion. Ford too is well cast as an apparently sensitive working man, who nevertheless jilts sensitive Katie for philandering Pat. But I have to wonder about Dane Clark's arrogant role that appears peripheral to the main plot. Perhaps it's the studio's effort at promoting a promising actor before the public.

All in all, the soaper remains a polished production from Hollywood's golden period, even if the story requires quite a swallow. Meanwhile, Davis fans get to double their fun.

You never know who is who and which twin is doing what! One sympathizes with the Kate twin but can't be sure she will prevail!

The husband is an utter twit - can't he tell the difference between Pat and Kate? That he can't shows what a loser he is and that Kate should not care about him.

I thought Kate should have gone with the artist in the end - he understood her better.

The first husband had to be a twit not to get that Kate loved him better than Pat.

He must have been really dense. Not to get that.

I have lost count of how many times I've watched this wonderful film. Each time I get something from it and i believe it is Bette Davis best work - which is a big statement ! Viewers will be hypnotised by Bette's amazing performance and the filmography is truly amazing. To watch this film through modern eyes, you often find yourself trying to work out how the director and editor managed to get away with the 'two bette' film sequences. This is no evidence of 'lines' in the film, or murky backgrounds and if you didn't know it was the same women, you would really think they were twins. The story line is terrific, Glenn Ford (very young) fits the role perfectly and Dane Clark's performance is very direct and well played. There really is something for everyone in this film and a must watch.

For painter Bette Davis, loving the brooding seaman Glenn Ford is worth the price of a ship in a bottle, as well as agreeing to sketch his grizzled pal Walter Brennan. But to him, she is like a cake without frosting-sweet but dry. He prefers cake with frosting, and that turns out to be her own twin sister. Yes, this means a dual role for Ms. Davis, and one that, seen in a double bill along with Dead Ringers, shows the difference between less and more. Here, more quality and less camp, the 1964 film doing the reverse. An old movie tag-line claimed Nobody's better than Bette when she's bad, but the truth is that you really shouldn't know she's bad until it is too late.

The bad Bette is the supporting twin who lands Ford, her selfishness so subtle that it takes her own death for it to be revealed. She is a softly glamorous femme fatal, using her eyes rather than words to explain what she's thinking. The lead Bette wears less frilly clothing and speaks softly to explain her feelings. When her twin searches for her to toss the bouquet, she simply steps aside to purposely miss catching it. This is the art of Davis's genius. She always dares her audience to take their eyes off of her, and they never do. In the same year that he was seduced by Rita Hayworth's Gilda, Ford had an equally interesting character to play, and even though he has a double dose of Bette to react of, he does it convincingly.

Rising film noir anti-hero Dane Clark has a John Garfield "Humoresque" like supporting role as a temperamental starving painter whom Davis's cousin Charlie Ruggles refers to as the Rasputin of the paint pots. He influences Davis to come out of her shell, basically telling her to put frosting on her cake. Davis gets that opportunity when fate steps in, resulting in the truth coming about both sisters.

The Atlantic Coast scenery of New England adds moody atmosphere to the melodramatic situations which never become overwrought. The gripping sail boat scene during a sudden storm is extremely realistic. In fact, the whole movie is practically perfect and structurally sound. Iw doesn't fall into the category of a masterpiece, but it is a definite crowd pleaser.

This is without doubt a showcase for the Star but it failed to include the necessary nastiness of the Bad Twin. Almost all of her devious behavior takes place off screen and that renders this tepid and lacking any real tension.

It is all handled with such lightweight soapiness it becomes soppy and what is left is a well mounted production. The split screen is flawless but that cannot be said of much else going on here. Actually there is very little difference between the Sisters displayed and it is pretty much left to the subconscious and the imagination.

This is barely Worth a Watch and the only real energy is left to a supporting Character of a starving Artist. That burst of momentum if given to the supposedly dark Twin could have separated this from a standard and stodgy melodrama. The ending is completely contrived and forced on the audience with very little believability or explanation.