LeonLouisRicci Overcooked Melodrama that is Quite Silly at Times and the Plot is Contrived to make things Come Together and the Result is Manufactured Suspense. The Cast is a bit Offbeat with Mercedes Cambridge Chewing the Scenery and Ruth Roman Looking Confused most of the Time. Zachary Scott shows up to make things Interesting but is mostly there to just Paw the Reluctant Lead Actress.It is Heavy Handed Stuff with Thunder Crashes and Telegraphed Terror (a spider on the bed is mistaken for an attempted murder), but it is Professionally done by the Filmmakers. The Result is Standard Stuff and Dime a Dozen Mystery Movie Assembly Line Product. Not Bad, but it is Second Tier Entertainment with Enough Layers of Involvement to make it Worth a Watch. Just don't Expect Anything Out of the Ordinary. Average at Best.

edwagreen The film should have concentrated more on the Mercedes McCambridge character and for what love of Richard Todd forced her to do. Rather, we're focused on the quick romantic situation between Todd and Ruth Roman leading to a quick marriage. Of course, Todd has been acquitted of killing his trollop wife but suspicion of him remains.Nothing is elaborated regarding the Hickman character, brother to McCambridge and prone to outbursts. Ditto for the usually suave Zachary Scott, a lover of the murdered girl.Who is that woman loaning out her car? Why not talk more of the Roman character's acting on the New York stage?

Neil Doyle You know something's wrong with a film when you keep asking yourself, in the middle of plot complications, where is Zachary Scott? He's given fourth billing in the screen credits but doesn't appear until the first hour is over. And after watching the film, it's clear that he would have been a better choice than Richard Todd to play the man suspected of killing his wife, rather than the playboy cad he always played.Richard Todd almost sleepwalks his way through his miscast role as a newly released jailbird exonerated of being guilty, except when staring intensely at Ruth Roman. Poor Ruth Roman has a heck of a time trying to decide which side to take in the stories she's heard about a man suspected of killing his wife. She meets that man (Richard Todd) on a dark and stormy night and from that moment on it's anyone's guess as to whom the real culprit is.Is he going to tell her what really happened to his murdered wife or is he staying mum to hide the truth or shield someone else? All of it is pretty contrived, asking us to believe that people behave in ways that defy common sense. Roman's character accepts Todd's innocence long before she has any right to do so, and the Mercedes McCambridge character is never given enough depth to suddenly change and revert to someone else for the final showdown.Everyone acts with their face toward the camera rather than facing each other whenever there's a moment of confrontation or even an intimate chat taking place. It's a cinema device encouraging the viewer to notice the subtle changes of expression on the faces, to better illustrate what their feelings and inner thoughts are. Unfortunately, it comes across as making the acting seem ludicrously over-the-top--no subtlety at all.Ruth Roman and Mercedes McCambridge, more than anyone else in the cast, uses this emoting device throughout. This seems to be a trademark of '50s acting--or at least it is under King Vidor's direction.Despite its faults, LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE remains watchable and taut as it winds its way toward a twisted resolution. Just don't expect too much, but it will keep you intrigued.

robert-temple-1 This is a superb King Vidor film noir, made only two years after his ultimate masterpiece, THE FOUNTAINHEAD (1949). Unless one considers the sultry RUBY GENTRY (1952) a film noir of sorts, Vidor was not really a noir director. But this film shows that when he needed to become one, he could do it in the twinkling of a lens. The female lead in this film was that very fifties woman, Ruth Roman, who appeared in film after film in those days. Seeing her now, she is so much 'then' as a type, that one cannot imagine her in a contemporary setting at all. All of her mannerisms and assumptions positively reek of the Eisenhower Era. The mesmerising performance of Richard Todd is what really makes this film work. His eyes blaze with ambivalent intensity, like two searchlights, as he stares at Ruth Roman and we and she try to guess is he a good guy or a bad guy. Whatever he is, he feels it deeply. Zachary Scott, in sinister lecherous mode, is Todd's friend, or at least Todd thinks he is. Scott keeps 'lech-ing' round Ruth Roman, can't keep his eyes off her, and that goes for his hands too. She's having none of it, because she's a straight fifties gal. The film has a strong, tormented performance from Mercedes McCambridge, in only her fifth role. She had commenced her film career in the hit ALL THE KING'S MEN (1949) only two years earlier, and five years after this she was to play perhaps her best known role of all in GIANT (1956) with James Dean. She was generally considered one of the finest actresses of her generation, which is hardly surprising, since she was originally one of Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre team, and most of them were brilliant. Mercedes was her second name, but she used it as her first, and was called 'Mercy'. In this film, Rhys Williams plays a priest named Father Paul, who is sickly and sanctimonious and likes to call grown-ups condescendingly 'my child'. (Don't over-pious, patronising priests like that make you sick, especially when they have pet Hispanics hanging around to prove how broad-minded they are?) This film is set way out West somewhere, where the desert is threatening. But so are some of the people! This murder mystery is a twister, and it wriggles like a rattler.