daleholmgren I've only seen the beginning, but Terry is the smoker and Ruth is the nervous mouse. However, Terry answered the door and answered the questions rapidly when asked by the detective. We are being led to believe that Terry is the 'bad' twin for being so combative while the counter girl was so sweet, so we suspect Ruth is being pressured into silence. However, that seems too obvious, so it's probably the reverse, although I will be very disappointed if it was Terry behind the counter, since she seemed so sweet.How Ruth could put up with Terry for one minute, let alone for decades, is beyond any normal viewer. A great twist ending would be that the doc thinks he's hospitalized the crazy one and is romancing the sane twin, but it's actually the crazy twin that has managed to get the sane twin institutionalized. Bwaahaha!!You do wonder if Olivia made this movie to twist the knife in deeper in her own famed rivalry with her sister Joan Fontaine. If not it's a rather brutal coincidence.I don't blame witnesses for not being sure AFTER finding out that they are twins. We don't expect twins, triplets, or quints when being asked to identify a suspect, so why get mad at us for withdrawing our opinion of "knowing" who is who?

howardeisman Lew Ayres, suave, handsome and sophisticated, tests a pair of twins with "tests' which a decade later were found to be no better than tarot cards. He discoveres that one of the pair is a murder but he doesn't know which. There are two Olivia de Havillands, one good, one evil, but which is which? There is also a cop who keeps telling everyone that he is dumb, but is he?There is, of course, the psychotic, homicidal maniac, 1940s style, who appears to be perfectly normal until the end of the picture.Not bad material for a psycho, mystery melodrama. Olivia has a chance to show her acting chops, segueing from person to person, from personality to personality with facial expressions, voice intonations, and body language. A nice job but the story doesn't play out well. The background music swells up for dramatic moments, but it is counter-productive. It is loud and intrusive and it detracted attention from the scene being played out. Everything is played so that the viewer gets caught up in the mystery and the danger. But, all this just didn't pull me in.The film is a time passer and there are interesting things in it, but don't expect too much. Freud wouldn't have liked it, but there were very few things he did like

lazyaceuk BBC TV has been filling its schedules with a host of B&W fillers in recent weeks. A number of them I have never heard of and would never want to hear of. The Dark Mirror was one of those unknowns, or so I thought. As the story unfolded it dawned on me why I knew where the story was heading before the curtain closed on the ending credits..........I had seen the re-make in the 80s when the commercial network used to hover up the big name TV movies from America.SPOILERS BEYOND........Thankfully I have no long term memory of how Jane Seymour played the role as Olivia de Havilland is very good in this 85 minute noir treasure as the mixed up twins one of whom is a murderess. She is aided by some clever effects work for the time and a dapper Lew Ayres who plays the psychologist who must help the police solve a teasing crime of identity as the witnesses suddenly realise that their certainty is less certain when the twins are revealed.The use of ink spots and polygraphs make this quite a modern themed film and there are one of two moments of impeccably sparky dialogue amongst the cast that lifts this film well above the normal short reelers of its time.Beyond the main two cast members Thomas Mitchell provides able support as the cynical detective puzzled but determined to close the case. His ramshackle look is the kind of cop that modern day sleuths try and copy, but Mitchell fills those gumshoes with ease.Finally a mention for Dimitri Tiomkin's score which has the peaks and troughs of emotional strings in all the right places and has been parodied so many times since.A worthy watch on a rainy day.7/10

writers_reign This is yet another of those vintage films that, when presented to film-goers far less sophisticated than today, would hit some 90% of its targets, leaving the audience entertained, disturbed, and satisfied in equal measure. Today it's all too easy to wonder aloud how it was possible for identical twins to grow to maturity (Olivia de Havilland was 30 when she played both roles) without one of them living in blissful ignorance (despite sharing an apartment) that her sibling was a psychopath and criminally insane with it. We also wince at the coincidence that one twin (and they switch roles for fun) works on the newsstand in a building full of doctors one of which just happens to be a world authority on twins and is more than happy to drop everything in order to help the police establish which twin has the Tony award as best actress. Having said this the film is still entertaining and the technical credits out of the right bottle. German émigré Robert Siodmak - who arrived in Hollywood via France, making excellent films in both countries - continues his exploration of twisted psyches (Pieges, The Spiral Staircase, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry) to telling effect, throw in some first-rate optical lab work and a bravura performance from de Havilland and we're talking excellent diversion.