The Dark Mirror 1946 123movies

Watch: The Dark Mirror 1946 123movies, Full Movie Online – A woman suspected of murdering her doctor boyfriend has an identical twin sister. When both twins have an alibi for the night of the murder, a psychiatrist is called in to assist a detective in solving the case. Through a series of tests, he discovers which twin actually committed the crime, and in the course of his investigation he falls in love with one of them..
Plot: A sister and her disturbed twin are implicated in a murder and a police detective must figure out which one’s the killer.
Smart Tags: #rorschach_test #polygraph #polygraph_test #same_actress_playing_twin_role #one_actress_for_twin_sisters #actress_playing_multiple_roles #evil_twin #1940s #witness_statement #twin_sister #homicide_detective #police_detective #police_lieutenant #researcher #ink_blot #murder_suspect #eyewitness #interrogation #identical_twin #identical_twin_sister #twin_sisters

Find Alternative – The Dark Mirror 1946, Streaming Links:

123movies | FMmovies | Putlocker | GoMovies | SolarMovie | Soap2day

Ratings:

	7.1/10 Votes: 5,158
	71% | RottenTomatoes
	N/A | MetaCritic
	N/A Votes: 85 Popularity: 5.556 | TMDB

Reviews:

Lemon Drops and Dopplegangers.

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

This is one of those films that you really have to pay close attention to – otherwise you can miss the nuances and menace created by the super performance from Olivia de Havilland – who plays two twins – in this whodunit with lots of twists. When “Dr. Petralta” is found stabbed through his heart – witnesses swear to policeman Thomas Mitchell (“Lt. Stevenson”) that they saw “Ruth” leave his apartment moments after the grizzly deed was supposed to have been committed. Upon further investigation, however, he discovers that “Ruth” has a cast iron alibi! She also has a twin sister “Terry”, and so proving who did what to whom – they both, naturally, deny any involvement – is nigh on impossible. That is, until scientist “Dr. Elliott” (Lew Ayes) who specialises in the behaviour of twins starts to study the pair and slowly begins to discover their secrets. I struggle to think of a better role for the star, she is clever and evil, calculating and cunning in her portrayal and whilst there is little doubt that one of them “did it” – it takes it’s time to prove which one did – and I found the trails of breadcrumbs left for the audience made for a compelling thriller as it becomes quite clear that one sister is more than willing to throw the other under the bus!

“Not even nature can duplicate character, not even in twins”
Psychology is a dubious science as it is, but, when a Hollywood screenwriter gets his hands on it, anything even closely resembling fact is thrown out the window. In the mid-1940s, Freudian psychology reached the peak of its popularity, and films such as Hitchcock’s ‘Spellbound (1945)’ and Lang’s ‘Secret Beyond the Door… (1947)’ utilised their own versions of psychoanalysis to provide easy answers for their characters’ delusions. Robert Siodmak’s ‘The Dark Mirror (1946)’ is no different, in that we are offered a half-baked pseudo-scientific dissertation on why even identical twins can be anything but identical when it comes to personality traits. In fact, screenwriter Nunnally Johnson (who also wrote and directed ‘The Three Faces of Eve (1957)’) actively pumps the familiar but questionable notion that twins respectively represent the good and evil sides of man. This duality is similar to that explored in the earlier versions of ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920/1931/1941),’ though the two sides of the human coin are here separated from their mutual shell and allowed to behave as independent entities.

Olivia de Havilland excels in dual roles as Terry and Ruth Collins, twin sisters who might just have pulled off the perfect crime, even if only one knows it. When the sisters’ shared boyfriend is murdered in cold blood, two witnesses place one of the twins at the scene of the crime, while three more provide a solid alibi for the other. The only problem is that nobody can tell the pair apart. A police detective (Thomas Mitchell) is torn apart by the case: how can he charge either woman with murder if he can’t decide which of the sisters is, in fact, a murderess? Only through Hollywood’s good friend Dr. Freud can the true nature of the crime be exposed. The distinction between the “good” and “insane” twin is clearly drawn early in the film, with de Havilland playing one sister, Terry, as a cocky dominator, and the other, Ruth, as more softly-spoken, with eyes always downcast and hands delicately clasped together. Clarifying the dual relationship is some convenient symbolism used in the film’s climax: Terry is dressed in black, and Ruth in white.

Convincing optical effects and the use of body doubles are employed successfully to create the illusion of two Olivia de Havillands. The actress does well as both characters, perhaps channelling her dislike of sister Joan Fontaine to portray the snarling, psychotic and homicidally jealous “evil sister.” Though they start out perfectly alike, it doesn’t take long for the two Collins sisters to develop distinct personalities in the eyes of the audience, and Siodmak should quickly have dispensed with the obvious name-tags (either a necklace or a single letter pin) added to ensure that the audience could follow who was who. Perhaps misguidedly, the presence of twins is at first played largely for laughs, with composer Dimitri Tiomkin keeping the atmosphere surprisingly light and fluffy. Fortunately, however, the mood darkens substantially in the film’s second half, as the hatred simmering slowly within the darker twin threatens to spill over into reality. Though the unlikely psychology behind ‘The Dark Mirror’ tests one’s credulity at regular intervals, the strong acting and unique storyline make this one worth seeking out.

Unsettling psycho-drama
In its depiction of a pair of twins, one of whom is a psychotic killer, THE DARK MIRROR is a film very much ahead of its time. It’s an engrossing period piece that benefits greatly from a fine performance from Olivia de Havilland playing the twins, Terry and Ruth Collins. Accompanied by some excellent back projection work (you won’t see the seams!), you never stop believing for a second that both twins are separate people.

Elsewhere, the plotting is fairly ordinary for a film noir type thriller. There are the flat-footed policemen getting nowhere, a dedicated shrink who finds himself falling for the murder suspect(s) and some effectively grim, doom-laden atmosphere from director Robert Siodmak. It’s the sort of film somebody like David Cronenberg would have been making had he been working during the 1940s. The twist ending is particularly strong.

Other Information:

Original Language en
Runtime 1 hr 25 min (85 min)
Budget 0
Revenue 0
Status Released
Rated Not Rated
Genre Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Director Robert Siodmak
Writer Nunnally Johnson, Vladimir Pozner
Actors Olivia de Havilland, Lew Ayres, Thomas Mitchell
Country United States
Awards Nominated for 1 Oscar. 1 nomination total
Production Company N/A
Website N/A

Technical Information:

Sound Mix Mono (Western Electric Recording)
Aspect Ratio 1.37 : 1
Camera N/A
Laboratory N/A
Film Length 2,360 m (Netherlands)
Negative Format 35 mm
Cinematographic Process Spherical
Printed Film Format 35 mm