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Dead RingerRating:
Release Date: 10 August, 2004 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $17.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: |
Dead Ringer Reviews
Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall, Now Who's The Fairest Twin Of All!
Bette Davis plays twin sisters. Edith is the poor sister, barely keeping her life together as her little bar goes under. Meanwhile, Margaret lives high on the hog, having become wealthy as the wife of the man she stole from Evie. Shortly after said husband's funeral, Edith realizes that every claim Margaret had on him was a lie. Finally overcome by both misery and the need for revenge, she murders Margaret and takes her place. But Karl Malden, the cop who loves Edith, won't let her apparent suicide go. And Margaret's lover Peter Lawford makes himself awkward too.
Less grotesque than What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Dead Ringer is a bit closer in feel to an earlier noir. The script has fun piling on the ironies, and Davis incarnates the two very different sisters most convincingly. Interesting games are played with audience sympathy, since we have the complex scenario of the good sister murdering the bad one. A thoroughly entertaining thriller.
The sound is the original mono, which is certainly the way to go with a film of this kind, particularly given that flick is largely dialogue-driven, and badly remixed surround voices would be a real distraction. The picture is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1, from the looks of it).
Charles Busch talks with Davis expert Boze Handleigh on the commentary. Busch is enthusiastic, but Handleigh is the stronger guide. "Double Take: A Conversation with Boze Handleigh" is a 15-minute featurette that gives more background on the film and allows Handleigh to consider the film as a whole. "Behind the Scenes at the Doheney Mansion" is a vintage making-of featurette. Finally, there's the theatrical trailer. The menu's main screen is scored.
After over thirty years as a leading lady, Bette Davis was still dominating the screen in efforts like this one. Good, juicy fun.
"But I am Margaret De Lorca!"
By the time 1964 came around Bette Davis was having career resurgence. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? was a huge hit for her and Joan Crawford; therefore, it was only logical that both actresses would be offered a variety of quasi horror and gothic-like roles. While Dead Ringer isn't really a horror film, it certainly has enough spooky and unnerving elements to involve the viewer and create an atmosphere of foreboding.
Is Dead Ringer a piece of B grade junk designed as a vehicle for a fading star's last gasp at glory? Or is it a cleverly wrought psychological thriller, made redeemable by the presence of a true star and great actress? Well, the answer is probably a bit both - theres no doubt that movie has elements of a second rate melodromatic thriller, but the film is also surprisingly tense and in the end provides a perfect showcase for the glamorous Ms. Davis to do what she does best.
Dead ringer is ultimately a campy gothic thriller about estranged twin sisters Margaret and Edith (Davis, playing both roles). The film begins with a funeral for Margaret's husband who has just died of heart failure. When the wealthy Margaret invites Edith back to her mansion in Westwood it is soon revealed that the insensitive, social-climbing Margaret actually stole Edith's insanely rich beau away from her and has since been living the high-life while Edith struggles to keep her run-down nightclub afloat.
With her rent three months in arrears and frantic for money, Edith hatches a desperate plan to murder her own sister by making it look like suicide. Thinking that she can just walk in and take over her life, Edith scrambles to carry off the masquerade, pretending she knows Margaret's safe combination by heart, or that she can differentiate between the mansion's hundred rooms, all the time trying to figure out what sort of person Margaret really was.
There are lots of surprises as Edith gradually discovers that Margaret possessed a lot of dark secrets that she was desperate to hide. Murder, betrayal, and infidelity all follow with Edith ultimately learning a hard lesson: when you adopt someone's assets, you must also accept their liabilities, for better or for worse. Viewers are in for such side attractions as Davis slapping checkbooks across rooms, contemplating burning her own hand with a red-hot fire poker, and even shoving herself backwards into a chair.
The supporting cast is strong with Carl Malden competently playing an affable, nice-guy cop who is in love with Edith, and just can't believe that she'd ever commit suicide. Jean Hagen absolutely chews up the scenery as a blithely indecent social butterfly and Estelle Winwood is terrific as a dour, doily-wearing Bible-thumper.
But in the end, Dead Ringer totally belongs to the commanding Bette Davis. This is one of her campiest and most ham-fisted roles ever, and where she's at her chain-smoking, eye popping, and out of control best. Mike Leonard August 05.
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