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Reviews18
billyweeds-1's rating
Such a pleasure to see Olivia de Havilland playing against her usual sickly-sweet persona (Melanie in GWTW, for instance) and doing such a superb job playing a nice woman coupled with her very twisted twin sister. Who knew de Havilland could do psychotic this well? The story is riveting and Robert Siodmak's direction is fully up to his usual best. There are a few dated sexist remarks about how erratic "girls" are, but otherwise it's a winner.
Maybe it's sacrilege to say this, but Bogart has more chemistry with Gloria Grahame in this movie than he ever had with Bacall. Both hit their screen peaks performance-wise, and the movie is totally brilliant. Bogart's best movie remains "Casablanca," but this comes in a close second. And Grahame, often good, is absolutely great in this performance, more subtle and sexy than anything I've seen her do elsewhere. There's a wordless scene in a bar that has more heat than almost any scene in any movie. This film is a masterpiece, and the kind of role that big stars hardly ever undertake. Dixon Steele is pretty socioathic, and Bogart plays him perfectly and with zero narcissism. Great.
The idea that this borderline great genre film should be receiving such negative and/or dismissive reviews from consumers here is absurd, silly, and just plain wrong. The story is compelling, the storytelling riveting, the acting superb, and the plotline absolutely unpredictable. You won't get any spoilers here, but the advice I have read here to skip this film is ridiculous. The only reason to skip this film is if you absolutely hate everything about horror movies. This one does get gruesome on occasion, but the resolution of the story makes it all make sense. As for the acting and direction--flawless. Allison Williams, Logan Browning, and Steven Weber are...perfection.