The Dark Mirror (1946)
Directed by Robert Siodmak

Film Review

One of the fads that American film noir drew on in the mid-to-late 1940s was a febrile fascination with the burgeoning field of psychoanalysis, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) being the one film that most readily springs to mind.  Robert Siodmak's The Dark Mirror was another which explored the mysterious dual aspect of human nature, albeit via the somewhat artificial device of two identical twins.  The method by which the good and evil twins are identified in the film is the so-called 'Rorschach test', in which the subject's interpretation of an ink blot pattern reveals his or her true nature.  Whilst the film feels somewhat contrived (and is not helped by the fact that the bad twin / good twin concept had already been done to death in cinema) the fact that the plot is underpinned by real science (as opposed to the muddled psychobabble of Hitchcock's film) gives it a chilling sense of reality.

There are two reasons why The Dark Mirror works as well as it does.  First it is expertly directed by Robert Siodmak, using his trademark German expressionistic touches to endow the film with a genuinely unsettling ambiance, as he did so memorably on his other noir classics, The Spiral Staircase (1945) and The Killers (1946).  And then there is Olivia de Havilland, who, in the challenging double role (Miss Death versus Miss Desirable), does a remarkable job of delineating the twin sisters without making it too obvious which is Norman Bates' female alter ego.  If you pay attention and concentrate really hard it is just possible to tell the two sisters apart, but even then there are a few scenes where you cannot be entirely certain which is which.  The measured subtlety of de Havilland's performance is what makes The Dark Mirror so disturbing and so compelling.  At times you can't help thinking the actress is being deliberately mischievous, letting us mistake one sister for the other, thereby adding to the exquisite tension of the piece.  It helps that the special effects are of the highest order - there is nothing remotely phoney about the scenes in which the two sisters appear on screen together and some of the shots are extraordinarily daring and convincing for a film of this time.

With Olivia de Havilland taking up so much screen time (and space) you might think her co-stars would be stuck with a raw deal.  Not a bit of it. Thomas Mitchell positively fills the screen with his amiably plodding Lieutenant Stevenson, bringing a lighter note that effectively counterpoints the film's darker passages.  (The film's split personality - part good-natured comedy, part deadly serious murder mystery - is clearly intended to reflect the extreme dual nature of the twins.)   The casting of Lew Ayres as the romantically inclined psychiatrist (whose love life is obviously dependent on such things as lie detectors and the odd Rorschach test) was controversial at the time, as the actor had just come off a blacklist for being a conscientious objector during WWII.  Ayres looks slightly awkward in the role of a womanising intellectual  and lacks his pre-war confidence, but this adds to the reality of his character.  A man who has to rely on an ink blot to see into a woman's soul isn't exactly your customary Hollywood romantic lead.

The controversy surrounding Ayres' casting didn't help the film's performance at the box office and many critics had an easy job writing it off.   Although it suffers from a slight surfeit of clichés and an all too convenient plot resolution The Dark Mirror is, at least on the technical front, among Siodmak's most accomplished films.  The subtle way in which the expressionistic camerawork and lighting hint at a dangerously fractured psychology, suggesting without overemphasising the presence of evil, creates an unmistakable aura of menace, an aura that the film's leading lady seems to revel in as she turns in what is surely the creepiest screen performance of her career.  Who'd have thought that Olivia de Havilland could be so utterly scary?

Film Synopsis

When a doctor is found dead, stabbed to death in his apartment, Lieutenant Stevenson soon assembles three witnesses who are willing to testify that the killer is the victim's girlfriend, Terry Collins.  But Miss Collins presents witnesses of her own who provide her with an unbreakable alibi.  The contradiction is resolved when Stevenson learns that Terry has an identical twin sister, Ruth.  Because there is no way of telling the two women apart neither twin can be prosecuted for the murder.  Not one to admit defeat, Stevenson enlists the help of psychiatrist Dr Scott Elliott, who believes he can, by subjecting the twins to various tests, identify which of them is capable of committing murder.  Elliott's tests prove startlingly effective and reveal that one of the sisters is indeed psychotically deranged...