Dead Ringer

Rating:
Summary: Check out the bonus commentarys and documentaries on this!
Review: According to DVDReviews.com: Bonus material will include a commentary by Charles Busch (Die! Mommie, Die!) and Boze Hadleigh (author of Bette Davis Speaks and the two interview books, Hollywood Gays and Hollywood Lesbians), an all-new documentary Double Take: Bette vs. Bette, the featurette Behind-the-Scenes at the Doheny Mansion and a theatrical trailer. Sounds like great fun!

And btw, Busch is also doing a commentary track with Patty McCormack on Warner's new release of THE BAD SEED!

Rating:
Summary: Can you stand Bette Davis in a dual role? This is the best.
Review: Can you stand Bette Davis in a dual role? Edith goes to the funeral of Frank, a man she used to know personally. Frank was the husband of Margaret. There the widow asked Edith to come home with her. It has been 18 years since they had seen each other. Margaret lives in a mansion and is very well-to-do. Edith rents a Los Angeles cocktail tavern and she also occupies in the upstairs apartment. The audience finds out early in the movie that Edith and Margaret look the same. They are identical. They are sisters. They haven't seen each other since Margaret announced that she was "pregnant" and was going to marry Frank. The sisters have a long-overdue arguement and Edith decides to leave in a huff. The estate's driver drives Edith back to her tavern. She learns of some very interesting secret information about Frank and Margaret. This film will keep you informed and will hold your interest. I won't mention anything more so you will be surprised. Karl
Malden plays "Jim", Edith's love interest who used to work in the Homicide Dept. Oh, the suspense in this one. Even if you are not a Bette Davis fan, you'll like this film noir.

Rating:
Summary: At long last, Bette Davis goes after...Bette Davis
Review: Think of "Dead Ringers" as a cross between "Vertigo" and "The Patty Duke Show." What other film offers Bette Davis threatening Bette Davis with a gun? After attending the funeral of her brother-in-law Frank de Lorca, Edith Philips (Davis) learns that he only married her twin sister Margaret (Davis), because he believed she was pregnant with his child. Edith rejects all offers of help from Margaret, until she learns she is about to lose her bar, at which point Edith gets her sister to visit her apartment. After forcing Margaret to confess she had tricked Frank into marrying her, Edith kills Margaret, changes clothes with her, and goes off to live in the de Lorca mansion. The suicide note from "Edith" is found by Jim Hobbson (Karl Malden), a police detective who also happens to be her fiance. Edith successfully carrying off her impersonation of Margaret until Tony Collins (Peter Lawford), Margaret's lover, returns from Europe. He blackmails Edith for his silence and she gives him some of Margaret's jewelry. But when Tony tries to pawn it, the police end up checking out his apartment and finding arsenic. The next thing we know, Sgt. Hobbson is suspecting Tony and Margaret murdered Frank and he is having the body exhumed.

There is certainly something to be said for poetic justice and this 1964 film directed by Paul Henreid certainly lays it on nice and thick in "Dead Ringers." You cannot really take these shenanigans all too seriously, especially once Bette plays the big scene with herself and is obviously having so much fun. After all, the tag line for this one was: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, now who's the fairest twin of all?" This is not really a film, it is just a fun movie, where evil does not pay a woman can find one last moment of nobility in the name of love before she begins her final trip to San Quentin for an appointment with the gas chamber. It certainly is a lot better than Ray Milland's "The Thing With Two Heads," and do not ask me why that film sprang to mind.

Rating:
Summary: Worth watching for Bette, as always...
Review: This is the second time Bette co-starred with herself; the first time was in "A Stolen Life"; however, do not look for that sort of quality here...the poor sister of the rich sister, Bette kills off her richer sibling and adopts her persona, and moves from her tawdry digs into the magnificent mansion in Beverly Hills. (The old Doheny estate, and the location for "Cinderfella" and "The Loved One.")
I enjoy Peter Lawford in anything, a truly underappreciated actor and a really nice man. He is enjoyably slimy in this role, and adds the right note for the jaded, rather tired boyfriend. Karl Malden is sad, and you feel sorry for him;; he was so devoted to the poor sister...the star of the show is Ms. Davis, and the fabulous house and grounds. Don't look for high, quality drama here, but rather, an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday night.
(NOTE: The Doheny estate, built in the early 1920s, is specatacular, and boasts several streets with signs for it's 25 acres of grounds, and it has a children's playhouse with fireplace and kitchen, etc., that rivals anything I've ever seen...and three guest houses, larger and more magnificent than most mansions! Also a bowling alley, a real movie theatre and over 30 bedrooms in the servants quarters. There was murder there, around 1929, the father caught his son with the butler, and shot and killed him; the son was put away in an asylum. Quite a history, and quite a setting...)

Rating:
Summary: Bette at her most tacky
Review: This movie is only worth watching if you are a die-hard Bette Davis fan, otherwise, forget it. This is also Bette at the end of her amazing career, a sort of last gasp before age and a string of mediocre movies forced her into semi-retirement. This is her last decent film, though it drags in long stretches and the plot is silly, contrived and stupid. Peter Lawford gives a thoroughly forgetable performance as her boyfriend. Karl Malden is good, but his character is pathetically stupid. Wake up, Karl, your girlfriend is a murderer!

If you love Bette Davis, you'll watch her recite the phone book. I require a little more than that to give it a thumb's up.