Search This Blog

Friday, October 15, 2010

Chase A Crooked Shadow (1958)

An heiress (Anne Baxter) vacationing at her villa in Spain has an unexpected visitor. A man (Richard Todd) claiming to be her brother except that her brother has been dead for a year and she ought to know as she identified the body! She appeals to a police captain (Herbert Lom), her uncle (Alexander Knox) but they all insist he is her brother. Why is Todd pretending to be her brother and who is the mysterious woman (Faith Brook) her "brother" brought with him. Is he her brother and is she losing her mind or is there a more diabolical plan behind it all? Directed by Michael Anderson (AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS), who's no Hitchcock and that's exactly what a thriller like this needs. The film manages some genuine nail biting tension in the last half hour and there's a marvelous twist that I never saw coming but the first hour is more irritating than anything else as Baxter's actions are questionable. Curiously, it's filmed in black and white when the sun drenched Spanish seaside locations cries out for Technicolor and the use of color may have carried the film through its problematic first hour. Produced by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

No comments:

Post a Comment