A Stolen Life (1946)

A rather inhibited New England painter (Bette Davis) falls in love with the lighthouse keeper (Glenn Ford) on an island off the coast where she and her predatory twin sister (also played by Davis) have a vacation home. When the scheming sister meets Ford, she decides to steal him away from her timid twin and she succeeds in marrying him. But a sailing accident will turn everything around. Based on the novel ULOUPENY ZIVOT by Karel Josef Benes (previously filmed in 1939 in Great Britain) and directed by Curtis Bernhardt (INTERRUPTED MELODY). This was the first of the two "good twin, bad twin" films Davis did (the other came in 1964, DEAD RINGER) and it isn't as fun as the second one. It begins promisingly enough and Davis is very good at delineating the character differences between the two sisters. Too good in fact so that when she attempts to pass herself off as the "bad" sister, you wonder why no one can see that, the physical similarities aside, she's a totally different person. The most interesting character is the "chip on his shoulder, mad at the world" starving artist played by Dane Clark who seems a better choice for the good sister rather than Ford. The regurgitated score is by Max Steiner. With Walter Brennan, Charles Ruggles, Bruce Bennett and Peggy Knudsen.