When Dr. Frank Peralta is found stabbed to death straight to the heart in his apartment, two neighbors swear to the veteran Lt. Stevenson (Thomas Mitchell), who is charge of the investigation, that they saw Ruth Collins (Olivia de Havilland) leaving his apartment late night. The detective interrogates Ruth and she has the alibi of three witnesses that she was walking around in the Jefferson Park during the night. Then he visits Ruth in her apartment and discovers that she has an identical twin sister called Terry. Lt. Stevenson does not know who the killer is and the prosecutor does not accept to open the case. The sisters can not find a job and Dr. Scott Elliott (Lew Ayres), who is a specialist in twins that had been contacted by Lt. Steenson and has a crush on Ruth, offers a reasonable allowance to the sisters to be submitted to a series of tests for his research of personalities of twins. Scott finds through the results that Terry is a psychotic woman and Ruth might be in danger.

"The Dark Mirror" is a tense psychological film-noir with an intriguing story that has excellent beginning and conclusion. The impressive performance of Olivia de Havilland in a dual role is top-notch, using different attitudes for each sister; and the direction of Robert Siodmak is tight as usual. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Espelho d'Alma" ("Mirror of the Soul")

In its depiction of a pair of twins, one of whom is a psychotic killer, THE DARK MIRROR is a film very much ahead of its time. It's an engrossing period piece that benefits greatly from a fine performance from Olivia de Havilland playing the twins, Terry and Ruth Collins. Accompanied by some excellent back projection work (you won't see the seams!), you never stop believing for a second that both twins are separate people.

Elsewhere, the plotting is fairly ordinary for a film noir type thriller. There are the flat-footed policemen getting nowhere, a dedicated shrink who finds himself falling for the murder suspect(s) and some effectively grim, doom-laden atmosphere from director Robert Siodmak. It's the sort of film somebody like David Cronenberg would have been making had he been working during the 1940s. The twist ending is particularly strong.

Back in the day, the dual role of twins that Olivia DeHavilland did for The Dark Mirror was something she could never get Jack Warner to assign her. At Warner Brothers the pecking order was first Bette Davis and then Ida Lupino. It wasn't a question of settling for crumbs, all Olivia got from Warner Brothers were the wife and girl friend of the hero, mostly Errol Flynn. According to the Citadel film series book the Films of Olivia DeHavilland, she wasn't even behind the other two actresses because Jack Warner couldn't see her in these parts.

With a whole lot to prove and now free of Warner Brothers, Olivia did this independent film for the short lived International Pictures before it merged with Universal. This is a player's delight, twins, one good and one evil. Her friend and friendly rival at Warner Brothers, Bette Davis was doing a twin role in A Stolen Life the same year.

Olivia was entering the high point of her career, she would be nominated for three Best Actress nominations resulting in two Oscars in the next three years. The Dark Mirror proved to be quite the appetizer for what was coming up.

A doctor in a medical building filled with doctors winds up a homicide victim and it turns out he's been dating the girl over at the news stand for some time. But when Thomas Mitchell as the assigned homicide cop investigates he discovers there are two twins who occasionally spell the other at the stand, a kind of private joke only available to twins. One's got an alibi, one's really circumstantially close to the scene of the crime, but which is which.

As Mitchell says he hates the thought of one of these women beating the rap. But as it turns out in that same medical building there is a psychiatrist played by Lew Ayres who's done research into twins. Ayres becomes a police consultant, but he gets compromised himself by falling for whom he feels is the good Olivia.

Not to take anything away from Olivia DeHavilland who did a marvelous job in both parts. She said that this was the most taxing role of her career, especially the homicidal twin. But there are two problems. I don't think the law would have been that squeamish then, both would have been arrested, one is clearly covering for the other after the fact. A smart prosecutor would have convicted them, but for the fact Lew Ayres's testimony would have been tainted in any trial by his involvement.

Ayres is fine as well as the tweedy psychiatrist. The role is a dress rehearsal for the part of the doctor he played in 1948 opposite Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda.

DeHavilland does a great job, but the story which interestingly enough got an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Story for the screen which I can't understand since it is too much to swallow.