A Stolen Life *** (1946, Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, Dane Clark, Walter Brennan, Charles Ruggles, Glenn Ford, Dane Clark, Bruce Bennett) – Classic Movie Review 2703

Bette Davis impresses in this tale of an unhappy wife who swaps places with her deceased identical sister, drowned in a boat accident, in order to be free of her husband and close to the man she feels her sister took from her years before.

Two Bette Davises for the price of one is the big magnet here for her fans in director Curtis Bernhardt’s glossy and entertaining if preposterous 1946 soap opera drama film A Stolen Life, a remake of director Paul Czinner’s 1939 British film Stolen Life starring Elisabeth Bergner and Michael Redgrave. Catherine Turney provides the screenplay based on the 1935 novel A Stolen Life by Karel Josef Benes. Davis worked with Turney, adding her own ideas, and giving the character of Kate some of her own characteristics and reactions.

Davis’s new contract with Warner Bros in late 1944 was for her to produce as well as star in five films. Studio boss Jack L Warner asked Bette Davis to produce A Stolen Life because of her constant demand for better productions to work on and in order to achieve a better atmosphere on set. Davis took it seriously, but it seems she was so overworked that it turned out to be the only occasion in her career that she produced a movie.

For it, she picks the first of her double role stories, in which nice, introspective young artist Kate Bosworth (Davis) meets a handsome New England lighthouse inspector called Bill Emerson (Glenn Ford). But wicked sister Pat Bosworth (Davis) also falls in love with him and tries to whisk him away. Pat and Bill are married, and Kate returns to painting. When Bill goes to Chile, Kate and Pat go sailing, and Pat is drowned.

Bernhardt ensures that these melodramatics are confidently handled and delivered with just enough bite to make them entertaining. On the acting front, Davis effectively creates two separate characters as the two Bosworths. Bernhardt and Davis agreed they would not show the differences in the twins from the outside with different hairdos or clothing styles. Davis stuck to her own epitaph ‘She did it the hard way’ and shows the characters’ individuality just through her acting.

Technically it’s well done, too, especially for the era, as one Bette seems to light the other’s cigarette. Bernhardt and cinematographer Sol Polito did it with mattes, in which part of the image is masked, and another image is added later. Apparently Davis disliked seeing the head of her double coming off and her own head being added. 

Davis turned down Dennis Morgan for the role of Bill and agreed to cast Robert Alda, but he was replaced by Glenn Ford, who gives strong and selfless support, while Walter Brennan and Charles Ruggles add telling character turns as old lighthouse keeper Eben Folger and Freddie Linley.

It was Ford’s performance here that convinced his Columbia Pictures studio to cast him in Gilda (1946), which shot him his stardom. In 1961, when Ford was a big star and work was thin for Davis, he returned the favour and cast her as Apple Annie in Pocketful of Miracles, but he angered her by saying he cast her as a favour.

A Stolen Life may not be the best Bette, but it is a pretty good bet anyway. Davis must have liked it, anyway, as she praised it in her autobiography. The second time Davis played twin sisters was in Dead Ringer (1964).

Also in the cast are Dane Clark, Bruce Bennett, Peggy Knudsen, Joan Winfield, Esther Dale, Clara Blandick, Robert Dudley, Jack Mower, Harlan Briggs, Tom Fadden, Creighton Hale, James Flavin and Monte Blue.

It was Oscar nominated for Best Special Effects (William C. McGann; Special Audible Effects by Nathan Levinson) at the 19th Academy Awards, but lost to Blithe Spirit.

It was a hit. Mad on a budget of $2,217,000, it took $4,785,000 at the box office globally.

The cast are Bette Davis as Kate and Patricia Bosworth, Glenn Ford as Bill Emerson, Dane Clark as Karnock, Walter Brennan as Eben Folger, Charlie Ruggles as Freddie Linley, Bruce Bennett as Jack R. Talbot, Peggy Knudsen as Diedre, Esther Dale as Mrs. Johnson, Clara Blandick as Martha, Joan Winfield as Lucy, Jack Mower as George, Leo White as Waiter, Robert Dudley, Harlan Briggs, Tom Fadden, Creighton Hale, James Flavin and Monte Blue.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2703

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Movie Queens: Bette by Graeme Jukes.