A Double Life (1947)

For this 1948 film Ronald Colman, one of the finest actors ever to grace the silver screen, finally got the recognition he long deserved in the form of his first Oscar. In this absorbing, psychological thriller, Colman gave the performance that won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Playing the role of revered stage actor, Anthony John, Colman gives an intense and riveting performance. When the obsessive Anthony John is called to play the role of Othello, he agrees to do so, and his ex wife and love of his life, Brita Kaurin (Signe Hasse) agrees to play the role of Desdemona. All goes well, and the play is a smashing, long running Broadway success.

Playing the role of Othello for such a protracted period of time, however, begins to wreak havoc with John's sanity, as reality and fantasy collide. Brita is seeing someone else in real life, and John, still in love with her, begins to confuse reality with his role. This spills over into his acting, and his acting spills over into his real life. This double life leads to catastrophic consequences from which there is no turning back. Those cognoscenti viewers familiar with the role of Othello can well imagine where this may lead, given the personal dynamics outlined.

All in all, terrific performances are given by the entire cast. Ronald Colman is magnificent in the part of the conflicted Anthony John, and Signe Hasso does herself proud in the role of John's ex-wife. Look for a young and buxom Shelley Winters in a small, but pivotal, role. The incisive screenplay, written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, makes for a drama that is redolent of the New York theatre. Well directed by George Cukor, this is a film that fans of the velvet voiced Ronald Colman will love, as will all those who enjoy a well acted drama.

I first saw Ronald Colman in the 1937 film "Lost Horizon" and I was immediately impressed with his acting ability, primarily his use of subtlety and gesture. His type of acting is extremely rare by todays standards, where the stories are more likely to contain rapid, complex camera shots and special effects to propel the plot. But back in the Silver Screen era it was all about a tight script and excellent acting. That is what we have here, with a particularly potent performance given by the star Ronald Colman. His performance garnered the 1947 Oscar for Best Actor, and many said it was a long time coming. The story is about a stage actor content to play comic leads when he is offered the lead role in Shakespear's "Othello." He is reluctant to play the part due to a subconcious realization that his roles eventually seep into his real life, becoming an actual part of his character. When considering the lead in "Othello" this cannot be a good thing. Tragedy is an eventuality. The highlights in the film, for me, were the scenes from the play on stage. Ronald Colman loses hiself in the character completely both on and off the stage and is ultimately very believable and creepy. There are the occasional conventional plot devices common to the era used to wrap things up neatly, but overall this is a forgotten gem of a film from acclaimed director George Cukor. Once the begining credits unfolded and that director's name was shown I knew this was going to be at the very least, acceptable; at best, exceptional. This film falls nicely between those two possibilities, with a terrific lead performance from Ronald Colman. Thank you.

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When we first see actor Anthony John (Ronald Coleman), he is standing in the lobby of a Broadway theater, buried in a trenchcoat with his face shadowed and hidden by a fedora, studying a painting of himself. John turns around and we're given the opportunity to compare the live face to the portrait hanging over his head. The artist got it all right save for the haunted, and immeasurably sad, eyes. John spends a lot of time studying himself in paintings, busts and mirrors not because he's narcissistic, but rather because he has lost, or perhaps never knew in the first place, who he really is..

Anthony John is a great actor, a toast of Broadway, and a great guy. At least he is now, starring in a wildly popular light comedy. When playing in darker and moodier plays something comes over him. A young woman (who must have met him during an Ibsen play) bumps into him on the street and calls him a `stinker.'

A DOUBLE LIFE is a gutsy and brilliant movie about a man in search of himself and an actor who never learned to "leave it at midnight." To you a 40's expression, and this is very much a 40's movie, John is light and when his character is so. Dark and brooding when cast as a tragic character. Theater friends pressure John to play Shakespeare's Othello. He demurs: "Some plays give me the willys, on stage and off." But the friends are persistent and John is intrigued, and soon enough he is up to his soul in that tragic tale of bloody jealousy.

Laurence Olivier was originally offered the part of the obsessed actor, but he was unavailable. The part, written by Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon in their Oscar-nominated screenplay, calls for a good chunk of the final act of Othello to be played out on-screen. With his reputation and stage background, Olivier would have been ideal. The casting of Coleman, who was hesitant about acting that much Shakespeare on-screen, took a fair bit of courage (stage veteran Walter Hampden was hired on as a Shakespeare coach.) Possessed of a fine voice and a decent profile, Coleman was a movie, not a stage, star. Coleman not only has to convince us that he's a stage actor, but that he's one of the leading stage actors of his time. I can imagine him getting the willys. That he won an Oscar for this movie indicates that I'm not the only one who found his performance spot on.

Composer Miklós Rózsa also won an Oscar for his score. Director George Cukor was nominated, as well, losing out to Elia Kazan's A GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT.

A DOUBLE LIFE is a fine drama that excels on just about every level. Very strongly recommended.

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Universal Pictures presents "A DOUBLE LIFE" (1948) (104 min/B&W) -Starring: Ronald Colman, Signe Hasso, Edmond O'Brien & Shelley Winters

Directed by George Cukor

Anthony John (Ronald Colman) is an actor whose life is strongly influenced by the characters he plays. When he's playing comedy, he's the most enjoyable person in the world, but when he's playing drama, it's terrible to be around him. That's the reason why his wife Brita (Signe Hasso) divorced him; although she still loves him and works with him, she couldn't stand living with him anymore. So when Anthony accepts to play Othello, he devotes himself entirely to the part, but it soon overwhelms him and with each day his mind gets filled more and more with Othello's murderous jealousy.

Won Oscars for Best Actor (Ronald Colman) and for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Miklós Rózsa)

Nominated Oscar for Best Director (George Cukor) and Best Writing, Original Screenplay (Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin)

Not to be overlooked is Milton Krasner's atmospheric cinematography.

Special footnotes: -In the film, Ronald Colman plays a fictional actor who stars in the longest-running "Othello" in history. In real life, actor Paul Robeson, who had just become the first black actor to star in an otherwise white production of "Othello" on Broadway, had just completed the longest run of the play.

The role of Anthony John was originally written for Laurence Olivier. Olivier was unavailable when the film finally went into production.

BIOS:

1. Frank Lloyd (Director)

Date of Birth: 2 February 1886 Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Date of Death: 10 August 1960 Santa Monica, California

2. Ronald Colman [aka: Ronald Charles Colman]

Date of Birth: 9 February 1891 Richmond, Surrey, England, UK

Date of Death: 19 May 1958 Santa Barbara, California

3. Signe Hasso [aka: Signe Eleonora Cecilia Larsson]

Date of Birth: 15 August 1910 Stockholm, Sweden

Date of Death: 7 June 2002 Los Angeles, California

4. Edmond O'Brien [aka: Redmond O'Brien]

Date of Birth: 10 September 1915 New York City, New York

Date of Death: 9 May 1985 Inglewood, California

5. Shelley Winters [aka: Shirley Schrift]

Date of Birth: 18 August 1920 St. Louis, Missouri

Date of Death: 14 January 2006 Beverly Hills, California

6. Miklós Rózsa

Date of Birth: 18 April 1907 Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary)

Date of Death: 27 July 1995 Los Angeles, California

Mr. Jim's Ratings:

Quality of Picture & Sound: 5 Stars

Performance: 5 Stars

Story & Screenplay: 5 Stars

Overall: 5 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 104 min on DVD ~ Universal Pictures ~ (July 22, 2003)

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As a director who understood actors and the problems stars often have managing their own screen personae, George Cukor was the perfect choice to direct this dark thriller about a Shakespearean actor playing Othello both on and off-stage. The film's unique achievement, in turn, is to make us feel apprehension and suspense whether the actor is on or off stage. As the paranoid Moor, Ronald Coleman plays the role with his familiar stylized cadence, a highly artificial elocution in contrast with his inner turmoil and potential violence. The score by Miklos Roza, with it employment of the "theremin," adds another artificial dimension--the operatic and melodramatic. Consequently, the illusion vs. reality theme that we feel at the level of the film's story is doubled by the graphic black and white images vs. formal orchestra score at the structural level. But rather than confuse, the pairings create engaging tensions that sustain the film's impact on the spectator's memory long after the viewing of the film. Like Shakespeare's iambic pentameter, 5-act plays, the formal elements of this film work not to suppress dramatic emotion but to suggest its explosive power through the very elements that contain it.

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