A Double Life

The first of Cukor's string of fruitful collaborations with screenwriters Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, a curious melodrama about a Broadway matinée idol who so loses himself in his role as Othello that he carries it over, murderously, into a backstreet affair with a waitress. The theatre scenes are so brilliantly observed, so rich in the sort of affectionate detail that made The Actress a small masterpiece, that the film seems to grind gears uncomfortably when venturing into the grey and shabby B movie world of the murder. All the more so in that it then returns to its happier idiom for a grand finale of on-stage retribution. Flawed, undoubtedly, but fascinating.