A Double Life

RONALD COLMAN FINALLY GETS HIS LONG OVERDUE OSCAR...
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...

A forgotten gem.
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...

Arise, black vengeance
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...

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