Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958) Reviews

• They don't make them like that, anymore !

  frankatcccp2002-10-10

  When I was a little boy, I had seen the film, but remembered little of it. However, in the early sixties, my Dad took me on a holiday to Spain, to a little village south of Barcelona, called Sitges. During one coach journey, the courier told us that the mountain road that we were now on was the scene of a fast car drive in a film made a couple of years previously, called 'Chase a Crooked Shadow'. I remember the road well, with the cliff drops hundreds of feet below to the sea and this coupled with my fond memory of that holiday in Franco's long gone Spain and the fact that the film itself is a brilliant piece of old cinema with a terrific twist at the end, makes me watch this film over and over again. I see something in it every time I watch it - the sign of a good film!

• Oh dear, who can my brother be?!

  benbrae762006-08-29

  Apart from the ingenious (albeit a tad implausible) plot-with-a-twist story, the most memorable aspect of this movie is the haunting solo guitar music played by Julian Bream. It follows the action at every twist and turn, and has much the same tension building quality as did the zither music in "The Third Man". Richard Todd is the ultimate "officer & gentleman" type actor, but he is quite adept at turning on a sinister streak, as in this movie (and the earlier "Stagefright"). I think Anne Baxter overplays the hysterics just a little (a touch of the "method" creeping in perhaps). But then who am I to say how a woman in such an odd situation as her character finds herself would react? So maybe Anne does get it right. That situation is a simple one plot-wise. A menacing stranger (with equally menacing friends) has intruded into a wealthy woman's life purporting to be her long dead brother. But is he or isn't he? She is quite sure he isn't. She turns to the police and to her Uncle Chan for help, but none seems to be forthcoming. End of plot...or is it? I may be wrong (although I don't think so), but I fancy I've also seen the same footage of the "car careering down the mountain road" scene in another totally different movie, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of it. Maybe some one can help me out? This little black and white thriller keeps the guesswork and the suspense right through to the last. Every time I see it I wonder just how Alfred Hitchcock would have approached it. Differently no doubt, but I don't think he would have done any better. It's just fine as it is. Watch it and see.

• A classic 'B' movie thriller you won't forget.

  tregenna2001-07-07

  A movie you will always remember. Intriguing story, 'look behind you' thrills, 'face at the door' shocks, solid acting, a great 'twist in the tale' and haunting guitar music. It may have been cheaply made and studio bound but it just goes to prove you can't beat a good story and ... a memorable tune. Enjoy, because they don't make them like that anymore.

• A twist in the tale

  jandesimpson2003-10-12

  I have to admit, I am a sucker for a plot with a good twist. The problem is they don't grow on trees. Think of the films of recent years and I can only come up with two, "The Usual Suspects" and "The Sixth Sense". Both come into the category of being worth a second look to see how they work and both pass the credibility test with flying colours. There was that detective novelist of yesteryear, Agatha Christie. I lapped up practically every one of her tales as a teenager and a young man. She must have tried out every permutation of the twist imaginable, always giving the satisfaction that, even if you did not guess it, the person who "dun" it was psychologically the only possible candidate. After "Aggie" the detective novel was never quite the same again. By trying to write "real" novels of supposedly literary quality, most writers in this field seemed more interested in realism than clever twists with the result that I rather lost interest in the genre. Again there are very few good twist movies from the time I grew up with cinema. "Les Diaboliques" and "So Long at the Fair" remain excellent examples that give pleasure on repeated showings even with the element of surprise missing. Worth mentioning that, although not quite on their level, I actually discovered a good little twist movie the other day from the same period, "Chase a Crooked Shadow" starring Anne Baxter and Richard Todd. Anne Baxter is in much the same sort of predicament as Jean Simmons in "So Long at the Fair". Instead of her brother disappearing, Anne's supposedly dead brother turns up as someone she does not recognise. She spends much of the film trying to convince friends and police that Richard Todd is not her brother but of course no-one believes her. I suppose that ultimately "Chase a Crooked Shadow" lacks the sense of style of the others I have mentioned. Michael Anderson's direction is rather pedestrian although he does manage a couple of sudden character appearances that made me jump. I don't suppose I shall watch it again as I rather think it has given up all it has to offer but I would certainly recommend it to lovers of Grand Guignol as an hour and a half of mildly pleasurably viewing.

• Superb and harrowing mystery thriller

  robert-temple-12011-08-18

  Michael Anderson here has directed a really hair-raising and sinister mystery thriller. The story is most ingenious and creepy: a man, played by Richard Todd, appears one evening at Anne Baxter's villa near Barcelona and pretends to know her intimately. He says he is her brother. But as she knows very well, he is an impostor. Her brother was killed only a year before in a car crash, and she identified his body. Who is this man? What does he want? He won't go away and she calls the local police chief (Herbert Lom) to have him thrown out. But he produces impeccable credentials, a passport, a letter of credit for the bank, and so forth, to prove that he is Baxter's brother. Despite Baxter's increasingly hysterical insistence that this man is an impostor, Lom has to go away, though his suspicions have been aroused, and he keeps an eye on things as they develop. Meanwhile, Todd cannot be dislodged, and he moves into the villa. Baxter's maid vanishes on a sudden holiday and is replaced with Todd's woman friend, played by Faith Brook. Todd also introduces a butler called Carlos. Baxter is understandably in a continual state of fear, surrounded now by aliens in her own house, unable to do anything about it, though she keeps trying. Then the intruders show their hand: it is all about £10 million of missing diamonds which had belonged to Baxter's deceased father, a diamond king of South Africa (Baxter's character is named Kimberley, get it?). Where are the diamonds? But that is not all. There is also the matter of the Last Will and Testament which they present to her, which she is meant to sign, before they drown her. Baxter does an excellent job of becoming increasingly shrill and distraught in this impossible situation. But the main impact of the film comes from the perfect manners of Richard Todd, who is genteel and controlled at all times. This provides the necessary eerie quality to the surreal events of the story. Richard really was such a 'perfect gent'. I knew him late in life, and, like John Mills, he was always impeccably dressed and had the most perfect manners and gentility. They 'don't make 'em like that anymore'.