![]() ![]() Davis had seen Barbara Stanwyck’s 1946 film, My Reputation, and had enjoyed it immensely. Wilder wrote the screenplay and I think it was a great idea of Davis’s to get women to write this film’s screenplay, since the two main characters are sisters, and the story revolves around love, and what one wants out of life. ![]() His novel had been made into a movie in England in 1939 and Davis wanted to make a new version of the film in America. A Stolen Life was based on the best selling novel Stolen Life by Czechoslovakian writer Karel J. Producing was a big task and Davis ably carried it out. A Stolen Life was Davis’s first time as a producer. Davis had been wanting a better contract with Warner Brothers, and studio head Jack Warner was not going to let his leading female star go, so the studio agreed in 1944, that Bette could make 5 pictures for them and get to be the producer too. It may seem stale but in the hands of director Curtis Bernhardt and actress Bette Davis, the concept of the dual twins with wildly varied personalities turned out well. In A Stolen Life, we get the “good” twin and the “bad” twin plot. It’s a film that is intriguing to me as Bette gets to play identical twins, and as a mom of twins, I am always interested in seeing how Hollywood handles the concept of twins, and how did the scenes look where the actor or actress in dual roles are in the same scenes at the same time?! I decided to focus on one of Bette’s lesser known films, 1946’s A Stolen Life, a film that Bette actually produced as well as starred in for Warner Brothers. Be sure to visit Crystal’s blog to read all of the other great posts by other classic film fans about Bette Davis and her outstanding career. To honor her memory, blogger and classic film fan Crystal at In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood created a blogathon for this purpose. Photos © Copyright Warner Bros.Actress Bette Davis, if she were still alive, would be turning 108 today, Tuesday, April 5th. A Stolen Life is not one of her most remembered films but it is worth a look. And it is interesting to compare this to the recent Adaptation and see just how far technology has come since then.Īs a producer, Bette Davis surrounded herself with topnotch talent and she gives another flawless performance giving each sister subtly different idiosyncrasies. I'm sure this caused audible gasps in 1946. In the first scene that the twins are shown in together Katie lights a match and hands it to her sister. Although by today's standards the technology is primitive there is at least one moment that holds up well. Will she be able to convince Bill and her artist boyfriend (whom she had turned to for comfort after losing Bill to Pat) that she is really her sister? This is a Bette Davis movie after all, so you can expect some high drama before the credits roll.Īudiences were thrilled at seeing two Bette Davis's on screen interacting with each other. So Katie assumes her sisters identity in order to get her husband. They get caught in a sudden squall and the boat capsizes. Katie and Pat go sailing together in an attempt to bury the hatchet. Fate intervenes (as fate always does in these old melodramas). The less confident Katie gives up refusing to compete with Pat she loses her man. Once the identities of the sisters is sorted out Bill finds himself caught between them. The next day he meets the more glamorous Pat and mistakes her for a 'dressed up' Katie. They are immediately attracted to each other. In a picturesque New England town Katie meets handsome lighthouse inspector Bill Emerson (Glenn Ford). You know that the evil twin will be innocently mistaken for the good twin early on in the movie and that the good twin will eventually assume the role of the evil twin in the end. Countless sitcom episodes have copied this formula and, in fact, Bette Davis would do it again nearly twenty years later in Dead Ringer. Katie is the goodhearted aspiring artist while Pat is the evil twin who steals her man. Bette Davis plays twin sisters Kate and Patricia Bosworth. It was a huge hit for parent company Warner Bros. Bette Davis and Glenn Ford in A Stolen Life.Ī Stolen Life was the first movie produced by Bette Davis' production company B. ![]()
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