The Dark Mirror

Scripted and produced by prolific studio multihyphenate Nunnally Johnson (the screenwriter behind Fritz Lang’s genre-defining classic The Woman in the Window, who would go on to write and direct The Three Faces of Eve), The Dark Mirror is perhaps the most explicitly clinical of the psychologically inflected thrillers that Siodmak helmed during his years in Hollywood, providing the framework for a canny meditation on the fundamental, intractable mysteries of identity and personality. Olivia de Havilland stars in a tour-de-force dual performance as identical twin sisters Terry and Ruth Collins, one of whom has been implicated in a violent crime by multiple witnesses who saw her flee the scene—while the other can provide an airtight alibi. Having no way of knowing to which sister the alibi rightfully belongs, the investigating detective (Thomas Mitchell) entrusts a psychologist (Lew Ayres) with the task of sussing out the differences in their personae—bringing to the surface a lifetime’s worth of dangerously combustible resentments and regrets in the process. 35mm preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Preservation funded by The Film Foundation, Paramount Pictures, and the Packard Humanities Institute.