In my quest for collecting movies via VHS tapes at the time (probably the 1990s), I came across a series of four films from the late 40s and early 50s that had an introduction before each film by the great director and film aficionado Martin Scorsese (RAGING BULL). I had never heard or seen these films before. The fact that Scorsese would highlight these four films piqued my interest. Scorsese's introduction gave insight and analysis about what made each one unique. Three of the four films I ended up buying the VHS tape and watching. They were Abraham Polonsky's crime drama FORCE OF EVIL (1948) shot on location in New York City and starring John Garfield; the first film noir western PURSUED (1948) directed by the versatile Raoul Walsh and starring Robert Mitchum and Teresa Wright; and Nicholas Ray's JOHNNY GUITAR (1954) that flips the conventions of the western with Joan Crawford as the dominant main female character and co-starring Sterling Hayden. The only one of the four films I did not purchase and watch was George Cukor's A DOUBLE LIFE (1947). At the time, the plot was unknown to me and I didn't know much about the film's leading man Ronald Colman.
I should have done some research. The plot for A DOUBLE LIFE is tantalizing. The story revolves around an actor who can't separate a character he's playing with his personal life. Hollywood is full of method actors who take their movie role to the extreme. Dustin Hoffman, Daniel Day Lewis, Meryl Streep, and Robert DeNiro come to mind as performers who disappear into their character whether it be Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo in John Schlesinger's MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969), Day Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's LINCOLN (2012), Streep as an Australian mother accused of murdering her child in the Outback in Fred Schepisi's A CRY IN THE DARK (1988) or DeNiro as sociopath Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER (1976). The main difference is these actors were able to separate their character from their personal life at the end of the day. In A DOUBLE LIFE, Ronald Coleman's character Anthony John performs as the murderous Moor Othello in Shakespeare's Othello on stage. But his character's homicidal impulses keep creeping up in his personal life. A DOUBLE LIFE'S plot sounds a bit more film noir-ish than I would have guessed.
It might surprise film lovers that the creative team behind A DOUBLE LIFE are director George Cukor and married screenwriters Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin. Cukor and Gordon/Kanin were far better known for their Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn screwball comedies like ADAM'S RIB (1949) or PAT AND MIKE (1952). Cukor had also helmed the classic comedy THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940) and the musical MY FAIR LADY (1964) with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. If you look at Cukor's filmography, you will find some darker films amongst his lighter fare including GASLIGHT (1944) with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer and the second A STAR IS BORN (1954) with Judy Garland and James Mason. Clearly, Cukor was comfortable splitting his time between comedy and dark dramas.
Directed by George Cukor and with an original screenplay by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin (not to mention some dialogue by an English playwright named William Shakespeare), A DOUBLE LIFE introduces us to stage thespian Anthony "Tony" John (Ronald Colman) as he walks down Broadway, visiting the backstage of the theater where he's currently performing the comedy A Gentleman's Gentleman with his ex-wife Brita Kaurin (Signe Hasso), running into a couple of actresses he may have had dalliances with on the street before stopping at the office of Broadway producer Max Lasker (Philip Loeb). Max wants Tony to join a new production of William Shakespeare's Othello. With Max is Broadway director Victor Donlon (Ray Collins). Tony's initially hesitant to play the demanding part. Brita tries to talk Tony out of taking the role. Tony walks around New York City debating whether to do it or not. He notices an Italian restaurant called Venezia Cafe. Tony sees it as a good omen. Tony has some food and befriends a sexy waitress named Pat Kroll (Shelly Winters). Tony visits Pat after work at her apartment. They talk and share a kiss. Brimming with confidence, Tony sees Brita the next day. He's going to take the part of Othello. He wants Brita to play Desdemona.
We follow the theater process from casting to blocking to rehearsal and full-dress rehearsal. Opening night arrives for the premiere of Othello. Max, Victor, and Brita's press agent Bill Friend (Edmond O'Brien) are so nervous they go across the street from the theater to have a drink. They expect failure but the play is a huge success, a standing ovation for Tony and Brita and multiple curtain calls. During the after party, Tony has a hard time shedding himself from Othello. He begins to hear sounds and bits of dialogue from the play. He asks Brita to take him home. The plays hits three months on Broadway. Then, 200 shows. Tony becomes agitated by little errors behind the curtain by the stagehands. At the 300th performance, Tony becomes a little too physical with Brita in her death scene. He almost strangles her before realizing what he's doing.
The play reaches two years on Broadway. Brita brings Tony a birthday cake with miniature Othello and Desdemona figures decorating the top. Tony's still in love with Brita. They share a passionate kiss and Tony suggests that they get married again. Brita rejects the idea, sending Tony into a jealous rage. Tony suspects Brita's in love with her press agent Bill Friend. Tony storms out of her apartment, wandering the streets until it's dark. He looks for Pat, first at the cafe then at her apartment. He wakes Pat up. Pat lets him in. Tony asks if Pat has any boyfriends. She's coy with him. Tony becomes possessed by the demons that drive Othello to murder. Like in the play, blowing curtains in Pat's room recreate the murder scene again in Tony's mind. Reciting lines from the play he's performed hundreds of times, Tony strangles Pat like Othello smothers Desdemona with a kiss. Brita wakes up in the middle of the night, looks downstairs for Tony but he's not on the couch. In the morning, she finds Tony has returned, now asleep on the same couch.
A maid finds Pat's body. The police arrive. Captain Pete Bonner (Joe Sawyer) gives an update to the press. The pathologist on the scene Dr. Roland Stauffer (Whit Bissell) tells the press it was an unusual crime of passion which catches the attention of reporter Al Cooley (Millard Mitchell). Cooley convinces Stauffer to say it was a "kiss of death" that killed her. Cooley visits Bill and tells him about the murder. The newspapers label it "the Othello Murder." When Tony sees the headlines, he storms over to Bill's apartment in a rage, telling him to kill the story. Bill can't and Tony nearly strangles Bill. Bill begins to suspect Tony might be the killer. Bill visits Captain Bonner to tell him his theory but Bonner says a suspect has already been caught. When Bill tells Brita about his altercation with Tony, Brita reveals Tony slept over on her couch a few nights ago but he wasn't there all night. Bill begins an elaborate plan to test his theory if Tony's the killer that will lead to the film's finale on stage where acting and real life will blend together in an explosive way.
A DOUBLE LIFE explores the dark side of acting. What happens when an actor takes on a dramatic, complicated role and plays that character over and over again for six months or a year? Where does acting end and reality return? How hard is it to cast off that character? After watching A DOUBLE LIFE, it made think of actors and actresses who have played complicated roles on the stage for a period of time. Lee J. Cobb, George C. Scott, and Dustin Hoffman all played the suffering traveling salesman Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. The original Broadway version Cobb was in had 742 performances. Or Jessica Tandy as fading Southern belle Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Name Desire. Or Jason Robards as James Tyrone Jr., the older brother in Eugene O'Neill's gripping play about a Connecticut family in Long Day's Journey Into Night. Did they have trouble dropping their character after each night's performance?
In A DOUBLE LIFE, there's a hint that Tony may have played Othello previously in his career and struggled with separating reality and his intense stage persona. Hence, his reluctance to take on the role again. When we first encounter Tony, he's appearing in a light Noel Coward like comedy
A Gentleman's Gentleman, a character he can shed like a jacket until the next night, a play that doesn't tax him mentally or physically. Like most actors, Tony has an ego. As he contemplates the challenge of playing Othello, he gets a confidence boost by a flirtatious dalliance with waitress Pat Kroll. Tony takes the leap and decides to play Shakespeare's dark king. Director Cukor uses sound to great effect to show Tony's fragile mental state as he grapples with his alter ego. Sounds like applause, chimes, and trains set Tony off as do fragments of Othello and Desdemona's dialogue when he becomes agitated. He's able to keep his alter ego under wraps most of the time. But like Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll, the Mr. Hyde like Othello emerges when Tony becomes jealous. Tony wants to kill Brita after a spat but he could never hurt Brita. So Tony goes to his Brita surrogate, the waitress Pat. Pat even has blonde hair like the blonde wig Brita wears as Desdemona. Tony thinks he's back on stage as Othello before he murders Desdemona. Tony will get Pat and Desdemona mixed up as Tony's demons totally possess him.
The final sequence in A DOUBLE LIFE is wicked irony. Bill and the authorities bring cafe owner Stellini (Charles La Torre) to the play to identify Tony in connection with Pat's murder. Tony sees Stellini staring at him from the wings. He knows the noose is tightening around him. Actors always want to have a good death scene so Tony as Othello stabs himself with a real dagger rather than a stage one this time in the play's finale. Just as Tony has blurred fiction and reality in his mind, the movie blurs Othello's denouement with the film's climax. The character Othello does stab himself at the end of the play. Actor Tony John as the Moor kills himself to avoid scandal and prison time. It's the ultimate death scene for a dramatic actor. As he lies dying from his self-inflicted wound, Tony's talks about another actor he knew who was renowned for his death scenes. He's still concerned about his publicity after his death and asks Bill to make him likable. As the curtain of death falls over Tony, the stage's final curtain call comes down too. The play and reality have melded into one. Blackness creeps over both Tony and the stage as the spotlight goes dark.
Ronald Colman who plays the tortured stage actor Anthony John in A DOUBLE LIFE was one of the finest British actors in Hollywood during the 30s and 40s that most movie fans may know little about (myself included). Colman started out in silent films in the 20s and made the transition easily to talkies with his good looks and silky voice. English actors like Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Robert Donat, and Leslie Howard seemed to get more attention than Colman. In fact, A DOUBLE LIFE was written with Olivier in mind. Olivier was unavailable when it came time to film. Colman was offered the part. Whomever played the role of would have won an Academy Award for Best Actor. The character is so well written by Gordon/Kanin and directed by Cukor. Coleman and composer Miklos Rozsa (BEN-HUR) would win Oscars in 1947 for A DOUBLE LIFE. Some Ronald Colman films worth catching include Frank Capra's LOST HORIZON (1937) with Jane Wyatt; John Cromwell's THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937) co-starring Madeleine Carroll; and Mervyn LeRoy's RANDOM HARVEST (1942) with Greer Garson.
Ronald Colman wasn't the only actor in A DOUBLE LIFE I knew little about. Colman's leading lady in the film Swedish born actress Signe Hasso who plays Brita was unknown to me as well. Given the unrealistic expectation to be the next "Greta Garbo", Hasso found work and some good roles with MGM in the 1940 in films such as Fred Zinnemann's THE SEVENTH CROSS (1944) with Spencer Tracy and Henry Hathaway's THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET (1945). But her favorite role was as Brita in A DOUBLE LIFE. Like Colman, Hasso gets to play two parts, both the stage actress Brita and Shakespeare's character Desdemona. As Desdemona is married to Othello, Brita and Tony had been married. Tony wants them try again at marriage. Brita likes the current arrangement as friends and co-workers. Brita comes out of the story a little better than Desdemona. Hasso as Brita is classy and charming. It's easy to see why her ex-husband Tony and her press agent Bill are both in love with her. Hasso did not reach the fame of Garbo and would stop making films in the early 50s, concentrating on theater and television for the rest of her career.
Although it doesn't seem like it at first glance, A DOUBLE LIFE does fall into the film noir genre especially after the film's surprise murder. Director Cukor sprinkles the supporting cast with some faces familiar to film noir fans. For Shelly Winters, who plays the sexy, doomed blue collar waitress Pat Kroll, A DOUBLE LIFE would be an important early role in her career. Pat is a vulnerable, pretty woman that life has not dealt the best hand to. A flirtation with famed Broadway actor Anthony John could change her life. Instead, it will turn tragic for her. Winters was discovered by her DOUBLE LIFE director George Cukor during auditions for GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) when Cukor was briefly involved with the film. After stumbling around with not very interesting parts after A DOUBLE LIFE, Winters would appear in a fairy tale film noir classic NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1957) starring Robert Mitchum and directed by actor Charles Laughton that would kickstart her career. Another great Winters performance is as the sexually liberated widow Charlotte Haze opposite James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA (1962).
Edmond O'Brien as Bill Friend, Brita's press agent who loves his client from afar and becomes the first person to suspect Tony might be a murderer was no stranger to film noir films. O'Brien appeared in Robert Siodmak's THE KILLERS (1946) with Burt Lancaster; played the lead in Rudolph Mate's D.O.A. (1949) about a poisoned man trying to find his killer; and starred in Ida Lupino's gripping
THE HITCH-HIKER (1953). My first encounter with O'Brien he was almost unrecognizable as the shaggy quartermaster for THE WILD BUNCH (1969) directed by Sam Peckinpah. Rounding out the stellar supporting cast of A DOUBLE LIFE are Joe Sawyer (THE KILLING) as police Captain Pete Bonner trying to crack the case, Millard Mitchell (THE NAKED SPUR) as the headline hungry reporter Al Cooley, and Whit Bissell (CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON) as the spineless coroner Dr. Stauffer.
A few final thoughts and tidbits on A DOUBLE LIFE. Shakespeare's tragedy Othello is a key cog in the film. Perhaps the most important character in the play is not Othello but his treacherous adviser Iago. It would have been interesting if the filmmakers had come up with an Iago type character in A DOUBLE LIFE to manipulate Tony into murdering Brita (like Bill Friend who secretly loves her). Instead, Cukor and Gordon/Kanin focus on Tony's mental state and fatigue playing such a complicated role as Othello for a period of time which crosses into his personal life. An actor portraying Iago is seen briefly on stage a couple of times during the film. Believe it or not, Ronald Coleman had never performed Shakespeare before. He had literally been a movie actor all his life. One can see why Anthony John was originally meant for Laurence Olivier who was renowned for his productions of various Shakespeare plays. Olivier would star and direct in the film version of HAMLET (1948) a year after A DOUBLE LIFE was released. That might explain why Olivier was unavailable for A DOUBLE LIFE.
A DOUBLE LIFE is a fascinating look at both the inner workings of a Broadway production and the struggles of a talented actor who begins to blur the lines between his real self and the famous character that he portrays. Tony Johns jealousies begin to mirror those of Othello's which leads to a lethal conclusion. A DOUBLE LIFE is a great opportunity to become acquainted with some lesser known but talented actors like Ronald Colman, Signe Hasso, and Edmond O'Brien. It's a breakout introduction for the up-and-coming young actress Shelly Winters and solidifies the talents of its creators, the writing team of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin and director extraordinaire George Cukor.
