Chase A Crooked Shadow numbers among those ingeniously plotted movies that are too clever by half. But it sustains interest and stars Anne Baxter, nothing to sneeze at. Baxter plays a South African diamond heiress `resting' at her seaside villa in Spain. One night, up shows a total stranger (Richard Todd) who claims to be her wastrel brother, supposedly killed in a racing-car crash. He presents his alternative reality with needling superiority, and in Todd they found precisely the supercilious cold fish to present it.
Pleas to the local police (in the person of Herbert Lom) prove bootless, as Todd's papers and passport prove in order; he's also uncannily familiar with family details, such as the ingredients of Baxter's `swimming drink' (vermouth cassis with a splash of soda). At the bottom of the imposture is a quest for some $10-million in diamonds gone missing before Baxter's father's Transvaal Company went belly-up, resulting in his suicide. Baxter tries to find a chink in Todd's armor, but he seems to have covered every angle, including suborning her avuncular uncle (Alexander Knox, in a wisp of a role).
Though the movie is confined almost entirely to the villa and boasts a cast of six and a half, it's well photographed the arches and wrought iron lend themselves to subtle and effective lighting. But what about the final twist of the plot? Since producer Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. appears in a coda to warn against giving away the secret, it won't be revealed here. But it leaves rapt viewers faintly disgruntled, wondering if and how they've been somehow swindled along the way.
Pleas to the local police (in the person of Herbert Lom) prove bootless, as Todd's papers and passport prove in order; he's also uncannily familiar with family details, such as the ingredients of Baxter's `swimming drink' (vermouth cassis with a splash of soda). At the bottom of the imposture is a quest for some $10-million in diamonds gone missing before Baxter's father's Transvaal Company went belly-up, resulting in his suicide. Baxter tries to find a chink in Todd's armor, but he seems to have covered every angle, including suborning her avuncular uncle (Alexander Knox, in a wisp of a role).
Though the movie is confined almost entirely to the villa and boasts a cast of six and a half, it's well photographed the arches and wrought iron lend themselves to subtle and effective lighting. But what about the final twist of the plot? Since producer Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. appears in a coda to warn against giving away the secret, it won't be revealed here. But it leaves rapt viewers faintly disgruntled, wondering if and how they've been somehow swindled along the way.