A South African heiress (Anne Baxter) begins to doubt her sanity when a man (Richard Todd) arrives claiming to be her brother, who was believed dead several months before, in Michael Anderson's mystery thriller.
It's got an intriguing set up, but I think a director like Joseph Losey would've done even more with it by heightening the more ambiguous psychological aspects of the story. Anderson does a good job of creating suspense here, especially in the claustrophobic shots that follow Baxter around the house, but everything's done too straightforwardly and stagily to really delve into this surreal side, which causes some of the twists to seem overly telegraphed in advance.
Nevertheless, it still builds a good mystery, with Baxter really selling her character's mounting paranoia as she struggles to convince the people around her that this stranger isn't her brother, slowly questioning her situation as time goes on. This leads to a great final sequence that really amps the tension up, rounding the story off in a way that helps to alter everything we've just seen.
Cast a Crooked Shadow is a solid thriller that has some effective twists and turns, even if it feels a bit too conventional to really stand out.
It's got an intriguing set up, but I think a director like Joseph Losey would've done even more with it by heightening the more ambiguous psychological aspects of the story. Anderson does a good job of creating suspense here, especially in the claustrophobic shots that follow Baxter around the house, but everything's done too straightforwardly and stagily to really delve into this surreal side, which causes some of the twists to seem overly telegraphed in advance.
Nevertheless, it still builds a good mystery, with Baxter really selling her character's mounting paranoia as she struggles to convince the people around her that this stranger isn't her brother, slowly questioning her situation as time goes on. This leads to a great final sequence that really amps the tension up, rounding the story off in a way that helps to alter everything we've just seen.
Cast a Crooked Shadow is a solid thriller that has some effective twists and turns, even if it feels a bit too conventional to really stand out.