00:06Hi, I'm Ben Mankiewicz. Thanks for joining us on TCM as we wind down a lineup of movies
00:11featuring evil twins. We began the night with the 1964 campy thriller Dead Ringer starring
00:17Betty Davis as twin sisters. It was not Davis's first twin bill. 18 years earlier, Davis landed
00:25her first opportunity to play twins on screen, and that's the film we have right now. For more
00:29Warner Brothers in 1946, A Stolen Life. Truth is, Davis didn't so much land the opportunity to play
00:37twins, she gave herself the role. A Stolen Life marks the one and only time Betty Davis produced
00:43a movie. As part of renewing her contract with Warner Brothers, Davis had the right to produce
00:48five films for the studio. Studio execs figured they were giving her that right in name only,
00:54but Davis took it entirely seriously, much to Warner's frustration. As producer, Davis picked
01:02the project, an adaptation of a novel that had previously been adapted into a British film.
01:07It's the story of twin sisters who fall for the same man. The problems begin when he picks
01:11one sister over the other. To direct, Davis hired Curtis Bernhardt, who'd recently directed
01:17Barbara Stanwyck in a movie that Davis admired called My Reputation, released earlier in 1946,
01:24co-starring George Brent. The most important decision producer Betty Davis made regarding A Stolen
01:30Life was the selection of her leading man. The studio wanted her to use someone they had under
01:36contract, like Dennis Morgan or Robert Alda. Davis, though, wanted an up-and-coming actor who had just
01:42signed with Columbia, Glenn Ford. Ford had been making movies since the late 30s, but had yet to
01:49make much of an impact. He was just getting back to work in Hollywood after military service kept him
01:55away. Ford broke through as a major star in Gilda, opposite Rita Hayworth, earlier in 1946. Gilda beat A Stolen
02:05Life to theaters by a little over three months, but as A Stolen Life was produced in 1945,
02:10neither Davis nor studio boss Jack Warner had seen Gilda. Still, Davis was eager to get Ford cast in
02:18the film, so much so that she defied her bosses and secretly screen-tested him. The test did enough
02:25to convince Jack Warner that Ford was perfect for the part and worth the loan-out fee he'd have to
02:32pay
02:32to rival studio chief Harry Cohn at Columbia. From 1946, also with Walter Brennan and Charlie Ruggles.
02:40A Stolen Life.
02:42A Stolen Life.
