bardolatry

Directed by George Cukor

Starring Ronald Colman and Shelley Winters

Reviewed by John Murphy

Method in his Madness

Ronald Colman won an Oscar in 1948 for his riveting performance in George Cukor’s A Double Life, a noir-ish psychological thriller that cleverly anticipated the Method movement in acting in the early 1950s. Colman plays Anthony John, a famous Broadway actor coasting along in breezy comedies. He wants to challenge himself and chooses to climb that Mt. Everest of parts: the noble Moor, Othello. His ex-wife (Signe Hasso), whom Tony still loves, is cast opposite him as the ill-fated Desdemona. Can you see where this is going?

Yes, Tony begins to have trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality. In a kind of worst-case-scenario of a man taking his work home with him, Tony allows Othello’s tragic flaw, jealousy, to overtake his own tenuous personality. The script cleverly suggests the inherent identity struggle every actor confronts. “One man in his time plays many parts” and Anthony has perhaps played one too many. He no longer knows who he is, and so he becomes the part he is playing. He is Othello.

A Double Life is an effective, captivating movie that could have been better. The concept is great and Ronald Colman deserved his Golden Man, but screenwriters Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin missed some opportunities. Namely, where’s Iago? This movie could have used a villain to give Tony a push over the precipice. As is, Tony’s descent into madness stems solely from his own cracked psyche – an interesting idea, but one which would work better in a novel where the reader could gain access to Tony’s tortured thoughts. Instead, Tony’s transition from intense Method actor to a murderously jealous Moor feels unsatisfying on both a psychological and dramatic level. A really delicious bad guy in the puppet-master vein of Iago might have put this movie over the moon.

Yet there is much to enjoy and appreciate about the film as it stands. Colman’s debonair looks, mellifluous voice, and aristocratic bearing effortlessly hold the viewer captive. The part was originally written for Laurence Olivier, and one can only thank the kind heavens above that Colman was cast in light of Olivier’s horrific mangling of Othello almost twenty years later. Where Olivier would have played a buffoonish ham, Colman’s natural nobility makes his character’s downward spiral all the more tragic and captivating.

Because of its flaws, A Double Life remains something more of a curiosity than a confirmed classic, but Colman fans and Shakespeare buffs will find plenty to enjoy in this thoroughly entertaining thriller.