Thanks for the memories!

So much average

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Another fine Edward G. Robinson movie from the '30s. This one has Eddie playing an actor whose sister (Mary Astor) was married to a jerk (Louis Calhern) that had a strange hold over her. He disappeared years before and was presumed dead. Now the husband is back and Eddie is determined to protect his sister. Starts out like a comedy but it's more of a murder mystery. Robinson's good, as usual. Calhern is a scuzzy heel. Astor's melodramatic but it works for her. Cast also includes Ricardo Cortez, Mae Clarke, David Landau, John Eldredge, and Arthur Byron. Creaks a little due to age and staginess but worth checking out if you're a fan of Robinson.

This film was very hard to see, it was one of the few Edward G. Robinson Warner Bros films I had not seen ("Dark Hazard" is now the only one left). The shocker is that it is not more well known, and it should be. It is in the top 10 Robinson films I have ever seen, and I have seen over 50 of them). Robinson's Damon Welles may rank as the most sympathetic murderer in film history (Even more than Robinson's Dr Clitterhouse in "The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse"). Spoilers Ahead: So much so that Police Sgt. William Curtis let him go on stage before arresting him, and told him that his performance before the jury will determine if he gets convicted or not for murdering his sister Jessica's (Mary Astor)husband Stanley Vance (Louis Calhern). Vance is really the kind of person who deserved what he got, the way he could control Jessica's life like she was a puppet and he was the master, and he had done it before to another woman. Gut feeling: He will not be convicted of the crime, because not only is a great stage actor who can charm a jury, but Vance was so rotten, it will be difficult (If not impossible) to have any pity for him. Easy 10/10 stars.

"The Man with Two Faces" is a film that takes the Svengali legend and adds a twist to it in the form of the avenging brother of the entranced girl. It showcases Edward G. Robinson, who is excellent, as an actor who impersonates another man in order to rid his sister of her deadbeat, Svengali-like husband, played by Louis Calhern. Calhern is also showcased and is less successful in his portrayal, giving a performance with little charisma or magnetism, making it hard to believe that a woman like Mary Astor would be drawn to him like a mindless lap dog.Everyone else in the cast is wasted, including Ricardo Cortez, who might have been a better choice for the deadbeat husband than Calhern. Especially wasted are the two leading women in the film, Mary Astor and Mae Clark. They're given such demeaning roles, with so little screen time, it's a wonder they ever accepted them. Astor is Robinson's sister, a woman whose husband turns her into an extreme, overdone version of Trilby. She dutifully obeys him no matter his demeaning demand. Astor plays it like an automaton; she's emotionless, numb, blank, almost in a trance, probably what got her through this. Pretty Mae Clark plays Robinson's girlfriend, an extraneous character who is ignored, ridiculed, beaten, and keeps coming back for more. This film suffers from an almost terminal lack of humor and an unwise concentration on Calhern and his character. Having Robinson be a sympathetic murderer who poisons and stabs his victim and almost gets away with it is interesting though. (Too bad he didn't. One wonders, though, if he's such a genius how he could end up leaving his fake mustache behind inside a Gideon Bible!) And the make-up on Robinson when he's impersonating a French businessman is excellent; you can hardly tell it's him. All in all, a 6/10.

Great acting from Robinson, and a little over the top, but enjoyably so, from Calhern and Astor. Very stagey, but good setups and moving camera. Beware the plot synopsis in the TV Guide movie database. It seems to describe the ending of the play, but the movie (a censored version?), which played on TCM, has a more ambiguous ending which works better and is more interesting (to me, at least). (Not that I'm for censorship, but sometimes...) Ironically, the play had a happy ending, and that is the one described by TV Guide and Maltin. It's amusing to see when the established references contain reviews that were written by people who had not seen the entire film, and in some cases not at all.