A Stolen Life (1946)

(On Cable TV, October 2020) All Bette Davis fans get twice as much for their money in A Stolen Life, considering that Davis here plays twins—a shy quiet artist and a gold-digging firebrand. The sisters don’t get along in the first place, but things get even worse with the shy one falls for a man, and the gold-digger moves in to steal the new guy. The film’s title finds its meaning when a horrible accident kills one sister and allows the second one to step into the other one’s life. As a romantic melodrama, it’s not bad—mostly thanks to Davis acting up a storm for two. In comparison, Glenn Ford merely does fine as the third point in this love triangle. The special effects really aren’t bad at all for a mid-1940s film. The narrative is a bit less impressive, though: Some subplots don’t go anywhere, and the ending is a drawn-out affair. Still, if you’re willing to swallow a few implausibilities, then A Stolen Life is quite entertaining. Davis apparently liked playing herself twice because she did so again twenty years later in Dead Ringer.