It's Time to Revisit the Absolute Smoldering Sexiness of Bette Davis in "Dead Ringer."

That hot Peter Lawford!

LOVE this movie. Always surprised it doesn’t get more attention in the gay camp discussions - and beyond. Great cheesy story - murdered twins played by Bette, poverty vs wealth, gigolo boyfriend, Los Angeles. I remember first time I saw it I thought “why have I never bjewrd of this”.

It's one of my favorites. Filmed at the Doheny mansion in Beverly Hills.

I have never bjewrd of this movie.

The movie was released in 1964.

She apparently wanted to show her tits in this, but the studio refused.

One of my favorites. Lena Lamont from Singin Rain is in this about 12 years and 25 lbs later.

I saw this decades ago on TV when I as a teen and loved it. In fact, I was surprised I'd never heard of if before. Was surprised it didn't have a reputation as a movie you should see like Cassablanca or Citizen Kane or It Happened One Night.

However, I haven't really thought about it since that one and only viewing.

Now you're making me want to see it again. What streaming service(s) have it?

I know which thread you're spoofing, OP, but I also have a strange affection for Dead Ringer. Bette playing two roles! Peter Lawford as a gigolo! Pre-Streets of San Francisco Karl Malden as a hard-bitten cop! Harpsichord music!

Yeah, it's fun.

I saw it years ago on the late show and immediately fell in love with it. The scene at the fire place!

No one has mentioned it was directed by Paul Heinried (sp) from Now, Voyager!

Saw this movie the other day and loved it!

For R8 and anyone else.

Thanks, R13, but is that site safe? With "RU" in its domain name?

Davis was 20 years too old for the part. And it showed in her face. Even Max Factor #1,000 couldn't hide those gargantuan bags under her eyes.

Speaking of drinkers, it was nice to see Jean Hagen in one of her later roles. Too bad she couldn't get a handle on HER demons...

Is safe, R13.

R11, He cast his daughter in the role of Bette's maid and she was pretty bad.

[quote] Davis was 20 years too old for the part.

Why do you say that? She was supposed to be playing a middle-aged woman.

R15- Oh honey- THIS bitch was too old for the part.

Egg ranch?

R9, yeah, I was goofing on the Brad Davis post but I too love Dead Ringer, and like others in this thread, I simply can't understand why more people haven't bjewrd of it. It's a tidy, well-acted and written little thriller/melodrama. Peter Lawford's a bit past his prime (and quite a few pounds over fighting weight) but nonetheless, he's appealingly sleazy/sexy in his role.

And completely coincidentally, when I got home tonight Bette was guest-starring on Perry Mason, still sporting that fetching auburn wig!

[quote]One of my favorites. Lina Lamont from Singin' in the Rain is in this about 12 years and 25 lbs later.

It was Jean Hagen's final movie appearance, although she continued to act occasionally on television. Her final acting role was a small part in DL fave "Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn." She died the following year.

These are the Bette Davis eyes they talked about?

That was one of my many rejects.

Betty Davis was homely, and she her acting range was very limited. She was the same character in every movie. She would never be a star today.

R25 My name was Bette not Betty and I would have been a star in any era. Even this ridiculous one.

R25 Her acting range wasn't limited, and she was sometimes very pretty when she was young.

I started watching old movies when I was in my early 20s. Netflix originally had a vast library of classic-movie DVDs and I decided to study Bette, Katharine, Joan, Rosalind et al.

I did NOT get Bette at first. I thought she was a terrible melodramatic actress in stupid melodramas, particularly the way she'd frequently 'cry' by covering her face, sitting on a sofa and throwing her body over one arm of it and convulse. It was ridiculous to the point of being funny and I started to hope every movie with her would feature that. It was unselfaware camp and I didn't really know what camp was but I loved it.

But those were her very early movies. Then I saw later movies getting toward the '50s and thought 'ack, she didn't age well!' at first but she began to stand out among casts of actors who were still turning into melodramatic stage-type performances while she was captivating and realistic.

Then I saw All About Eve and was riveted by her performance. I first saw her in roles of scorned women, victimized women, cursed women, a good and an evil twin, and she was always over-the-top in these silly movies. All of a sudden in All About Eve, she gave this performance that embodied a strong woman but it had so many layers. She was narcissistic, vain, confident in her abilities but desperate for affirmation in her private life, not unsymathetic, though, and accepted her fate when it was served up to her.

The movie's script is quite over the top and it borders on camp, there's an arch villain, etc., but Davis's performance is incredibly deep and it blew me away mainly by comparison to older movies of hers.

Joan Crawford was also a young actress in the 30s, and suited to the time, but her acting never matured much beyond the early days of Hollywood. It worked sometimes, like in Mildred Pierce, but even in that Oscar-winning role, Crawford is projecting a larger-than-life fragile character who has been victimized by everyone and if she walked into a room and spoke and moved the way she does in the movie, you'd have to classify her as a histrionic personality type. Bette evolved from an actor who did only that (as did everyone in the movies at the time) to a very realistic actor who embodied lots of different characters with a ton of range and she could walk into a room today and convince you she was actually one of those people.

Her evolution as an actor is remarkable and the only other person I see it in is Marlon Brando.

Katharine Hepburn sort of pulled it off but she's an exception in and of herself because for almost the entire duration of her career, she somehow played mostly characters who seemed to have been influenced or inspired by who she was in real life, and she always projected a grand, strong energy from beginning to end.

I absolutely love Rosalind Russell, but she always had that 1930s wisecracking edge and didn't melt into roles the way Davis did. Davis was almost one of a kind and her onscreen evolution demonstrates why her legacy is what it is.

And her appearance was an asset. She can fairly be called 'homely,' I guess, without all the glam, but she had such distinctive features including the wide, bulging eyes, the droopy nose and the little cupid's-bow mouth, and being very pretty is always a career advantage for young women and men in Hollywood, but being distinctive looking and memorable is an advantage for longevity. I think Crawford was stunning if not beautiful especially as she aged, but more importantly, she made herself more and more distinctive looking as she got older with the Disney villain hair, the big eyebrows and shoulders, because it made her memorable. Bette didn't need to style herself into a cartoon because her face was always memorable even when she played a huge diversity of characters.

Donna Anna!!

first time bjewrd of it, but I can't picture Bette Davis as a sex symbol, she never was, even at her younger days.

[quote]She apparently wanted to show her tits in this, but the studio refused.

Poor Bette, her low bosom rested on her distended belly for most of the movie, as they usually did.

I couldn't look away...

She wears a fabulous Miriam Haskell brooch in this, I always watch for it.

I always wanted to see this because I love the spoof of it "Die, Mommie, Die!"

[quote]“why have I never bjewrd of this”.

I love my drunken Datalounge friends.

Mention of Jean Hagen made me think of the dazzling camp-fest Where Love Has Gone, because I thought she played Joey Heatherton's counselor in it, but that turned out to be Jane Greer.

I love Jean Hagen. I think she's great in The Big Knife.

Why is everyone mentioning her "auburn" wig? We only see it in B&W.

Regardless of color, that nasty wig is serving up all manner of Mamie Eisenhower realness.

Poor Bette , she should have worn the falsies, these things are hard as a rock, if you accidentally fall on it, it could chip a tooth or two, but they are perky!

Bette had played twins before, in "A Stolen Life" (1946), with a similar story about a woman assuming her dead twin's identity, only to discover that the twin's life wasn't what she had thought it was.

Wasn’t Bette supposed to kill herself when she hit middle age, like all the male 1940s stars did when they were no longer young and desirable in the 1960s? William Holden, Ray Milland, Robert Cummings, John Wayne, John Carradine, little Jackie Coogan (and Jackie Cooper). None of them continued to work when they were old

This movie should have filmed in color but Bette always thought that she looked better in black and white. Too many of her movies were filmed in black and white but she had no choice but to go the color route once the 1970's rolled around.

Bette gave Peter Lawford a job in Dead Ringer because by this time his looks had begun to fade as well as his acting career.

Holden and Wayne still made movies. Cummings did tv. Cooper directed tv and became an executive, as well as having occasional tv and film appearances.

[quote]Bette had played twins before, in "A Stolen Life" (1946), with a similar story about a woman assuming her dead twin's identity, only to discover that the twin's life wasn't what she had thought it was.

It was parodied in the [italic]Carol Burnett Show[/italic] skit "A Swiped Life."

"Dead Ringer" is a remake of "La Otra" ("The Other One," 1946), starring Dolores Del Rio. Warner Bros owned the script and had planned an English language version, but the plot was too similar to their other production "A Stolen Life" (1946), so it sat unproduced until 1964.

It was remade once again in 1986, as a television MOW, "Killer in the Mirror," starring the incomparable Ann Jillian.

Peter Lawford's career basically died after the death of his brother-in-law, JFK.

Doncha know me Jim?

I think she's superb in that. She was never so relaxed yet effective onscreen.

"Die Mommie Die!" scene:

I once did that monologue in our condo elevator to a drunk busybody, starting with the "Listen, sister . . ."

I love the "Past their Prime" films of Bette and Joan. They were campy, but still above-average and very entertaining. Dead Ringer, The Oscar, Queen Bee, Female on the Beach, Baby Jane and Sweet Charlotte are some of my favorite movies ever. I'd rather watch any of those movies over the later work of Meryl, Glenn or Diane Keaton, etc.

They did some great work in that period. I much prefer Davis' 'low-brow' '60s films to K. Hepburn's critically acclaimed garbage, one turd after another from Guess Who till death.

Right there with you, R50.

I've always imagined that with profits (5% net) from Baby Jane, Miss Davis got a facelift for Dead Ringer.

R27, what's your opinion of Barbara Stanwyck?

Are there nude photos of Peter Lawford?

For sizemeat verificatia of course.

Dead Ringer is a great old guilty pleasure, usually shown in a clear print. The sets and styling are so interesting, including the shabby apartment over the Jazz Club “over on Figueroa”.

I also like the interactions with the Great Dane, and the super fake death scene where Peter Lawford’s character is viciously attracted by that puppet.

From Time magazine's "Scareer Girls" review:

Exuberantly uncorseted, her torso looks like a gunnysack full of galoshes. Coarsely cosmeticked, her face looks like a U-2 photograph of Utah. And her acting, as always, isn't really acting; it's shameless showing-off. But just try to look away.

Bette borrowed that Dead Ringer wig for many of her mid-60s appearances.

Some take this film quite, quite seriously.

"Absolute smoldering sexiness"???? If you say so, OP.

Were Bette and Joan trained actresses? I'm sure Bette was earlier in her career, but I don't think she was a method actor.

I love that movie

Here's the late, great Jean Hagen, gasping for breath in 'Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn' with DL fave Leigh J. McCloskey.

About 10:20 into the clip.

We were very sad that Duke was no longer seen after he had dispatched Tony.

We fear that something bad happened to the precious little citizen.

R61, Bette was part of George Cukor's stock theatre company in New York, before coming to Hollywood. But Bette proved to be too obstinate, thinking she knew everything already, so she didn't come back for a second season. And no, she wasn't a Method Actor. Many of the old time stars bristled at Method Acting, thinking their disciples were a crazy lot.

Before joining Cukor's company, Bette was the star student at the John Murray Anderson Acting School, also attended by Lucille Ball. Anderson later directed Bette in Two's Company, her return to Broadway in '52. Here she is reprising one of its songs twenty years later.

Bette Davis was a great, great actress, but in such denial. Here she is claiming that, unlike Garland, she never 'had that problem' of needing drugs, pills, alcohol in order to do her job.

This, from someone who smoked 5 packs a day, and worse, KEPT smoking after her mastectomy, her FOUR strokes, etc..

No Bette, you weren't an addict.

Unless you graduated from the Yale School of Drama, then you can't be considered a great actress.

Double the Bette, double the fun! I love both movies that she played twins.

The trailer is almost more fun than the movie.

It's not a bad movie, but the over the top melodramatic score in some of those scenes was amusing.

I wonder how differently Davis career would have fared had she won the oscar for Baby Jane and became the first actress to win three.

Probably no different. I believe Kate is the only one consistently offered good projects in that age group.

I don't think an Oscar for Baby Jane would have made that much of a difference. Davis would have fared better if she hadn't turned down or lowered her price for Mildred Pierce; Come Back, Little Sheba; Lilies of the Field, or Ship of Fools.

[quote]I also like the interactions with the Great Dane, and the super fake death scene where Peter Lawford’s character is viciously attracted by that puppet.

So hilarious, as are the lipstick smears on his legs that are supposed to be dog bite wounds.

PLUS it has one of Bette's best lines:

"From outah SPACE!"

I've watched films at the OK ru site many times with no apparent issues over the last year.

It not only has Bette's smoldering sexiness, but also her golden warbling tones!

Safe but slow.It's free though.

Which came first, Bette being cast or her friend Paul Henreid being named director?

She had a low slung rump too

R79, So did Stanwyck, but Edith Head designed around it.

Edith Head gave good wardrobe.

Holy shit R63, Hagen was only 53 in that clip from Alexander: The Other Side Of Dawn! I guess alcoholism really did a number on that poor lady.

According to Wikipedia, Hagen drank herself into a coma, survived, then never drank again. Unfortunately, she contracted throat cancer soon after. She was probably already suffering from it in that clip.

Elder gays will remember Jean Hagen as Danny Thomas' first wife on "Make Room for Daddy".

[quote]It's not a bad movie, but the over the top melodramatic score in some of those scenes was amusing.

The music isn't the only thing that is over-the-top. Bette Davis's acting is hilariously hammy.

*3* GIRLS *3*

I really wanted the broke sister to succeed and live in that mansion happily. I think the butler liked her, too. And there is a scene where she realizes that the butler has known of her impersonation, and she says something to the effect of “all this time, I thought I was alone”. I remember finding that poignant.

I do enjoy the cars and the costuming and the sets in this old film. And I think the special effects were fairly advanced for this era.

Peter Lawford plays a cad and a lout, so I was glad that Great Dane, Duke, ate his face. I wonder if Duke was hung over on the next day from all the alcohol.

What did people smell like when they smoked all the time, and inside homes and cars. Yikes. You must have been able to smell them when they entered rooms, and I think phones smelled like cigarettes, too. Gross, man!

In her younger years Bette was the girl next door before there was a such thing as the girl next door.

"If you want to see the girl next door, go next door!"

She played twins in “A Stolen Life.” She was the producer and Jack Warner thought she might be induced to bring the film in on budget. Carol Burnett did a parody “A Swiped Life!”

That hairstyle was was meant to cover face lift scars, right?

When I think of Bette Davis, I think of many things, but smoldering sexiness ain't one of them. Not even in her younger years and definitely not in her waning years.

And smoking like a chimney and smelling like an ashtray full of month-old extinguished cigarette butts is never, ever remotely sexy.

Miss Davis was in her 50s, looking a decade older, but playing someone a decade younger. She wore wigs and hats in "Dead Ringer" to hide the instant face lift wires and tape placed at strategic places on her head and behind her ears.

Davis was sexy in some of her early roles: Cabin in the Cotton, Marked Woman, Dangerous, Bordertown, a few others. Very raw and volatile.

Bette never looked better than she did in "Jezebel".

If she indeed had a facelift, she should have sued that surgeon into the poorhouse.

R91 if so, then a lot more women entertainers had facelifts than we realize.

It was a horrible hairstyle and did no one favors except maybe Audrey Hepburn and five year old children.

Your week portrayed by...

[quote]If she indeed had a facelift, she should have sued that surgeon into the poorhouse.

And why her surgeon couldn't have lifted her low bosom, or at least recommended some proper foundation garments, is beyond me!

I've never seen a woman's breasts hang so low on film!

R43 I know it was the comedic style of that time, but Jesus that Carol Burnett clip reminded me of how they beat a joke to death on those old segments. It’s really irritating, all that mugging.

R100, that was one of Carol's lamer parodies (and one of the worst Bette imitations I've ever seen). Most of her takes on classic movies are much better:

That was one of the ugliest wigs of all time, and Bette actually wore it in her private life for some time afterwards.

Bette was supposed to be 40-ish in this movie but was actually 56 and looked 70.

Bette, Myrna and Connie Bennett all at the same table? That was either the best party of all time or the worst.

[quote]and worse, KEPT smoking after her mastectomy, her FOUR strokes, etc..

She was already an old lady by then. Why bother to quit when you don't have many more years to live, regardless?

Bette eventually did have a facelift in the late 70s.

Well, I bjewrd Bette didn't want to take the role at first. But, she needed the $$.

Bette supported her entire family and they were all a bunch of leeches. She was always in need of money.

[quote]That was one of the ugliest wigs of all time, and Bette actually wore it in her private life for some time afterwards.

Considering how often she was seen in it, I suspect she had more than one of them. "I'll take a DOZEN in the Dead Ringer style!"

Her coiffure in [italic]The Anniversary[/italic] (1968) was even more glamorous, if such a thing is possible.

Color would have been so much more flattering for Bette after a certain point.

I bjewrd this garbage back in the 60s and refuse to bjewrd it again!

Is she trying to have a British accent in R110's clip? I can't tell.

[quote]I bjewrd this garbage back in the 60s and refuse to bjewrd it again!

If you go back and look at R2, you'll realize that "bjewrd" is an alternative spelling of "heard."

Technically, the first person to be bjwerd is Ypir, the original supermodel.

R84, and her Oscar-nominated performance in Singin' in the Rain. Shocking this was only 25 years prior to her death, where she looked and sounded 50 years older.

[quote] she looked and sounded 50 years older.

She looked and bjwerd 50 years older.

Agreed R73. Especially 'Come Back Little Sheeba'. Davis would've been perfect for that, instead of that grating Shirley Booth.

She said it was "one of the really great mistakes of my career."

R117, that 'bjwerd' was tired the first time you used it.

[quote] she hadn't turned down … Ship of Fools.

Old Bette would have turned that over-solemn studio-bound production into comedy.

I liked Bette in Catered Affair as well. Debbie was a decent actress.

Old California up to their necks!

I adore Bette Davis, but -- should have played Shirley Booth's role in COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA? Really? Both on Davis' own terms (it's hard to imagine a part for which she'd have been less suitable) and envisioning the loss of Booth's legendary performance . . . the mind reels.

At least today aging actresses have the option of doing a streaming or cable series. Back in Bette's day the pickings were very, very slim.

Speaking of which, here's the pilot for a series that Bette hoped to get on the air shortly after Dead Ringer was released.

She had a brittle, lived in sexual appeal around the time All About Eve came out. Her Margo was sexy, neurotic, magnificent.

Cant wait to watch this! DL fave Mary Wickes!

I've seen that tv pilot before and it was better than a bunch of shows that actually made it on the air at that time. Too bad it wasn't picked up. That came at a time when Bette's career was at a low point, and it lasted for years. What little work she got was in B horror movies and the odd guest star appearance on a series.

Mary Wickes here….

EAT SHIT!

R125, R128

But I bjewrd that that TV pilot was painful to watch.

I want to be the filling in an Edith-Margaret sandwich.

I remember seeing the ancient Bette Davis on late night shows and talk shows in the 80s. She always gave great interview.

Bette, Mickey Rooney and The Who perform with the Smothers Brothers in late '67...

Thank you [R123]. Lola is a weak, slovenly, pitiable dreamer. Not in Miss Bette D’s wheelhouse. She would have wiped the floor with Burt Lancaster.

Bette herself admitted that she wouldn't have been able to bring the wonderful vagueness to the role that Booth did.

I also wonder how Bette would have fared in William Wyler's version of A Streetcar Named Desire that Paramount planned in '49, The African Queen with David Niven in '38 (she turned it down) or James Mason in '47 (spawned BD instead), or if Albee had had his way to cast her as Martha and Mason as George in Who's Afraid of VW.

[quote] [R43] I know it was the comedic style of that time, but Jesus that Carol Burnett clip reminded me of how they beat a joke to death on those old segments. It’s really irritating, all that mugging.

I love that clip, and I find YOU really irritating.

Well, R137, I have to agree with R43.

IMHO, Burnett was most bearable on June 11, 1962.

the snake bite

[quote]or if Albee had had his way to cast her as Martha and Mason as George in Who's Afraid of VW.

That certainly would have made the early "What a dump!" scene very "meta," back before anyone talked about anything being meta.

Bette reluctantly wore this wig the year prior, playing Susan Hayward's mother.

Bette believed her character would have been coloring her hair, but they forced her to wear the wig.

But Susan Hayward was two feet taller than stumpy Bette!

Davis was very wiggy that year. This look would have belied that she was only 9 years Hayward's senior.

Right after Jack Warner and Bette Davis infamously parted ways because of Beyond The Forest, a producer walked into Warner's office and pitched the idea to him of having Davis playing the mother role in the upcoming movie The Glass Menagerie. Jack Warner was enraged, still furious with Bette, referred to her as "that cunt" and said that he would never work with her again. No Glass Menagerie for Bette!

Dead Ringer as a WB production was Bette's reconciliation with Jack Warner.

^ Always the cigarette.

The 60s is probably my least favorite decade for films but I love these campy B&W dramas that came out in the first half of that decade. This one is a hoot.

I can't believe that she starred in all of these movies over the years and still died broke. Same with Joan.

Neither died broke, r148.

R148 Bette and Joan both supported totally ungrateful relatives for decades, as well as divorced several times and raised children. Added together, it's a recipe for bankruptcy.

Neither went bankrupt, r150.

R149, They both died just as their money ran out.

Indeed.

Joan's estate was around two million and Bette's was one million. Not what you'd expect from long Hollywood careers, but neither broke nor bankrupt.

Bette's cunt daughter BD and BD's useless husband never worked a day in their lives and Bette supported them 100%. Bette would've had a lot more money if not for BD.

[quote] Dead Ringer as a WB production was Bette's reconciliation with Jack Warner.

Then why was he with her 2 years before for Baby Jane?

In r156's picture Bette was 54 and Joan was 58. By modern standards they looked like they were in their 70s.

R156, Warner Brothers agreed to distribute "Baby Jane" after passing on producing it.

When the pairing of fading superstars Davis and Crawford was suggested to studio mogul Jack Warner, he allegedly replied, “I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for either of those two old broads.”

R145 That woman has black claws

Joan looks so old here.

Joan and Bette were both alcoholics and heavy smokers so of course that didn't do them any favors when it came to aging.

Nice candid pic of Joan in the 40s.

Get off my thread, bitch!

[quote] It's Time to Revisit the Absolute Smoldering Sexiness of Bette Davis

I think the word 'molder' is more appropriate than 'smolder'.

The verb 'molder' means to 'slowly decay or disintegrate'.

Baby Jane is still a very watchable movie. Nobody did "crazy looney tunes bitch" quite like Bette.

LOVE Jean Hagen! I'll watch it just for her.

Nice photo of old Bette

Bette at the end

[quote]When the pairing of fading superstars Davis and Crawford was suggested to studio mogul Jack Warner, he allegedly replied, “I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for either of those two old broads.”

Jack Warner was at least a decade older than "old broad" Joan Crawford, so he himself was past his prime. It's a shame that Bette and Joan, who made Warner a shitload of money in their day, was dismissed and discarded like that.

Bette on The Jack Paar Show (2:50 in the link) took great glee gloating about how the "two old broads" brought in a ton of money. Crawford, of course, was not amused and had her people notify Davis' people that Davis was not to use that term again when mentioning Joan.