A Stolen Life

This 1946 film gives Bette Davis both halves of a pair of twins, and she produced it as well. Kate is quiet and withdrawn, Patricia forward and calculating. Patricia takes the man Kate is interested in and marries him. Years later, when Patricia drowns in a boating accident and Kate is the only survivor, she chooses not to correct the confusion but to take her sister's place, and so enters the life she long wanted. The film builds this not as revenge but as a lie growing heavier by the day; Kate has to live as a woman she does not like. The scenes in which both roles share a frame are notable given the technical means of the period. Who it's for: viewers who love classic Hollywood melodrama and Bette Davis. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a realistic plot and complicated psychology; the film stays inside its form.