Chase a Crooked Shadow

A man turns up at Kimberley Prescott's villa in Spain and says he is her brother, who is known to be dead. He knows the house, he knows the family, he has the papers. She insists he is an impostor and cannot convince anyone. The film is not interested in a mystery of identity. It is interested in a woman's sanity being put on trial: even when she is telling the truth she loses credibility, and everyone, the police included, believes the other man. The form is a thriller conducted almost entirely in one place through talk. The camera barely leaves the villa; tension is built not by movement but by having her claims demolished one at a time. The whole architecture depends on the turn at the end, which makes it hard to discuss: on a second viewing the film becomes something else. The structure has been reused many times since, in other cinemas too. Michael Anderson directed. Richard Todd plays the man claiming to be the brother, Anne Baxter plays Kimberley, and Herbert Lom is the local police chief. Who it is for: viewers who like fifties British thrillers and single-location puzzles. Who it is not for: anyone wanting pace. The film is nearly all dialogue and spends ninety minutes circling the same room.