Crack in the Mirror

A crime drama set in Paris. The film tells two separate stories, and the same three actors carry both. The first is in a working-class district. A coarse construction worker, his unhappy wife, and the young man she is involved with. The affair goes on and ends in a killing. The second is in legal circles. A young lawyer, the celebrated advocate who trained him, and the advocate's young wife. The lawyer takes the case from the first story; the triangle in his own life runs the same way. The idea of the film is that pairing. The same faces appear in two classes, and the same desire turns into murder on one side and drawing-room manners on the other. It is posed as a question: is the difference moral, or only a matter of means. Orson Welles, Juliette Gréco and Bradford Dillman each play their part twice. The screenplay appears to be by the producer Darryl F. Zanuck, under the pen name Mark Canfield. But it was in fact written by Jules Dassin. Dassin was blacklisted in Hollywood at the time and could not work under his own name; the director Richard Fleischer told the story years later in his memoir. Welles found neither of his parts interesting. He said he cut some of his own speeches and made the role smaller so as not to be bored. Richard Fleischer directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes classic drama working from a structural idea, and the back rooms of film history. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a flowing narrative; the pairing is interesting but the film moves heavily and neither story fully develops.