SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Pluskylang Great Film overall

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Joe Stemme CHASE A CROOKED SHADOW (1958). Pretty terrific mystery thriller with noir overtones starring Anne Baxter, Herbert Lom and Richard Todd. It's another one of those, 'Let's drive someone crazy' films combined with a 'Falsely assuming another person's identity' tropes. But, CHASE is so well tuned that it does keep you guessing to the very end (it's so good that Producer Douglas Fairbanks Jr does a cameo to warn folks to keep it a secret!!).Michael Anderson's direction is tight and superb, and the cast mostly pulls off the trick of being duplicitous throughout the entire running time. Is it entirely believable? Only in the movies, as they say! Mild Spoilers below: I've never truly believed that an impostor could fool a family member. No matter how much research one does, there are just an infinite number of tiny details, quirks, physical details and idiosyncratic ticks that nobody could duplicate - an anchor tattoo ain't enough! Also, my other quibble with CHASE specifically is that this family is supposedly one of great wealth, power and influence, yet nobody in this sleepy little tourist villa knows them - including the police chief? But, again, only in the movies! A great little film

MARIO GAUCI Having long been interested in watching this well-regarded British thriller of the 'let's-drive-an-heiress-mad' variety, I can't help admitting I was somewhat underwhelmed by it; the reason for this, perhaps, is that we've seen this plot in countless other films so that, while one hoped that the treatment would rise above the overly-familiar premise, what we get here is pretty standard (read: low-key or, if you like, genteel) stuff. That is not to say the suspense of the piece – and the awkwardness that goes with it (the heroine trying time and again to convince the police that the man who says is her brother isn't really) – isn't effectively rendered, far from it. For one thing, the consummate professionalism and no-nonsense attitude of the people involved (despite the modest resources at hand) is redolent of classic British cinema at its best and the casting, while unlikely at first glance, is quite successful in the long run. Anne Baxter is the put-upon heroine, Richard Todd the smooth intruder (who goes so far as to acquire the daredevil driving skills of Baxter's allegedly deceased brother!), Herbert Lom the Spanish Police Commissioner (the film is set in picturesque Barcelona) and Alexander Knox appears as Baxter's apparently duplicitous uncle. All of this converges satisfactorily in the film's twist ending – and its real coup – which not only subverts everything that has gone on before, but would be too far-fetched to swallow had one not been sufficiently drawn into the intricate proceedings.

Chris Gaskin I've just purchased a copy of Chase a Crooked Shadow on video and found it very gripping and was surprised by the end.A complete stranger turns up a at a woman's home claiming to be her brother. But her brother is dead, but he still claims he his. Nobody believes he isn't her brother, including her uncle. She does eventually get a police chief to believe her but at the end, he turns on her and we find out who this man really is and the "new" staff at her mansion really are and what they want from her...The movie has some nice scenery and a rather haunting score.The cast includes Richard Todd (The Story of Robin Hood, The Dam Busters), Anne Baxter (I Confess), Herbert Lom (North West Frontier, Mysterious Island) and Alexander Knox. Excellent parts from all. This movie was produced by actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr.Chase a Crooked Shadow is worth catching if you get the chance. Excellent.Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

frankatcccp When I was a little boy, I had seen the film, but remembered little of it. However, in the early sixties, my Dad took me on a holiday to Spain, to a little village south of Barcelona, called Sitges. During one coach journey, the courier told us that the mountain road that we were now on was the scene of a fast car drive in a film made a couple of years previously, called 'Chase a Crooked Shadow'. I remember the road well, with the cliff drops hundreds of feet below to the sea and this coupled with my fond memory of that holiday in Franco's long gone Spain and the fact that the film itself is a brilliant piece of old cinema with a terrific twist at the end, makes me watch this film over and over again. I see something in it every time I watch it - the sign of a good film!