One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Did you people see the same film I saw?

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Chase a Crooked Shadow is directed by Michael Anderson and written by David D. Osborn and Charles Sinclair. It stars Richard Todd, Anne Baxter, Herbert Lom and Faith Brook. Music is scored by Matyas Seiber, with additional guitar by Julian Bream, and cinematography by Erwin Hillier.A man shows up at Kimberley Prescott's Spanish villa claiming to be her brother. Trouble is is that her brother, Ward Prescott, died in a car accident a year ago...The core formula for Chase a Crooked Shadow has been well mined over the years, only recently I myself viewed the quite excellent Hammer Films Production of Paranoiac, which treads the same ground as Anderson's movie, but there's a filmic style here that adds further atmosphere to the moody mysterious tone of the narrative. Thus, in spite of the absurdities and stretching of credulity, this is well worth seeking out.Anderson carefully builds the suspense, ensuring that what we think we know may in fact not be the case. The twists and jolts are deftly handled and the finale is a delightful bolt from the blue. Along the way we are treated to a noirish canvas, where even though the film is shot on location on the Costa Brava, there's a Gothic sheen pretty much every where you look. The interior of the villa is complete with Grandfather clock, iron gate doors, odd light shades, statuettes and one of those staircases with balustrade, all of which is given maximum shadow effects by Hillier. The outside courtyard also serves the uneasy mood well, as does the stone beach house at the bottom of the hill, it should be idyllic, but fret and discord dwell there as well.Cast are most effective, some have called Todd too wooden, but he needs to be restrained here, he is after all playing the character's cards close to his chest. Baxter, looking positively lovely, handles the mental disintegration process with great skill, Brook really exudes a Mrs. Danvers like menace purely with cold dialogue delivery and an icy stare, while Lom has authoritative presence as the police man being pulled both ways of the mystery. Top performers doing justice to a fine mystery story that is in turn offering some visual pleasures too. 7.5/10

"Chase a Crooked Shadow" is a 1958 black and white film starring Anne Baxter, Richard Todd, Herbert Lom, Alexander Knox, and Faith Brook. Baxter plays an heiress, Kimberly Prescott, living abroad, whose dead brother (Todd) turns up after being killed in a car accident a year earlier. Except he's not her brother. He brings a woman, Miss Whitman (Brook) with him, sends Kimberly's maid away and brings in his own servants. Kimberly is desperate to reach her architect friend Chandler (Knox) who will know this man isn't her brother, but she can't reach him. And the local chief of police (Lom) seems to side with the fake brother. Well, after all, he does have the correct ID, and the photo Kimberly keeps by her bed has suddenly turned into a photo of the fake!The question is, what do these people want? Is she safe with them, or do they plan to get rid of her? This intriguing, atmospheric drama is excellent, except I've seen so many of these things (it's one of my favorite genres) that I figured the plot out right away. Most people will simply enjoy the ride and the surprises.Baxter looks lovely as the put-upon, desperate heiress, and the role calls for a gamut of emotions, all of which she delivers. Todd and Lom are terrific as well. Really excellent, with very good performances all around.

Something is missing that keeps CHASE A CROOKED SHADOW away from fulfilling its early promise as a chilling story of a woman in peril surrounded by enemies conspiring to either drive her mad or have her killed.As the victimized heroine, ANNE BAXTER does a convincing job of crying on cue and acting terrified, all the while trying to convince everyone that RICHARD TODD is not her brother. Why she knows this is true is only revealed during the film's last five minutes but it's difficult to talk about the "twist" without giving everything away.Lurking in the background are Alexander KNOX, HERBERT LOM and FAITH BROOK, all with very minor tasks to play since the action centers mostly about Baxter and Todd. While Baxter seems to be giving her all to the role of the hysterical victim, Todd seems to be walking through a role without much color or conviction. Maybe it's their contrasting acting styles that just don't mesh.When the ending is reached, a viewer might feel a bit cheated because little of the resolution is foreshadowed in any way. Still, it passes the time in a reasonably suspenseful way although Baxter's hysterics are just a bit over-the-top for what is essentially a low key Gothic melodrama beautifully shot in classic B&W style.

Chase A Crooked Shadow which was filmed in Spain and produced by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. has Anne Baxter as a rich heiress living in the family villa which is her's free and clear due to the deaths of her father and brother a year earlier. All seems well enough when Richard Todd shows up claiming to be her brother. Well and good, but when the household staff and her uncle Alexander Knox all accept him as the brother she identified as dead after an automobile crash in South Africa, Baxter thinks she's heading for the rubber room. She also gets little sympathy from the local police in the person of Herbert Lom.There's also the matter of a fortune in diamonds that was stolen from the company where father made his millions. Another mystery as yet unsolved.So just who is the bad one in this film? That you won't know until the very end when as the Belgian sleuth always says 'all will be revealed'.Charles Boyer did not do a neater job of gaslighting Ingrid Bergman than Todd is doing to Anne Baxter. Both the stars do well, but the underlying reason for this particular gambit is a bit far fetched for my taste.