Film Summary CCCXXVIII (The Dark Mirror)

 A movie of suspense, philosophy and drama.

There has been a most complexion murder. A man stabbed through the heart in his home. Two witnesses swear on a 'stack of Bibles' that they saw a woman stepping out of his apartment around the same time that he had been killed. It almost seems like an open-and-shut case, but there's a problem. Upon investigating the woman, it's discovered she was in the Park the entire time and she has three witnesses to support her on this claim.
What is the police Lieutenant (Thomas Mitchell) to do? Why the only only thing he can do. He goes to talk to the woman at her apartment.
It seems as if he's up creek without a paddle as her alibi is water tight. But then something miraculous happens, a voice is heard and another woman who steps from outside the bedroom bearing the exact same image. This creates something of a conundrum. The police Lieutenant can't legally hold both women in custody without solid evidence.
Both women can't be separately identified without one of them wearing some form of name tag.

This stops the lieutenant dead in his tracks. The murder was committed, the weapon was found and technically the murderess was found, But nothing can be done.
However he has one ace up his sleeve. One of the witnesses happens to be an expert in Twin psychiatry*. He (Lew Ayres) convinces the twins to undergo psychiatric evaluation. Claiming that he only wants to do it for his own research with nothing to do with the police.
The girls take him up on it, not only do they believe that they can outwit any psychological test but they also both fancy the man and figure it's a good excuse to spend a little time with him.

Now our psychologist is kind of aware of what they're trying to do. He doesn't pay them a lot of mind though, as he believes nobody can actually trick a mental evaluation.
It's during this time that he discovers two things. One: That he loves one of the twins (Ruth) and Two: One of them (possibly even the one he loves) is in fact insane.
There's a decent amount of second-guessing that goes on as you're watching the film. You start to wave back and forth debating which one is actually the Killer. Even when the psychopath angle is introduced. You're still not entirely sure that it was the mentally ill one that actually committed the crime.

I have to give props to the technical side of this film. While watching I thought they had two different actresses who just happened to look similar (maybe even real twins). But it turns out both women are played by the exact same actress and they just use clever editing and possibly cut screens to show the two characters in a scene at the same time. This is fairly standard practice in 60s films and on words but I have no idea that they master it so will in the 40s.

So it's implied that the two twins were working the same job down at a local convenience store. They would occasionally take turns working so that they can each have more time off. This is discovered pretty soon after the the two are embroiled in the criminal investigation. But in reality the two girls should have lost their job, you can't just have a random stranger take your shift for you when you don't feel like working. Not only is that illegal but it's problematic for the company. And this isn't some little mom and pop store owned by a family in some town. It's a major business in one of the America's biggest metropolitan cities.

There's also the problem at the end of the film when they finally catch which ones the murderer. It shows the other one still living in her apartment now dating the psychologist**. But she knew about the murder of a man and refused to aid the police in the investigation against her sister. She's an  accomplice to murder and should be in jail herself.
This is the only real problem I have with the movie. The rest of it works fairly well and any issue I might have is just glorified nitpicking.

It's a pretty well paste film and it's overall Style changes at the beginning. You assume that we're going to be following the Policeman as the film is mainly focused on him at the start. It at this point has a very comedic tone to it. Both and how Thomas Mitchell performs and in some of the weird editing choices they decided on. There's a part where Mitchell is going on about the double witness testimony on the suspected murderer and how he finds it absolutely baffling how a woman can both fit the description of a murderer and at the same time be in a park 4 miles away, with three different Witnesses all claiming to have seen and talked to her on that very day. Or another words;

"I don't get it, I just don't get it. Don't make any more sense to me than Chinese music.''

And right as he says that a little Chinese jingle begins to play. It only lasts about 3 seconds and it's completed with a big old gong. Then that right there was straight up comedy. Absolutely hysterical.

For a split second I thought I was watching 'Mr. Wong' again.

After this the  film starts focusing more on Lew Ayres and the twins themselves. Switching between his office visits with the girls and them at home communicating with one another. As the insane one attempts to convince the 'normal' one that she's going loopy.

*Well isn't that just hyper convenient. The police share are lucky that one of the men who happen to know the twins was an expert on their existence.

**I think I use the word psychiatrist and psychologist intermittently. I must admit I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between one or the other and I can't remember what the guy in question was.