TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

secondtake Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958) This dives quickly in-an heiress has come to Barcelona and a man who is apprently after her fortune shows up, at night, with cocky assurance. It's evil and it's odd. The woman is played with stern conviction by Anne Baxter, and she holds the whole movie together. The filming is vivid, and dark and shadowy from the get go, in moderately wide screen black and white. When it goes to daylight, the crips, tonal perfection of the image is quite noticeable. That might be an odd reason to like the movie, but it's quite visually beautiful. I suppose the East Coast of Spain gets some credit. Unfortunately, the plot at first comes off as improbable, with a couple of twists at the beginning that left me incredulous. But the acting is so earnest you can put up with it for awhile. When it becomes a kind of mind game between the two leads, it has some reasonable thread (some) and it is only the steely determination of Baxter's acting that keeps it interesting. The plot against this woman is elaborate, and therefore scary, held in check by the upper class politeness of all the characters. I'm sure people would compare this to Hitchcock for its personal suspense, its stylish attempts at mind games, or for echoes of "Gaslight" and "Rebecca." It's a British movie, released by Warner Bros., and it might suffer from a sense of imitating Hollywood rather than making its own mark (as Carol Reed might have a few years earlier). The British director here is Michael Anderson, who left no real imprint on film history, and the leading actor is also British, Richard Todd, and he's more handsome than compelling. So why see the film? The palette of grey tones of the deep focus photography? The torturous plot with too much talking? Anne Baxter, alone, rising above? Maybe, almost. There is enough in these elements to almost work, actually. Convolutions. And Julian Bream's wonderful guitar.

blanche-2 "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.

bmacv Chase A Crooked Shadow numbers among those ingeniously plotted movies that are too clever by half. But it sustains interest and stars Anne Baxter, nothing to sneeze at. Baxter plays a South African diamond heiress `resting' at her seaside villa in Spain. One night, up shows a total stranger (Richard Todd) who claims to be her wastrel brother, supposedly killed in a racing-car crash. He presents his alternative reality with needling superiority, and in Todd they found precisely the supercilious cold fish to present it.Pleas to the local police (in the person of Herbert Lom) prove bootless, as Todd's papers and passport prove in order; he's also uncannily familiar with family details, such as the ingredients of Baxter's `swimming drink' (vermouth cassis with a splash of soda). At the bottom of the imposture is a quest for some $10-million in diamonds gone missing before Baxter's father's Transvaal Company went belly-up, resulting in his suicide. Baxter tries to find a chink in Todd's armor, but he seems to have covered every angle, including suborning her avuncular uncle (Alexander Knox, in a wisp of a role). Though the movie is confined almost entirely to the villa and boasts a cast of six and a half, it's well photographed – the arches and wrought iron lend themselves to subtle and effective lighting. But what about the final twist of the plot? Since producer Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. appears in a coda to warn against giving away the secret, it won't be revealed here. But it leaves rapt viewers faintly disgruntled, wondering if and how they've been somehow swindled along the way.

pcwagener I consider this movie as one of the cleverest ever made. It keeps you perplexed till the end. Marvellous acting by all, with Herbert Lom always at his best. B&W very appropriate. Please, Amazon, make it available!