Review of Twist of Fate

Twist of Fate (1954)
Ginger Rogers Looks Great
26 May 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Decent little thriller with an oddly cast Stanley Baker and hard-to-understand Jacques Bergerac, but the story is pretty good: about the mistaken identity of a thief amid the lies and deceptions of others.

Ginger Rogers plays a third-rate performer who is shacked up with Baker, a wealthy businessman. They have a fabulous house in Cannes, and everything seems to me going well until an old acquaintance turns us (Herbert Lom) who seems to bring bad luck to anyone he associates with. Aside from that he is a thief. Rogers soon learns that Baker is really not separated from his wife (Margaret Rawlings) or divorcing her. He's also a crook. In a snit of hysterics, she almost drives her Rolls over a sea cliff and wanders to a funky beach house where she meets Bergerac. They fall in love. But how to get rid of Baker? Meanwhile, Lom robs the Cannes house and the diamond bracelet he steals ends up back with Baker, who gave it to Rogers. So he assumes Rogers and Lom are an item. From there everything goes wrong with botched killing attempts, escapes, and each person trying to figure out who is with who.

Rogers looks great and acts imperiled well but beyond that has little to do in the finale as the men thrash it out on the sea cliffs. Lom turns in an excellent and subtle Peter Lorre like performance. Coral Browne steals the one scene she is in. Atmospheric and tense and not bad at all.
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