Product Details

• Actors: Bette Davis, Karl Malden, Peter Lawford, Philip Carey, Jean Hagen
• Directors: Paul Henreid
• Writers: Albert Beich, Oscar Millard, Rian James
• Producers: William H. Wright
• Format: Black & White, NTSC, HiFi Sound
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: December 13, 1993
• Run Time: 115 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302374227
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #48,175 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Hot on the heels of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Bette Davis slipped neatly into another juicy thriller. This time, instead of co-starring with Joan Crawford, she got to play opposite... herself. Dead Ringer casts Davis as a wealthy (and nasty) widow, and also as her slatternly (but good) twin sister, long estranged. When the poor sister discovers the depths of her sib's evil, she takes a dramatic step that will test her skills as a thespian. Davis's old leading man, Paul Henreid, directs this material at a leaden pace, but Davis gives such a brazen performance, she pulls it through. Plus, the moments of high trash (a red-hot poker rammed into a hand, a lethal dog attack) are easily savored. Peter Lawford's seedy playboy and Karl Malden's stolid cop fill out the key supporting roles--not that anybody else matters. This is Bette Davis's world; everybody else is just visiting. --Robert Horton

Product Description

A diabolical double dose of Bette Davis! She plays sibling twins caught in a web of jealousy and murder in a goosebumpy thriller co-starring Karl Malden and Peter Lawford. Year: 1964 Director: Paul Henreid Starring: Bette Davis, Karl Malden, Peter Lawford

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Old Fashioned Pot Boiler Fun, December 8, 2001

By 

Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dead Ringer [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Bette Davis plays Bette Davis not once but twice in this over-the-top story of a sister who kills and then replaces her twin. The result is a thoroughly far-fetched and yet somewhat predictable thriller that succeeds in being a tremendous amount of fun.

Karl Malden and Peter Lawford fill out the cast, but the film belongs to Davis, and she clearly relishes the film's every excess, owning the script like a tailor-made gown. Indeed, much of the pleasure in watching DEAD RINGERS is the fun of seeing Davis play with such little restraint, and the movie makes use of every Davis mannerism imaginable.

This movie will never make any critic's short list, and over her long career Davis certainly made a great many finer films and gave a great many more artful performances. But as a late-night popcorn fest for Bette Davis fans, DEAD RINGERS is hard to beat.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Double Life, August 9, 2004

By 

MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dead Ringer (DVD)

If ever there were a movie equivalent of what Susan Sontag called Camp many years ago...this is it. Bette Davis stars as twins: one the rich, Champagne-driven, mansion living Margaret DeLorca, the other "Injun Country" area of Los Angeles (really Echo Park) living, beer guzzling, Karl Malden (Hobbson) loving Edith Phillips. Margaret is the bad twin, Edith the nice. But Edith is still holding a grudge against Margaret for stealing her man many years before and she aims to set things right, twenty years later.
Davis chews up the scenery as only she can when given full rein of her performance and her director, Paul Henreid, who starred with her in "Now Voyager" knew better than to get in her way.
"Dead Ringer" is a hell-of-a-lot-of-fun and the commentary from Charles Busch is appropriately outrageous. This is a movie that both you and your Mom can love: twist the top off a quart of Schlitz, bake up some Velveeta Mac `n' Cheese, get out two spoons and enjoy every morsel of this delicious movie.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth watching for Bette, as always..., May 11, 2003

By 

Schuyler V. Johnson (Lake Worth, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dead Ringer [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is the second time Bette co-starred with herself; the first time was in "A Stolen Life"; however, do not look for that sort of quality here...the poor sister of the rich sister, Bette kills off her richer sibling and adopts her persona, and moves from her tawdry digs into the magnificent mansion in Beverly Hills. (The old Doheny estate, and the location for "Cinderfella" and "The Loved One.")
I enjoy Peter Lawford in anything, a truly underappreciated actor and a really nice man. He is enjoyably slimy in this role, and adds the right note for the jaded, rather tired boyfriend. Karl Malden is sad, and you feel sorry for him;; he was so devoted to the poor sister...the star of the show is Ms. Davis, and the fabulous house and grounds. Don't look for high, quality drama here, but rather, an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday night.
(NOTE: The Doheny estate, built in the early 1920s, is specatacular, and boasts several streets with signs for it's 25 acres of grounds, and it has a children's playhouse with fireplace and kitchen, etc., that rivals anything I've ever seen...and three guest houses, larger and more magnificent than most mansions! Also a bowling alley, a real movie theatre and over 30 bedrooms in the servants quarters. There was murder there, around 1929, the father caught his son with the butler, and shot and killed him; the son was put away in an asylum. Quite a history, and quite a setting...)