Chase a Crooked Shadow

Chase a Crooked Shadow (a.k.a. Sleep No More) is a 1958 British suspense film directed by Michael Anderson and starring Richard Todd, Anne Baxter and Herbert Lom. It was the first film produced by Associated Dragon Films, a business venture of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

Plot
In her family's Spanish villa, Kimberly Prescott, a young South African heiress of a diamond company, is grieving after her father's recent suicide, when she is taken aback by the arrival of a man claiming to be her brother Ward, believed to have died in a car accident a few months ago. Kimberly calls the police but the man has a driving licence, passport and letter from the bank in the name of Ward Prescott. Even two photos from upstairs look like the man now in her house. The local police chief, Vargas, leaves, believing Kim to be unstable.

The next day Kim is woken by an unknown woman who says she is Mrs Whitman, a friend of Ward's. Kim's maid has been given time off. A butler has also been installed in the house. Kim attempts to contact Uncle Chan who knows both her and the real Ward, but when Chan finally shows up he greets the imposter as if he were the real Ward. Kim suspects the imposter may be after her inheritance and later in the plot, he and Mrs Whitman try to get Kim to sign a will. However, there is also a conversation whereby "Ward" says he suspects Kim of having stolen diamonds from their late father's company's vault. He has a record of flights she took that leave a gap in her itinerary. Eventually Kim admits she took the diamonds to Tangiers. "Ward" and Mrs Whitman then get her to sign an introduction for "Ward" as her agent to the bank in Tangiers.

Kim tries to escape to the beach house below the main villa. Someone has followed her and she almost shoots him with a spear gun. It is Vargas. She shows him the will and he starts to believe her story. He suggests she provide him with something holding "Ward"'s fingerprints as he cannot fake these. She is able to do this after meeting "Ward" on the terrace. They drink brandy and flirt until "Ward" is on the phone and Mrs Whitman has gone upstairs. Kim goes to the beach house and takes a metal box from the chimney. She sneaks back up to the villa and tries to leave through the front door. Uncle Chan blocks her path.

Her captors take her to the terrace and open the box. With the diamonds on the table they demand she sign the will. Then 'Ward' suggests they go for a swim. Mrs Whitman suggests they take a boat. Kim assumes they plan to drown her and runs into the house. Then Vargas arrives. She begs him to save her as the others have threatened to drown her. She thinks he will reveal the man to be an imposter but he says the fingerprints are a match for her brother. At this point Kim has a meltdown and starts saying that her brother has to be dead "because I killed him". She says she cut the brakes on his car and followed, to see him drive to his death off a cliff. Once she has made this confession it is revealed that "Ward" and Mrs Whitman were undercover police sent to find the missing diamonds and discover the truth behind the real Ward's death.

Cast

 * Richard Todd as Ward McKenzie Prescott Jr.
 * Anne Baxter as Kimberley Prescott
 * Herbert Lom as Inspector Vargas
 * Faith Brook as Elaine Whitman
 * Alexander Knox as Chandler Bridson
 * Alan Tilvern as Carlos
 * Thelma D'Aguilar as Maria

Production
The film was originally known as The Prescott Affair. The story was optioned by Dragon Films which belonged to heiress Pamela Woolworth (niece of F.W. Woolworth) and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who had made The Silken Affair (1956). Dragon developed the story and script, assigning it to TV writers David Osborn and Charles Sinclair. Roy Kellino was originally attached to produce and direct. David Niven was the first male star announced.

Dragon obtained finance from the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) who had a releasing arrangement with Warner Bros. The production company became known as Associated Dragon. ABPC's involvement saw director Michael Anderson and star Richard Todd join the project. The title was changed to Sleep No More, then Chase a Crooked Shadow and filming started in May 1957. Fairbanks Jr. said he was pressured to make a cameo in the film but refused. Some of the exteriors were shot in Tamariu and Palamos on the Costa Brava. The guitar music that forms a significant part of the soundtrack is played by Julian Bream.

Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This virtuoso study in suspense only serves to show how remarkable is Hitchcock's gift of clothing his own often absurd fantasies in the incidentals of reality which give them "a peculiar credibility. This film has no such gift. Michael Anderson's direction is often astonishingly clever in its tricky way; but the tour de force is too consistently maintained. There are no anticlimaxes to relieve and at the same time to point up the tension. Nor is the treatment of the characters subtle enough to sustain the sudden reversals of sympathy which the plot demands. Anne Baxter and Faith Brook are, to say the least, spirited; Richard Todd is plumply efficient."

Bosley Crowther in his review for The New York Times considered the plot as overly complex and torturous but that the melodrama was "nothing amazing, and neither is this film. It's just a moderately well-done program picture, endowed with a couple of standard thrills".

Leonard Maltin awarded the film three out of four stars, calling it an "exciting, Hitchcock-like melodrama".

In British Sound Films David Quinlan calls the film a "suspensful hair-raising thriller".

Leslie Halliwell opined: "Tricksy, lightly controlled suspense melodrama with a perfectly fair surprise sending. Handling equivocal but competent."

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "Coming off the back of The Dam Busters (1955), 1984 (1956) and Around the World in 80 Days (1956), director Michael Anderson was destined for a disappointment, but it is to his credit that this ludicrously contrived thriller not only holds the attention, but also actually manages to induce a short intake of breath at the totally unexpected dénouement. Anne Baxter gives her one of her best performances as a recuperating neurotic who is convinced long-lost brother Richard Todd is after her diamonds."

Remakes and adaptations
Chase a Crooked Shadow was an inspiration for a number of movies in India such as Sesh Anka (in Bengali, 1963), its remake Puthiya Paravai (in Tamil, 1964), Dhuan (in Hindi, 1981), its remake Mayadari Maridi (Telugu, 1985) and the Malayalam-language films Rahasyam,Ithile Vannavar and Charithram (1989). Chase a Crooked Shadow was also an inspiration for the 1989 Hindi movie Khoj which was remade as Police Report (in Telugu, 1989) and Agni Sakshi (in Kannada, 1996). The climax twist of the original was used as a reference point for the Kannada language Indian movie Yarivanu (1984).

The original film also served as an inspiration for the French play Piège pour un homme seul (Trap for a Lonely Man) by Robert Thomas. The play served as the source material for the TV movies Honeymoon with a Stranger (1969), One of My Wives Is Missing (1976), and Vanishing Act (1986). The Malaysian film Misteri Dilaila (2019) is also loosely based on these films.

Alfred Shaughnessy wrote a stage adaptation of the original film, Double Cut, first staged at the Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead in 1984, with Simon Williams and Lucy Fleming in the leads, prior to touring the UK the following year with David Griffin and Tessa Wyatt.