I keep getting this mixed up with "The Three Faces of Eve," the one with Joanne Woodward. In both films, a depressed and wispy woman has a nasty self-indulgent hidden personality that emerges from time to time. The original neurotic knows nothing of her alter ego but the mean one knows about the existence of the other. The victim winds up seeing a shrink and under hypnosis a third personality appears -- sensible and agreeable. The third personality wins and the two inadequate personalities disappear.
The story of Lizzie came from a popular novel, "The Bird's Nest," by Shirley Jackson, who must have known about such things. The movie cashed in on the novel's celebrity. About the same time, Thigpen and Cleckley (the latter a shrink) wrote "The Three Faces of Eve," and it too was rushed into production to cash in on the popularity of the novel. Both "Lizzie" and "The Three Faces of Eve" appeared in the same year, 1957.
I've read Thigpen and Cleckley's book but not Shirley Jackson's novel. The first, not being a total work of fiction, provides a more distanced view of multiple personality disorder, though not exactly clinical. Jackson's work, and the movie that it begat, is more personal and intense.
Both perpetuate some common but mistaken beliefs about hypnosis, which I won't go into. And both are dramatically structured so that the answer to the psychiatric conundrum lies in some buried childhood trauma, an idea borrowed from psychoanalysis. As a child, the patient was trapped under a front porch, was forced to kiss a dead body, accidentally impaled his brother on a spike fence, or -- as in this case -- was raped by one of her slutty mother's many boyfriends.
The central role belong to Eleanor Parker, who is herself a puzzling actress. She has a strange beauty. In "Pride of the Marines" she was young and radiant. And later in her career she had a couple of juicy roles in "Caged" and here. She obviously put a lot of effort into the roles but never quite cleared the bar into super stardom. Yet, given the chance, she could be impressive. There's a scene in "Lizzie" in which, as the depressed Elizabeth, she wanders forlornly over to a window and the camera follows here from behind. There is a a momentary pause and she whirls around wearing the face of the evil Lizzie. It's pretty shocking.
Hugo Haas was a Czech actor who directed a number of movies, mostly schlock, and played prominent parts in some of them. As a director here, he's competent, but not more than that. The writer, Mel Dinelli, has given Haas the few humorous lines in the movie. He's playing cards at one point with Joan Blondell and complains, "Ahh, you're bending the cards again. That's why I never married. You women are always bending the cards." As the shrink -- Dr. Wright (or Dr. Wrong, as Lizzie calls him) -- Richard Boone is only barely convincing, not so much because of his performance, although he does tend to rush his lines, but because he's miscast. Richard Boone is not a tender, understanding, caring shrink. He's a villain, a cackling maniac, as in the second version of "The Big Sleep." When the director asks him to smile with satisfaction, we can almost hear the creaking of long-unused facial muscles.
"The Three Faces of Eve" is more light hearted and easier to grasp. There's a property of "Lizzie" that's genuinely abrasive. It's a far darker story with hints of murder and suicide. They're about equally involving but for somewhat different reasons.
The story of Lizzie came from a popular novel, "The Bird's Nest," by Shirley Jackson, who must have known about such things. The movie cashed in on the novel's celebrity. About the same time, Thigpen and Cleckley (the latter a shrink) wrote "The Three Faces of Eve," and it too was rushed into production to cash in on the popularity of the novel. Both "Lizzie" and "The Three Faces of Eve" appeared in the same year, 1957.
I've read Thigpen and Cleckley's book but not Shirley Jackson's novel. The first, not being a total work of fiction, provides a more distanced view of multiple personality disorder, though not exactly clinical. Jackson's work, and the movie that it begat, is more personal and intense.
Both perpetuate some common but mistaken beliefs about hypnosis, which I won't go into. And both are dramatically structured so that the answer to the psychiatric conundrum lies in some buried childhood trauma, an idea borrowed from psychoanalysis. As a child, the patient was trapped under a front porch, was forced to kiss a dead body, accidentally impaled his brother on a spike fence, or -- as in this case -- was raped by one of her slutty mother's many boyfriends.
The central role belong to Eleanor Parker, who is herself a puzzling actress. She has a strange beauty. In "Pride of the Marines" she was young and radiant. And later in her career she had a couple of juicy roles in "Caged" and here. She obviously put a lot of effort into the roles but never quite cleared the bar into super stardom. Yet, given the chance, she could be impressive. There's a scene in "Lizzie" in which, as the depressed Elizabeth, she wanders forlornly over to a window and the camera follows here from behind. There is a a momentary pause and she whirls around wearing the face of the evil Lizzie. It's pretty shocking.
Hugo Haas was a Czech actor who directed a number of movies, mostly schlock, and played prominent parts in some of them. As a director here, he's competent, but not more than that. The writer, Mel Dinelli, has given Haas the few humorous lines in the movie. He's playing cards at one point with Joan Blondell and complains, "Ahh, you're bending the cards again. That's why I never married. You women are always bending the cards." As the shrink -- Dr. Wright (or Dr. Wrong, as Lizzie calls him) -- Richard Boone is only barely convincing, not so much because of his performance, although he does tend to rush his lines, but because he's miscast. Richard Boone is not a tender, understanding, caring shrink. He's a villain, a cackling maniac, as in the second version of "The Big Sleep." When the director asks him to smile with satisfaction, we can almost hear the creaking of long-unused facial muscles.
"The Three Faces of Eve" is more light hearted and easier to grasp. There's a property of "Lizzie" that's genuinely abrasive. It's a far darker story with hints of murder and suicide. They're about equally involving but for somewhat different reasons.