Ronald Colman gives an electrifying performance as Tony John, a Broadway actor who can't separate his offstage life from Shakespeare's Othello, the character he plays on stage....Two important scenes illustrate Tony's dilemma. The first one takes place in producer Max Lasker's office. Acting is a matter of talent for the practical-minded Lasker. But Donlan, Tony's friend, disagrees: "No, no. When you do it like Tony does it, it's much more. The way he has of becoming someone else every night...so completely. No, don't tell me his whole system isn't affected by it."....The other scene occurs in waitress Pat Kroll's apartment. Tony tells her his name is Martin. She thanks him. Then he says: "Or Paul. Hamlet. Joe. And maybe Othello."....When Tony begins rehearsing Othello, we learn that though he's trying to keep his real life separated from his stage life, "The part begins to seep into your life, and the battle begins. Reality against imagination." He can't keep the two separated: In his mind Pat is Desdemona and he's Othello, and he wrongly believes she has been unfaithful to him. He murders her....Colman's bravura performance, in a complex and difficult role, earned him 1947's Academy Award for Best Actor. Oscar nominations went to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin for Best Original Screenplay. Not to be overlooked is Milton Krasner's atomspheric cinematography.

The successful middle-aged Broadway actor Anthony "Tony" John (Ronald Colman) is a dedicated lonely professional that still loves his former wife Brita (Signe Hasso). They are playing Othello for almost two years and Tony has a breakdown, beginning to lose his mind and sense of reality, confusing his identity with his characters. One night, he meets the waitress Pat Kroll (Shelley Winters) in a distant bar and he spends the night with the easy woman. Then he proposes Brita, who is his best friend, but she refuses to marry him again triggering a jealousy process against their friend Bill (Edmond O'Brien). Tony decides to visit Pat late night and in an insanity process, he lives the situation of Othello killing Desdemona. The police arrest a suspect but Bill wants to prove that Tony is responsible for the murder.

Despite the great performance of Ronald Colman, "A Double Life" is an overrated movie with a boring story. First, the situation of a successful actor that loses his identity and blends imagination with reality is hard to believe. Second, Tony's personality and character are very confused and not well-developed; last but not the least, Bill trying to prove that Tony is responsible for the murder is despicable and silly. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Fatalidade" ("Fatality")

I like my Ronald Colman dashing and debonair, the fellow you see in such films as If I Were King and Kismet. I like him as the epitome of civilization as in The Lost Horrizon and Random Harvest. A brooding Colman isn't a favorite of mine.

But in A Double Life precisely because his part as actor Anthony John is so offbeat for him, Colman was recognized with a Best Actor Oscar for 1947. It became his best known part.

Colman is an actor who really does take the Method quite seriously. He's just finished a successful run in a comedy of manners and he's quite the jovial fellow. For a change of pace now that that play has concluded its Broadway run, Colman is bringing a revival of Othello to New York. About as opposite a part as you can get.

His leading lady in both is his former wife Signe Hasso who loves him dearly, but can't take his change of moods when he's at work. Colman loves her dearly as well and wants her back. But he's heading for a mental breakdown when he starts confusing himself with the jealous Moor Othello and Hasso with her role as Desdemona.

Unfortunately Shelley Winters as a poor waitress who a depressed Colman picks up gets in the way of his madness and she winds up like poor Desdemona in the play. Killed in the same manner and now it's a matter for homicide cop Joe Sawyer.

Colman's performance is so good that one does kind of wonder is this an occupational hazard with actors? I'd shudder to think so, were there any unsolved homicides in or around Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles then they essayed Othello.

I could never quite buy the story for that reason, but I certainly do applaud Ronald Colman and what he did with the part. I'm sure there was a tinge of regret in him winning the Oscar though because one of the other nominees was his good friend William Powell for Life With Father. Others in the running that year were Gregory Peck for Gentlemen's Agreement, John Garfield for Body and Soul, and Michael Redgrave for Mourning Becomes Electra.

Colman gets able support from the rest of the cast including Edmond O'Brien who finds himself in the unwanted part of Cassio in Colman's jealous fantasy. Still you will find no Iago equivalent in A Double Life, no one prodding the jealousy, it's all in his own mind.

And that from one of the most cultivated and civilized minds of the last century.