Libel
Director: Anthony Asquith
Year Released: 1959
Rating: 2.0
Dirk Bogarde is confronted by a long-lost fellow P.O.W. and accusations of assuming a dead man's identity in this Agatha Christiesque picture that tries to tackle the themes of identity and memory but isn't 'meaty' enough to actually accomplish much. I wasn't buying a single second of it - not only are the 'twists' grossly improbable, but it's asking you to accept that people can't tell the difference between two people who are not twins (both played by Bogarde) but look and act and sound exactly the same. It's an absolute mess, yet sometimes intriguing in how it is constantly scrambling to muddle truth and fiction (Bogarde's character forgets and remembers things most conveniently). Olivia de Havilland's role is limited to looking astonished and saying little.
