Double Trouble

By J.C.

THE OTHER

Directed by ROBERT MULLIGAN Screenplay by THOMAS TRYON

Like The Possession of Joel Delaney, The Other deals in unnatural, even unholy goings on and ominous shades from the psyche. It was Robert Mulligan's notion to flood this nightmarish fancy not so much with dark shadows as with the softly dappled light of a distant time, to evoke terror by the simple expedient of playing against it.

It is a good idea, at least in theory, but it goes wrong here because of Mulligan's persistent habit of sentimentalizing every image, making each look like a picture on an antique candy box. He lavishes as much attention on an old ice wagon or a pitcher of lemonade as he does on a pivotal act of malevolence. The result is rather like trying to read an H.P. Lovecraft story printed inside a lacy valentine.

Thomas Tryon, a onetime actor (The Cardinal), has written the screenplay from his own bestselling novel, The Other, a gushy gothic mystery set in the early '30s. The main characters are twin boys (Chris and Martin Udvarnoky), who fly about their New England farm playing magical games, encouraged by their grandmother Ada (Uta Hagen), a transplanted Russian who repeats adages like "God does not mean that we miss too much what he takes from us," and "As we came from the earth, so are we returned to it." Grandmother needs all her homely folk wisdom, for her daughter Alexandra (Diana Muldaur) has been driven mad--not by Granny's dialogue, as might be imagined, but by Mysterious Events. Alexandra sulks around the place in her all-violet wardrobe, and can be discovered from time to time near the closed-over well in the front yard, prostrate with grief.

Suffice it to say that one of the twins (the other?) turns out to be monstrously, homicidally evil, and that Tryon and Mulligan pull off a neat plot twist midway in the action. It's diverting enough, but still essentially a trick. What is badly needed is some reason for the twins' rampaging villainy, some suggestion of why they should be so keen on frightening old ladies to death and carrying human fingers around in a Prince Albert tobacco can. Instead, all we get is a sleight-of-hand act.

The Other marks the movie debut of Uta Hagen, a demigoddess of Broadway (she starred in the original productions of both The Country Girl and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and an acting teacher of special renown. It is difficult to fathom her reputation judging from her work here. She is flam boyant to the point of grotesquery, as is Miss Muldaur. But the Udvarnoky boys are appallingly convincing as the fey twins. Mulligan's special talent for directing children (Up the Down Stair case, To Kill a Mockingbird) is again splendidly in evidence here.

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