Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

ThiefHott Too much of everything

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

JohnHowardReid A low-budget murder mystery and undemanding time-killer – which is a real shame. Despite the occasional use of actual locations, obvious studio inserts and phony backdrops give the cost-saving game away. With just a little bit more money in the till, these hazards could easily have been avoided. Admittedly, on it's own penny-pinching level, the movie is interesting enough, even if somewhat slowly paced and somewhat short on action. Nevertheless, it's acted agreeably enough to sustain interest, directed with sufficient tautness, and atmospherically photographed. The characters are both realistically written and tautly played by a well-night perfect cast: Richard Todd, in his first American film, plays with customary charm and stolidity – although not always photographed from the most flattering angles, particularly in his reverse shots. Ruth Roman is delightfully sultry even in what – despite the movie's poster art – is decidedly a goody-two-shoes role. Mercedes McCambridge is her usual neurotic character. Zachary Scott makes a late entrance – 60 minutes late to be precise – but proves a diverting red herring at a point in the narrative where interesting was just beginning to flag. Frank Conroy heads up a very able support cast. King Vidor has directed with his usual dramatic tautness and economy. With just a little bit more money up front, this could have been a high-class mystery yarn, even though the identity of the killer is obvious.

bkoganbing After getting an Oscar nomination for The Hasty Heart, British actor Richard Todd did a few more American films before returning to the United Kingdom. Some like A Man Called Peter were top rate and some like Lightning Strikes Twice fall right apart at the beginning. There is no way that Mercedes McCambridge would ever have gotten on a jury where Todd was the defendant. In this case he was being tried for murder. She was the holdout on the jury that swung the case to acquittal by reasonable doubt. As someone who knew the defendant that is impossible.McCambridge is the reason to see this film, her intense style of acting carries it over a lot of rough patches, but not enough. Ruth Roman on vacation for her health gets involved in the local controversies where Todd's arrest and trials for murdering his tramp of a wife are the number one subject of local gossip. Roman stays at a dude ranch run by Mercedes and her brother Darryl Hickman. And she falls for Todd, but soon the doubts appear.Zachary Scott is on hand as well in a surprisingly small role as a rather sleazy playboy. Scott is always good, we should have seen more of him.Lightning Strikes Twice has not worn well over the years.

dbdumonteil King Vidor's movie are at their best when they depict greed,passion,mad love ,hate: so are "Duel in the sun" "fountainhead" "beyond the forest " and "Ruby Gentry" .Jennifer Jones was par excellence the romantic actress ,Bette Davis ("Beyond the forest") was at her bitchiest .Ruth Roman is too cold and too emotionally remote to convey such feelings.I'm much more interested in Mercedes McCambridge's Liza but sadly her part is underwritten and except in her final scenes she is not given a single chance to shine.Ditto for Richard Todd as Richard: we want more of Zachary Scott ,whose character is much less bland than the hero.Todd/Roman are an unexciting pairing.That said,it is a well-told story even if there are plot holes .But the film lacks focus ,intensity,madness,Vidor's trademark.

bmacv Richard Todd sits on death row, waiting execution for his wife's murder. At the eleventh hour, a reprieve and new trial come through; he's acquitted, thanks to one holdout juror (Mercedes McCambridge). Released, he disappears into the west Texas desert. Enter Ruth Roman, a touring actress in search of the desert's restorative climate. An innkeeper and his wife become solicitous of her when she stops in a small town, and lend her a car to get to the dude ranch where she hopes to recuperate. En route (in a scene prescient of Janet Leigh's flight from Phoenix in Psycho), she gets lost in thunderstorms and takes refuge in an abandoned house -- where Todd is holed up. They size one another up and, next morning, she continues on to the dude ranch. Run by McCambridge and her emotionally disturbed young brother (Darryl Hickman), it has closed down, but they agree to put Roman up for a few days. But she seeks out Todd again, despite conflicting stories about his guilt or innocence. Director King Vidor and scriptwriter Lenore Coffee, having goaded Bette Davis to pull out all the stops in Beyond The Forest two years earlier, here take on another overloaded melodrama, with mixed results. We see too little of key events and rely instead on hearsay about other characters, who sometimes haven't yet been sufficiently established (and the one brief flashback is a mistake -- we need either more or none). And of eight major characters, two or even three (including Zachary Scott) prove superfluous. But the movie's biggest stumble lies in the casting of Richard Todd. Remembered if at all as the title character in that echt-1950s biopic of pious patriotism A Man Called Peter, here his stiff British accent and acting falsify the whole Southwestern milieu (Lightning Strikes Twice, like Desert Fury of five years earlier, evokes the new Sunbelt of money and leisure). Happily, the female characters fall on the plus side. Kathryn Givney shows spunk and intelligence as the strangely solicitous Mrs. Nolan. Ruth Roman, on evidence of this movie and Tomorrow Is Another Day, had more range and subtlety than she was let display in her best known role as Farley Granger's mannikin-like fiancee in Strangers on a Train. But the acting honors, inevitably, fall to McCambridge. Looking especially tomboyish, her face registers every thought and feeling that passes through her head; she's hyper-alert in her moods and responses. And so, as was her custom during her disappointingly thin screen career, she delivers the most memorable performance of the film.