Dead Ringers
Short description
Elliot and Beverly Mantle are identical twins who share a successful gynecology practice and, for years, have shared women as well. Elliot, the more confident of the two, pursues his patients and passes them to his brother once his interest fades, without the women realizing the substitution. That arrangement holds until the actress Claire Niveau comes to the clinic. Beverly falls for her, and the connection between the brothers starts to come apart, sending Beverly toward drugs and a deepening instability.
David Cronenberg directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider, producing with Marc Boyman. The film is the ninth of the twenty-two features he has directed, following The Fly and preceding Naked Lunch. Jeremy Irons plays both twins, with Geneviève Bujold as Claire and supporting turns from Heidi von Palleske, Barbara Gordon, Shirley Douglas and Stephen Lack. The production, mounted in Canada and the United States, cost about 13 million dollars and returned roughly 8 million worldwide.
On IMDb the film holds 7.2 from over 52,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.1 from about a thousand. A critics' rating of 7.7 from 48 reviews places it somewhat above those audience scores, though all three land in similar territory.
What's left behind the scenes
- During filming, Jeremy Irons constantly had to keep in mind which of the twins – Elliott or Beverly – he was playing. He always played one leaning forward, and the other leaning back.
- Initially, Jeremy Irons had two dressing rooms and two sets of clothes – one for each twin. Over time, however, he realized that "the whole point is how easily they can be mistaken for one another, and people really do confuse them," after which he kept only one dressing room and mixed up his characters' wardrobes.
- Episodes where both twins appear on screen at the same time are one of the first applications of the computer technology "traveling matte" (a type of composite shot that allowed actors and other objects to be combined with arbitrary backgrounds using double exposure through a moving opaque mask on auxiliary film).
- Initially, David Cronenberg offered the role of the twins to William Hurt. He was forced to decline the offer due to commitments to other projects.
- Robert De Niro turned down the role of the twins, explaining that he would be uncomfortable playing a gynecologist.
- The Mantle twins were based on brothers Stewart and Cyril Marcus, who were found dead in Cyril's Manhattan apartment as a result of barbiturate withdrawal. The brothers' story is told in Barry Wood and Jack Giszlend's novel 'The Twins' (1977), which served as the basis for the screenplay.
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