A Stolen Life (B.D. Productions, Warner Bros., 1946)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2026 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Last night (Tuesday, October 27) my husband Charles and I watched a quite intriguing Bette Davis vehicle from Warner Bros., A Stolen Life (1946), in which she was cast in a dual role as Kathleen and Patricia Bosworth, twin sisters from New Bedford, Massachusetts. The film was at least nominally produced by Davis’s own company, “B.D. Productions,” though like Rita Hayworth’s “Beckworth” (named for Hayworth and her daughter Rebecca Welles) it was really just a tax dodge. When the film was shot it was 1944, World War II was still going on, and the federal government (back when we still had a progressive government that believed in taxing the rich and making them pay their fair share) imposed a top income tax rate of 90 percent. As the highest-paid woman in America Davis qualified, and so like Hayworth and a number of other stars of that era, she formed a dummy corporation in partnership with the head of her studio so her fee for the film could be considered a capital gain, not a salary, and therefore subject to only 25 percent tax. “B.D. Productions” was supposed to produce six films at Warner Bros.’s expense and for their release, but this one was the only one made under that banner. Davis and director Curtis Bernhardt, whom she requested after she’d seen his film My Reputation starring Barbara Stanwyck, clashed in subsequent years over who had actually produced the film, though Davis in her first autobiography, The Lonely Life, complained that even though she was the nominal producer, she still had to fight Jack Warner every step of the way over every creative decision, and if that was producing, “I had been a mogul for years.” Davis chose a story that had started out in 1935 as a Czech novel called Uloupený život (which literally translates to “A Stolen Life”) by Karel Josef Beneš. It had previously been filmed in 1939 by Orion Productions, released by British Paramount, under the same title with Paul Czinner directing and Elisabeth Bergner and Michael Redgrave as the leads.

A Stolen Life takes place in New Bedford, Massachusetts (also the location from which Herman Melville’s Moby Dick starts) and deals with twin sisters, Patricia and Kathleen Bosworth (both played by Bette Davis). In essence it’s a typical Davis vehicle which casts her as a bad girl who takes the good girl’s boyfriend away from her, though the big novelty is that Davis is playing the good girl, too. Kathleen, an aspiring artist who moved to New York, comes back to New Bedford and misses the ferry to the island where Patricia is living with their uncle, Freddie Linley (Charlie Ruggles, odd casting for a part that is specifically not played for comic relief). She catches a ride from Bill Emerson (Glenn Ford), assistant to lighthouse keeper Eben Folger (Walter Brennan in a “with” performance; Brennan was infamous for asking his directors, “Do you want it with or without?,” and when they inevitably asked, “With or without what?,” he’d say, “Teeth”). Katie (as she’s called through most of the film) instantly falls in love with Bill. She also buys a ship in a bottle that Eben Folger had coveted for years and offers to give it to him if he’ll pose for her for three hours every day for three weeks, though later she admits that she didn’t have any particular interest in painting him and only made the offer to have an excuse to visit the lighthouse so she could see Bill. (Incidentally the name “Folger” for the Brennan character ties this film directly to New England’s real-life history as a whaling center; my stepfather was named Folger and he told me he had descended from a whaling family in New England in the 18th and 19th centuries. He even once gave me an American Heritage book about whaling that mentioned some of his ancestors.)

Alas, when Katie makes a lunch date with Bill, her sister Pat (who Bill had had no idea existed) snaps him up and poaches him. She does worse than that: she totally enthralls Bill and gets him to marry her, though what he doesn’t know is that not only is she still seeing her previous boyfriend, Jack Talbot (Bruce Bennett), she’s had a long history of casual affairs. Katie slinks back to New York and wins enough of a reputation as an artist a gallery gives her a one-woman show (and gives her portrait of Eben Folger top pride of place). But her show is attended by a much more talented (though also with a major attitude) artist, Karnock (Dane Clark), and she eventually decides she’s no more than a third-rate artist. So she gives up her career and moves back to New Bedford, where Pat is still ensconced with Bill. Katie and Pat go out together on a sailing boat, whereupon a storm ex machina comes along and one of the sisters drowns. Katie tries desperately to save Pat’s life, but eventually she loses control and Pat dies, though in the process Pat’s wedding ring came off and ended up in Katie’s palm. The officials who rescue Katie naturally think she’s Pat, and Katie decides to steal her late sister’s life and continue to live as Pat, including being married to Bill, who of course was the man Katie loved all along. Then she learns that Bill had already decided to divorce Pat because of her “manizing” ways and history of extra-relational activities. Stuck as to what to do now, she seeks the advice of her uncle Freddie, who tells her that she’ll only be happy if she tells the truth about who she is and trusts Bill to be understanding – which he is. Eventually they end up in a clinch as the film fades out, though one wonders how Katie and Bill are going to handle having to get married first when all the world thinks Katie is Pat and she and Bill are already married.

The double-exposure shots of the two Bette Davises are utterly convincing, though director Bernhardt had a major advantage. Bette Davis was using a stand-in named Sally Sage who was virtually a dead ringer for her, and whenever one Davis has her back to the camera it was always Sage doubling for her. For scenes in which both sisters face the camera at the same time, they used traditional split screens. (Four special-effects people were credited: Russell Collings, Roy Davidson, William C. McGann, and Willard Van Enger.) The effects were so convincing that the next time Bette Davis made a film playing two sisters, 1964’s Dead Ringer, its director, longtime friend and former co-star Paul Henried, sought out Bernhardt to ask how they’d done the shots with two Bette Davises. When the film was released an anonymous reviewer for the Brooklyn Eagle write that it was “a challenge to an actress but not a very rewarding drama. It is filled with emotional high spots and it scores an exciting melodramatic climax, but it fails utterly to be convincing.” That about sums it up; it’s a great showcase for Bette Davis, who finally got to play both good and bad in the same film, but it’s a rambling movie with great scenes alternating with some pretty banal ones. Still, I’d seen it before and it was nice to catch up with it again.