Twin Husbands cost about $14 to produce and was surely made in less than two weeks: the great majority of it takes place on a single set, it runs a tidy sixty-eight minutes, and it's evident little film was wasted on retakes. If one is willing to accept those considerable limitations, however, it's quite a fun b-picture, the sort of lighthearted crime film about an untouchable ex-con in which Warren William often starred.The film starts as if it intends to be quite dark, with a man (John Miljan) awakening in a room he doesn't recognize, wearing the monogrammed clothing of another and being told it's years later than it was on the last day he remembers. But, thanks to a butler who turns out to really be just a talkative actor, the man finds out that he looks so much like a wealthy fellow named Jerry Werrendon that Jerry's duplicitous wife (Shirley Grey as Chloe Werrenden) and secretary (Monroe Owsley as Colton Drain) have engaged in a bit of light kidnapping in order to use the new guy to sign for $200,000 worth of Jerry's bonds, money with which the pair will then skip town.This new Jerry is so amenable to his pretend life that his "wife" has to use a pistol to keep him from showing her just how much he has missed her in their alleged moments apart, if you get my meaning. (His sanguine attitude about being blackjacked, drugged, and kidnapped is our first clue that, just maybe, the "victim" in this situation isn't the hapless Joe Schmo Colton and Chloe had foolishly assumed him to be.)I don't want to spoil things because this is a movie in which the pleasure is in the cleverness of characters and the ways in which the bad guys are out-thought — if you can get past new!Jerry's initial smugness, it's a fun little ride in the company of assorted criminals and the glibly villainous Monroe Owsley. In addition, though the movie spends little time on anything other than plot, there are gestures toward class commentary in the deep untrustworthiness of literally every single rich person. Coming at a time during which Hollywood was busy falling in love with its "rich people: they're quirky, just like us!" agenda, such a perspective is refreshing to say the least.
