07.15.09 | Dr. Strangefilm | From the Files of Dr. Strangefilm...Print this Post
The E! cable TV channel (Please don't ask me what the "E" stands for these days. I'm pretty sure it used to be "Entertainment," but judging from what's on there now that can't be right.) recently rebroadcast its True Hollywood Story installment on the Hilton Sisters. Now, some of you out there may have watched the sordid riches-to-riches saga of Paris and Nicky, but kindly ole' Doc Strangefilm will not stand for such a gross usurpation of nomenclature. Six decades before the heiress siblings were foisted on the public, America was already being entertained by a pair of Hilton Sisters. Violet and Daisy Hilton were definitely just as good at acting and singing as Paris and Nicky. What's more, they had the additional showbiz hook of being conjoined twins!
Born in England in 1908 to an unwed barmaid, Violet and Daisy were more or less "sold" to their mother's boss, who exhibited the girls in sideshows and treated them like chattel until they sued for and won their independence in 1931. The duo became popular Vaudeville stars, singing and performing with the likes of Bob Hope, and each woman carried on romances and received actual marriage proposals. The Hiltons were also recruited by filmmaker Tod Browning to appear in his 1932 cult shock classic Freaks.
There certainly seems to be enough melodramatic moments in the last paragraph for a skilled screenwriter to turn into an entertaining, if somewhat downbeat, script. By 1951, sad to say, the Hilton Sisters' careers had reached such a low point that their second and final screen acting appearance would be in a Poverty Row exploitation piece entitled Chained for Life.
Performing "Siamese Twins" Vivian and Dorothy Hamilton (guess who?) agree to a publicity scheme where a handsome trickshot artist will propose to Dorothy. Things are looking up when the couple-or is that trio?-actually falls for each other. This leads to a bizarre dream sequence where Dorothy imagines herself separated from her sibling (done with an unconvincing stand-in seen mostly from the rear and by the clever trick of posing the girls behind a tree). Finding a state that will agree to an instant ménage-a-trois marriage, however, proves to be a problem. What's more, the caddish suitor is only wooing Dorothy for her money. When he ultimately leaves her the day after they're finally wed for his leggy assistant, a vengeful Vivian shoots him onstage with one of his own guns.
This all culminates in a trial the likes of which Law and Order could only dream: How do you prosecute an accused murderer when a death sentence would mean killing an innocent person as well? Even the judge is perplexed enough to, at the film's conclusion, look to the camera and ask "If you were the jury, what would your verdict be?" And in whatever theaters this film played in the early 1950s, the nightly audience probably did average out at around 12 people.
What Chained for Life gives you is a typical B-quality melodrama built around feeding the morbid curiosity over its main characters' medical condition, a fact that the sisters' stilted performances are hardly capable of letting viewers forget. Is the film strange? Decidedly. Is it watchable? Barely. Still, imagine what you'd have to endure if a studio ever put together a big-budget remake with this century's Hilton Sisters as the leads.
"E" does stand for Entertainment - but it's the kind of entertainment I get when I read Dr. Strangefilm's posts. He talks about the best stuff. Keep it comin'!
I never heard of this movie before I read the blog. And, I'm glad I didn't!
[...] Well, I'm not going to say. But, as Larry's pal Ian--perhaps recalling our earlier case file Chained for Life--says, "It's going to pose quite a legal problem. Who really did all these [...]