Chained for Life

One has to really feel sorry for the Hilton sisters. Fine vaudeville singers, they were screwed over throughout their whole lives due to the fact that they were conjoined (siamese) twins. It should be fitting then, that they took the lead roles in this film, based on their lives.

CHAINED FOR LIFE tells the story (typical of the time, in "flashback") of Vivian and Dorothy Hamilton (couldn't they be a little less obvious with the names?), conjoined twins who sing in a vaudeville show, but are humiliated by their manager through a publicity marriage stunt that goes horribly wrong when one of the twins genuinely falls in love with the "husband" Andre, only to have her heart broken when he takes the pay advance promised him for the stunt, reveals he never loved her, and annuls the marriage to marry his "normal" lover. The other twin, who never liked him anyway, avenges her sister's sorrow by shooting him during one of his final presentations with his own pistol (he was the show's trick shooter). A single judge in court has to hear the case and decide the fate of both twins, the guilty and the innocent.

Sounds interesting right? I thought so too, unfortunately this film totally ditches the court-room aspect which pulled me in, focusing instead on the re-telling of the plight of the heartbreak and the marriage stunt. In retrospect, this was probably a good thing, because the film is boring, and limiting it to the court room would be the only thing that could make the film even worse. The acting is totally dry, and, although the film attempts to address the morality of the situation and has some interesting/thoughtful quotes in monologues towards the end, the script is humdrum, exactly the same as all the other dull, low-budget '50s "thrillers", only with conjoined twins!

One can't really blame the Hilton sisters though. They deliver the goods in several musical sequences in the film, which have no purpose whatsoever other than to show us that, though bad actors, the Hilton sisters are great singers; this is really the only reason to watch the film, to see the "amazing singing siamese twins". Really, it's sad that this film and FREAKS were the only way the Hiltons could be preserved, since neither film shows their true potential, as prejudice against them had ensured that they would never get a proper recording or film contract. This is why the film itself is ironic, since its only appeal to the audience is to gawk at the siamese twins (save for those short times when we are swept up in song and hear the voices, ignoring the bodies they came from) and its overlying message is about how they have suffered throughout their lives and how this gawking and exploitation is wrong.

I was prepared to watch this film expecting to see an exploitation film but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it treats the subject of Siameese twins with a fair amount of dignity. The story about unrequited love within the confines of a Vaudeville show is fairly interesting. The real life Hilton sisters are no actresses, but their singing is most engaging. The villain of the piece has to be one of the sleaziest characters ever put on film. Ther are several other Vaudeville routines to entertain the viewer, but there is no real resolution to the story. This is certainly one of the most different films that I have ever seen.

Remember the old brain teaser, where someone is on trial for murder, and the judge states that though the party is clearly guilty, he is forced to set him free, and it turns out that the guilty person is a Siamese twin?? Well, someone decided to base an entire feature film around that brain teaser. "Chained for Life" stars the Hilton sisters; real life Siamese twins from the vaudeville era who play (guess what) Siamese twin vaudeville stars (vaudeville, by the way, was pretty much a dead issue by the time this film was made), one of whom gets involved with a gigolo who abandons her on her wedding night, and the terrible retributions that follow. The Hilton sisters seem to be quite competent singers (though somebody should pick out better songs for them to sing), but don't quite cut it as actresses. When one has dialogue, the other completely goes blank, as if she were somewhere else. Most of the film, though, is padded out with other corny vaudeville acts who add nothing to the story, but help bring the movie to feature length rather than being a short subject. And there's a dream sequence that's not to be believed. All in all, for exploitation completeists only.

Director Harry L. Fraser, who gave us the unforgettable "I Accuse My Parents," went over the top with Hollywood's first (and, I suspect, lone) drama of the travails of two women who truly were, both in the film and in real life, inseparable.

Teen actresses and major merchandising mavens Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen have been described as joined at the hip. That was the reality for former vaudevillians Violet and Daisy Hilton, the Siamese twins starring in this crime film. Violet is Vivian and Daisy is Dorothy, not that it matters much.

The twins, a bit long in the tooth when the movie was made, reprise their old hoofer routine in a show that includes a master marksman and his gal, a beautiful on-stage assistant. Having Vivian get married is a publicity idea which she accepts enthusiastically, her close sibling less so. But she comes around hoping for her sister's connubial joy. The intended groom is the show's Dead Eye Dick. His motive: money to go through with the wedding.

Complications arise including the refusal of a number of states to issue marriage licenses on the tenuous, indeed unsustainable, grounds that a marriage by one of the twins would constitute bigamy. Nonsense. In fact Siamese twins in the nineteenth century, never mind later, got married in the U.S. Vivian is jilted on her wedding night so we don't get to see any conjugal maneuvering (not that we would have seen much in a 1951 feature).

Vivian and Dorothy watch the marksman do his act and Dorothy casually shoots the guy dead. The film begins with a judge asking, from his desk, for help from moviegoers in deciding whether to find the homicidal woman guilty, the sentence then either requiring that the other also be executed or, if a lesser charge was sustained, both would go to the slammer. I imagine conversations going on long into the night by folks who viewed the film and couldn't stop talking about the jurist's dilemma. This is a film with a question about justice-unfortunately it's too arcane for any serious discussion.

Court scenes alternate with recounting of the tale. The courtroom is as fake as the plot. And the Alpha Video DVD cover's posters from the original release promise licentious tidbits that never come close to surfacing. "Joined Together How Can They Make Love?" "What Happens in Their Intimate Moments?" That's what I wanted to know and why I forked out $4.99 for the disc. Phooey.

4/10 (for its curiosity value)

Chained For Life (1951)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The Hilton Sisters of FREAKS fame were brought back to the screen in this, at the time, controversial film that tries to take a closer look at their lives. The two sisters are part of a theater group and to make money their manager sets up a marriage. When the man hurts one of the sisters the other kills him and it's up to a judge to see how this should be handled. Unlike FREAKS, this caught me off guard because it wasn't simply an exploitation film, which is what I was expecting. The film shows the personally lives of these Siamese twins and it's all rather interesting. I think it would have been better had the film not started in the courtroom and then replayed the events as they happened. Either way, those fans of the Browning film should certainly check this one out.