Chained for Life (1951) 61m
My first real exposure to the genre of 'exploitation' came about when I was in high school and Tod Browning's FREAKS ran for a limited engagement in an indie cinema. It intrigued me enough to spend years seeking out CHAINED FOR LIFE, a B-grader that featured the conjoined twins Violet and Daisy Hilton from Browning's earlier film. To me, this was exploitation even more direct than in FREAKS: rather than scatter our observations over a number of different startling human exhibitions, CHAINED FOR LIFE took one condition in particular and played it to the hilt. Or Hilton. The Hilton Sisters play the Hamilton Sisters (at the addition of a couple of letters, this is no acting stretch so far), third-rate performers in a third-rate vaudeville show. Things get complicated when one of them falls for the oily charms of a sharpshooter who wants to use his association with the twins to become the headline act. It all ends with a murder rap and an attorney putting forward their case with uncommon legal sensitivity by asking the court "Are these monstrosities or are they human beings?"
As separation procedures are performed nowadays while twins are still young, the condition of conjoined adults is even rarer in this time than when CHAINED was first made. Browning did raise a few quirky questions about the phenomenon in FREAKS, but the writer and director of CHAINED stake out supposedly serious territory to justify our own morbid fascination in the subject - in true road show fashion, the film is introduced by an authority (in this case a judge, though doctors and psychiatrists usually show up in these prologues too) whose sober demeanour informs us that we are not watching an exploitation film while overlooking the lurid taglines ("How can they make love?") that drew audiences to the box office in the first place. The twins' sex life is an obvious marketing angle, but is more downplayed than you'd expect and a lot of screen time is spent on other actors in the cast. The short running time of the film is further padded out with a number of variety acts, the Hiltons being the least interesting, and consequently least irritating, among them. The sisters recite a little philosophy about the unique nature of their existence but you have to wonder how much of it is really their own thoughts and how much of it is prose dreamed up by a scriptwriter, especially with dumb lines like "We've always said we were like other people, but different". There may have been no need for blatant or titillating 'Siamese Twin' scenes in any event - I found myself more distracted by watching the sisters do something as simple as stand up, walk across a room, and then sit down (who decides when they're going to get up?). One scene where a twin dreams of leaving her sister and then walks alone through a forest would have been a little more poignant if it didn't descend into a mawkish tryst, and if we didn't already know it was being played by a body double. No pun intended.
Oh, all right, pun intended. But anyway, CHAINED's biggest failing point is that it does not engage us with the unique situation of the Hiltons. Though using the sisters' condition to sell the movie, the film-makers don't really confront us with the reality of how or where the twins are joined or the physical compromises they must make. In fact, the twins, who aren't as identical as you'd expect (especially since their hair is dyed different colours) could really be played by any two actors wearing a collection of two-for-one costumes. The acting by the Hiltons isn't much worse than many other performances in the film (or worse than any other sisters named Hilton, for that matter), but as their physical state prevents them from looking at each other directly all of their dialogue is delivered with sidelong glances. Still, the twins do attract a measure of interest and sympathy simply by being on camera and without recourse to any of the film's exploitative interests, and you might be inspired to find out more about the real lives of the actors. The Hiltons' biography would have made a more interesting story for no other reason than it was true: abandoned, adopted, exploited and going through the same marriage problems as they did in the movie (they were refused a licence on moral grounds) they eventually played out the showbiz circuit and ended up flipping burgers and bagging groceries before succumbing to influenza. There will never be anyone quite like them again, nor, it stands to reason, a film quite like this one again. In light of this, CHAINED FOR LIFE was a one-shot chance, and the film-makers blew it.
sburridge@hotmail.com
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