THE MAN WITH TWO FACES. Warner Brothers, 1934. Edward G. Robinson, Mary Astor, Louis Calhern, Ricardo Cortez, Mae Clarke, David Laundau. Screenplay by Tom Reed & Niven Busch, based on the play The Dark Tower, by George S. Kauffman and Alexander Woolcott. Directed by Archie Mayo.

  THE DARK TOWER. Warner Brothers, UK, 1943. Ben Lyon, Anne Crawford, David Farrar and Herbert Lom. Written by Reginald Purdell and Brock Williams, from the play The Dark Tower, by George S. Kauffman and Alexander Woolcott. Directed by John Harlow.

   Two films based on the same play, and that’s about the only resemblance I can find between them.

   Man with Two Faces features Edward G. Robinson as a pleasantly hammy Broadway actor/director whose sister (Mary Astor) comes under the eerie spell of a palpable con man and Absolute Bounder, played by Louis Calhern. When Calhern threatens to ruin Astor’s life, Eddie decides to kill him and plans to get away with it by doing the deed disguised as a colorful and totally fictitious character based on his theatrical experience.

   The Dark Tower offers Ben Lyon as the American manager of a traveling circus in England who thinks it might be good publicity to put his pretty aerialist under the spell of a seedy hypnotist (played by Herbert Lom with equal parts Charles Boyer and Peter Lorre.) As the spell deepens and grows destructive, Ben realizes he has to put a stop to it … but can’t.

   Archie Mayo’s direction of Man is nothing to write home to Mom about, but it’s more than saved by the Kauffman-Woollcott script and the appropriately over-the-top playing of its leads.

   Louis Calhern is particularly memorable as The Nasty, and the script gives him all sorts of interesting bits. I especially liked the way he carried two rats around with him in a little cage, for the thrill having them at his mercy and because he enjoys seeing the servants scramble to clean out their cage and bring them fresh cheese. There’s also a neat turn by David Landau as a deceptively lackadaisical homicide cop. In all, a film well worth the time.

   Tower takes a bit longer to get things going, and once started, writers Burdell & Williams tend to dawdle a bit, but it fills the time with excellent turns by the supporting staff (I particularly liked Frederick Burtwell and Elsie Wagstaff as a pompous ringmaster and his knowing wife) and offers glistening photography by Otto Heller, who went on to Richard III and The Ipcress File. And the editor here was none other than Terence Fisher, who would helm the horror films that put Hammer Studios on the cinematic map.

   In all, two quite enjoyable films, but for me the best part was seeing how far apart the writers could bend the same material.