Dead Ringers

Name: Dead Ringers
Genre: Thriller, Horror
Released: 1988-09-23
Duration: 1 h 55 min
Rating: 7.2
Cast: Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold, Heidi von Palleske, Barbara Gordon, Shirley Douglas

Two bodies. Two minds. One soul.

Dead Ringers (1988)

Timing: 1:55 (115 min)

7.107/10
843

7.057/10
6209

7.2/10
52392

All about film

Video 8

Photo 33

Actors and characters

Watch film Dead Ringers | Gordon Smith On Creating The Special Effects

Release date

1988-09-23

Country

Canada, United States

Production

20th Century Fox, Téléfilm Canada, Morgan Creek, Mantle Clinic II

Genre

Thriller, Horror

Budget

$13 000 000

Revenue

$8 038 508

Website

Director

David Cronenberg

Actors

Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold, Heidi von Palleske, Barbara Gordon, Shirley Douglas, Stephen Lack, Nick Nichols, Lynne Cormack, Damir Andrei, Miriam Newhouse
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

David Cronenberg, Norman Snider

Producer

David Cronenberg, Marc Boyman, Sylvio Tabet, Carol Baum

Operator

Peter Suschitzky

Composer

Howard Shore

Artist

Audition

Deirdre Bowen

Editing

Ronald Sanders
All team (33)

Short description

Elliot, a successful gynecologist, works at the same practice as his identical twin, Beverly. Elliot is attracted to many of his patients and has affairs with them. When he inevitably loses interest, he will give the woman over to Beverly, the meeker of the two, without the woman knowing the difference. Beverly falls hard for one of the patients, Claire, but when she inadvertently deceives him, he slips into a state of madness.

What's left behind the scenes

During filming, Jeremy Irons constantly had to keep in mind which of the twins – Elliott or Beverly – he was playing. He always played one leaning forward, and the other leaning back.
Initially, Jeremy Irons had two dressing rooms and two sets of clothes – one for each twin. Over time, however, he realized that "the whole point is how easily they can be mistaken for one another, and people really do confuse them," after which he kept only one dressing room and mixed up his characters' wardrobes.
Episodes where both twins appear on screen at the same time are one of the first applications of the computer technology "traveling matte" (a type of composite shot that allowed actors and other objects to be combined with arbitrary backgrounds using double exposure through a moving opaque mask on auxiliary film).
Initially, David Cronenberg offered the role of the twins to William Hurt. He was forced to decline the offer due to commitments to other projects.
Robert De Niro turned down the role of the twins, explaining that he would be uncomfortable playing a gynecologist.
The Mantle twins were based on brothers Stewart and Cyril Marcus, who were found dead in Cyril's Manhattan apartment as a result of barbiturate withdrawal. The brothers' story is told in Barry Wood and Jack Giszlend's novel 'The Twins' (1977), which served as the basis for the screenplay.

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