What can be better than identical twins separated during a flood or an earthquake who magically reunite? Lookalikes who willingly or unwillingly trade places. Here is our selection of doppelgängers, double goers, soul twins who mysteriously (and conveniently) share the same physical features and thereby prove useful to revolutionaries, schemers, crooks and each other.
The Prince and the Pauper (1937) Errol Flynn stars in this 1937 adaptation of the Mark Twain novel, in which a prince swaps places with his impoverished lookalike in order to get a better sense of the world beyond his palace. Flynn (for whom the adjective swashbuckling was invented) plays the courtier who protects the boys from the designs of an evil Earl.
Raja Aur Runk (1968) Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper didn’t inspire only Hollywood. This Indian adaptation, by KP Atma, stars Sanjeev Kumar in the Flynn role and future Marathi blockbuster director Mahesh Kothare as the same-to-same boys who trade places and social status.
Don (1978) Two Amitabh Bachchans are better than one in Chandra Barot’s freak hit. The filmmaker could never repeat the success of this seventies production, whose tackiness is part of its charm. Bachchan plays a gangster who dies and is replaced with a paan-chewing street singer by the Mumbai police. The A-list production includes Zeenat Aman in the cast, Kalyanji-Anandji as composers and Salim-Javed as writers. Car chases, chic women, five-star hotels, suited-booted villains – there is no doubting Don’s provenance. “It was always meant to be a Bond kind of a film,”writes Krishna Gopalan in The Making of Don. “The only difference was that no Bond film ever had songs.” Don had, and one was better than the next.
Kagemusha (1980) Akira Kurosawa’s sumptuous period movie goes far beyond the gimmickry that a double role offers. The Japanese master explores the hierarchy and social divisions that lie at the heart of Mark Twain’s novel. A king in medieval Japan forces a thief who resembles him to take his place in court and on the battlefield. The thief’s position becomes tricky with the king’s death, and he is reminded in small and large ways of his lowly status. It’s fabulously designed and shot,and narrated with the grave dignity with which Kurosawa approached period cinema. Rajat Kapoor attempted a cross between Don and Kagemusha in the flip and fun Mithya in 2008.
Enemy (2013) Jose Saramago’s tricky novel The Double provides the basis for Denis Villeneuve’s atmospheric Enemy. Jake Gyllenhaal plays two men identical in appearance. One is a history professor, who learns of his doppelgänger when he rents a movie. The actor looks like the professor, but the similarities end there. Like all of Saramago’s novels, the doubling device has a political subtext.
