I watched this free movie, that’s also commercial-free, in 10-minute chunks over the past couple of weeks. Note that the video can’t be embedded here, so you’ll have to follow the link. I suspect YouTube will eventually end embedding, just as monetizing is becoming standard, even for submissions from users who haven’t signed up for the program.
Mirage, with its overly contrived plot and a small sci-fi twist at the end, is a failed Hitchcock wannabe, but it’s an interesting curiosity. For Gregory Peck the role is a return to Hitchcock’s Spellbound, from 20 years earlier, with him again trying to remember a traumatic event. The movie’s hook for me is the gorgeous “brunette Grace Kelly,” Diane Baker, who was seven years old when Peck was in Spellbound. A year before Mirage, Baker appeared in Hitchcock’s Marnie.
The hard contrast of the photography, along with some cheap looking sets, give Mirage the appearance of a widescreen 60’s TV production. The New York locations are interesting, and Walter Matthau does his usual Walter Matthau thing. George Kennedy and Jack Weston are both menacing and goofy. Fun fact: I’m the same age as the little girl who plays Irene in the middle of the movie.