Lightening Strikes Twice begins with the introduction of a condemned man on death row, Richard Trevelyan (Richard Todd), who gets a reprieve and a second trial in which he's promptly acquitted. We don't know the reason for the second trial but do learn later that a female juror (who knew Trevelyan before he was accused of murdering his wife) quite unconvincingly swayed her fellow jurors to acquit him. Most critics agreed that it was not realistic that a juror who knew the defendant beforehand would have been selected to sit in judgement upon him.
Until the climax, we're forced to figure out whether Trevelyan actually murdered his wife or whether it was others in his inner circle that did the deed. Only the protagonist, actress Shelley Carnes (Ruth Roman), scheduled for a well-earned vacation at a dude ranch (and clearly an interloper), can be safely be ruled out as a suspect from the beginning.
Shelley ends up meeting ranchers J. D. (Frank Conroy) and Myra Nolan (Kathyrn Givney) and Myra ends up lending her car to her, giving her directions to the dude ranch. On the way she gets lost in a storm and ends up in what I think is a deserted hotel-except Trevelyan is there and you get the impression that he might actually have killed his wife, given the mixed messages he gives to Shelley (mostly of a negative sort) along with his menacing demeanor.
When Shelley wakes up in the morning Trevelyan has disappeared and she makes her way to the dude ranch where she encounters two weird characters, the owner Liza McStringer (Mercedes McCambridge) and her younger brother String (Daryl Hickman). Liza is the juror who convinced her fellow jurors to let Trevelyan get off scot free and hence is shunned by her neighbors.
So not only do we suspect the McStringers to be potential suspects but the characters Shelley met earlier, J. D. and Myra, also could be guilty, since Myra knew along the dude ranch was closed but didn't tell Shelley about it. Why did she send her if she knew the ranch was closed? Nonetheless, String bonds with Shelley so both he and her sister allow her to stay at the ranch despite having temporarily closed it.
An additional red herring is thrown in, when we're introduced to neighbor Harvey Turner (Zachary Scott), a friend of the Nolans, who immediately becomes obsessed with Shelley. At one point he's driving her to a deserted cottage and appears he's going to possibly sexually assault Shelley but was actually simply doing a favor for Trevelyan who wanted to see her.
We're thrown off the trail again when Shelley falls for Trevelyan. There's a ridiculous scene on a cliff in which Shelley gets all mousey and begs Trevelyan to help guide her to safety after literally becoming paralyzed with fear. They end up getting married but then Shelley gets it in her head that Trevelyan did murder his wife.
This causes Shelley to flee where she ends up back at the McStringer ranch where we finally discover that it was Liza who killed Trevelyan's wife as she was obsessed with him. It's a wholly disappointing finale given the pedestrian nature of the plot. McCambridge hams it up as the obsessed dude ranch owner joined by her handicapped brother, who are promptly dispatched in a fiery car crash after they attempt to flee the police.
Sure enough it's the "weird ones" who get their just desserts and not any of the apparent "stalwart" members of the community including Trevelyan, whose prior bad behavior is just another red herring to throw you off the scent of the real killer.
Roman and Todd try their best with this material but in the end the whole thing seems a little too forced. Is the payoff worth the wait? Unfortunately the answer is a resounding no.
Until the climax, we're forced to figure out whether Trevelyan actually murdered his wife or whether it was others in his inner circle that did the deed. Only the protagonist, actress Shelley Carnes (Ruth Roman), scheduled for a well-earned vacation at a dude ranch (and clearly an interloper), can be safely be ruled out as a suspect from the beginning.
Shelley ends up meeting ranchers J. D. (Frank Conroy) and Myra Nolan (Kathyrn Givney) and Myra ends up lending her car to her, giving her directions to the dude ranch. On the way she gets lost in a storm and ends up in what I think is a deserted hotel-except Trevelyan is there and you get the impression that he might actually have killed his wife, given the mixed messages he gives to Shelley (mostly of a negative sort) along with his menacing demeanor.
When Shelley wakes up in the morning Trevelyan has disappeared and she makes her way to the dude ranch where she encounters two weird characters, the owner Liza McStringer (Mercedes McCambridge) and her younger brother String (Daryl Hickman). Liza is the juror who convinced her fellow jurors to let Trevelyan get off scot free and hence is shunned by her neighbors.
So not only do we suspect the McStringers to be potential suspects but the characters Shelley met earlier, J. D. and Myra, also could be guilty, since Myra knew along the dude ranch was closed but didn't tell Shelley about it. Why did she send her if she knew the ranch was closed? Nonetheless, String bonds with Shelley so both he and her sister allow her to stay at the ranch despite having temporarily closed it.
An additional red herring is thrown in, when we're introduced to neighbor Harvey Turner (Zachary Scott), a friend of the Nolans, who immediately becomes obsessed with Shelley. At one point he's driving her to a deserted cottage and appears he's going to possibly sexually assault Shelley but was actually simply doing a favor for Trevelyan who wanted to see her.
We're thrown off the trail again when Shelley falls for Trevelyan. There's a ridiculous scene on a cliff in which Shelley gets all mousey and begs Trevelyan to help guide her to safety after literally becoming paralyzed with fear. They end up getting married but then Shelley gets it in her head that Trevelyan did murder his wife.
This causes Shelley to flee where she ends up back at the McStringer ranch where we finally discover that it was Liza who killed Trevelyan's wife as she was obsessed with him. It's a wholly disappointing finale given the pedestrian nature of the plot. McCambridge hams it up as the obsessed dude ranch owner joined by her handicapped brother, who are promptly dispatched in a fiery car crash after they attempt to flee the police.
Sure enough it's the "weird ones" who get their just desserts and not any of the apparent "stalwart" members of the community including Trevelyan, whose prior bad behavior is just another red herring to throw you off the scent of the real killer.
Roman and Todd try their best with this material but in the end the whole thing seems a little too forced. Is the payoff worth the wait? Unfortunately the answer is a resounding no.