The Kiss Before The Mirror is chock full of surprises for the viewer, almost as much in the twenty-first century as it was in 1933. The opening minutes seem to be shaping up as a horror film, complete with the image of a stalker moving toward a house where an illicit couple (Walter Pidgeon, Gloria Stuart) are having a rendezvous -- but it also almost threatens to become a musical, as the couple are each heard humming and vamping to a tango as they prepare to meet, in what is just short of an erotic pre-coital ballet. And then, just as it reaches a new height of implied eroticism, it becomes something entirely different, as murderous rage explodes before the camera and the audience. Director James Whale carries us across this rapidly shifting cinematic landscape -- much of it decorated in a beautifully understated art deco style (courtesy of art director Charles D. Hall) -- in seemingly effortless fashion in just the first few minutes of The Kiss Before The Mirror, and then it gets really interesting -- we're introduced to an array of deceptively complex characters, of whom the most interesting, other than the pairing of Frank Morgan and Nancy Carroll as the husband-and-wife headed into dangerous straits, is the lawyer played by Jean Dixon. Amid some amazing acting and character flourishes by the two leads, and quietly flamboyant support from Charles Grapewin as a dipsomaniac law clerk, Dixon's lady lawyer must constantly differentiate between her perceptions as a lawyer and a woman; when asked which she is, she remarks that by day she is a lawyer, and by night . . . "you'd be surprised." And the biggest scene "stealer" of all in this movie isn't even one of the actors, despite their all working on nearly all cylinders -- it's Karl Freund's cinematography, which comes close to over-shadowing (in the most literal meaning of that term) all of the other aspects of this first-rate romantic thriller, which remains an extraordinarily rewarding viewing experience 70+ years later. And the final twist ending remains as suspenseful and rewarding in the new century as it was in 1933.