Identify this old ghost movie

Cafe Society
1

I remember watching this movie in my junior high school days (early 80s) - it was one of those weeks just before a school break and the teachers, not wanting to work anymore than the kids did, showed us some films.

The movie was in black & white and I would venture to guess that it was from the mid to late 60s. I think it was most likely a made-for-TV film. It co-starred either Mariette Hartley, or an actress who looked a lot like her in the “mother” role.

The story begins with a young woman coming home to her family estate. She was one of a pair of twins, but her sister had severe medical problems and was hinted to be disfigured in some way and had died. In fact, I think the young woman had returned home because she had received news of her sister’s death. She has a distinctly chilly relationship with her mother (Hartley - possibly.)

While home, the young woman begins seeing ghostly visions of her deceased twin sister and has several close brushes with death. After some more spooky supernatural stuff takes place, the family hires a psychic to communicate with the dead sister. The psychic, upon hearing that the deceased sister is a twin of the still-living sister, hypothesizes that the two women share a soul, and that the deceased sister can’t move on until she has the “other half of her death” - meaning that she wants the living sister to die as well.

The mother also confesses that she had allowed the deceased sister to die (after years of doing nothing but intensively caring for her, the mother just didn’t call a doctor one night when she was gravely ill.) The living sister is given a locket that is supposed to protect her from her late sister’s ghost, but she loses it or it is stolen.

The movie ends with a confrontation between the living & dead sister. Just as the ghost is about to claim “the other half of her soul”, the mother intervenes and offers herself up in exchange. Thus, the living sister gets to remain alive, the mother dies instead, and the deceased sister can go to rest.

Assuming that synopsis isn’t confusing as hell, can anyone identify this?

2

Bumping this, to give it one more shot.

3

Sounds kind of like “Don’t Go to Sleep”, but that movie was made in the early 80’s, not the 60’s, so that’s probably not it.

4

I took the liberty of posting your question on the IMDb board, and two of the experts simultaneously posited that your program might be the “Ghost Story” (1972) episode Half a Death.