Monday 28 December 2015

Flesh and Fantasy (1943 Julien Duvivier)

Director of the well-known Pépé le Moko and Tales of Manhattan, also a multi-story film with some of the same cast.

In the most haunting story (Ellis St Joseph story) Betty Field is reunited with Robert Cummings from Kings Row and through the use of a mask becomes beautiful again.

Thomas Mitchell then is a clairvoyant who upsets Edward G by telling him he's going to murder someone... (Source:  Oscar Wilde). Then Charles Boyer's high-wire act goes through a bad patch on meeting his dream subject Barbara Stanwyck, who's escaping the law for something she did bad in another film, possibly The Lady Eve. (Charles Winninger is the circus manager.)

Robert Benchley and David Hoffman frame the stories which are shot by Stanley Cortez and (with less distinction) Paul Ivano, to Alexander Tansman's score.

Duvivier displays a nice sweep. Thought-provoking stories are acted by interesting cast.


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