Ojos del alma

In the 1940s, someone at Universal was obsessed with using the title "Destiny". It was the original title for "The Wolf Man". It was also supposedly an alternate title for "Son of Dracula". It then became the title for an episode in the anthology "Flesh and Fantasy", until the story proved too long so it was dropped for that film. The story was then taken and expanded and that's the version we get for a neat little noir-ish thriller.

It's one of those interesting forgotten films that is much better than you would anticipate. Alan Curtis does a great job as the handsome ex-con named Cliff Banks, who has more bad luck than an early 21st century democrat. He struggles with trusting people because each time he has, he's ended up being screwed. He finally stumbles upon a blind woman, Jane (a delightful Gloria Jean), and her father Clem (the always-dependable Frank Craven), who show him the good and generous side of human beings.

"Destiny" is a little uneven and top-heavy with early flashbacks. It gains tremendously with a very dark, key sequence in the end that is genuinely brutal and that literally scares Cliff straight. As a whole, the film does a great job of depicting innocence and how an innocent and good man can be forced to be dis-trusting of people, though he doesn't really want to be. The film is imaginative and the characters are interesting and the film can be viewed as a companion piece to its brother in fantasy, "Flesh and Fantasy". Tough to find, but rewarding. Another hit by Universal.

Alan Curtis (Cliff) and Frank Fenton (Sam) are on the run after Fenton has committed a robbery. They split up and we follow the route that Curtis takes and the women that he meets along the way. Once he comes across Gloria Jean (Jane), his life will change forever.

This film has two flashback sequences at the beginning to explain how Curtis is an unlucky victim in life. He distrusts women and he is told to feel compassion for others if he wants to find happiness in life. The main part of the story happens once Curtis comes across Jean and her very likable father Frank Craven (Clem). Jean is blind and seems to live in a fairytale world where she works alongside Mother Nature. Don't annoy her. Cliff does...........

The film is short and ties up rather too conveniently but it's still worth watching. It is also worth noting that this film is an expanded version of a rejected segment from the film "Flesh and Fantasy", a film also worth seeing. As such, we get this episode as the main story involving blind Gloria Jean with some extras thrown around this to develop the role of Curtis. This doesn't quite work as we sympathize with him throughout these added on scenes, while he is actually pretty horrid during the main course – especially when he goes hunting!

The cast are all good including the 4 main women credited. Rather oddly, it appears that all 7 of the main cast no longer had film careers once the 1940s had passed.

Destiny from 1944 is an odd film starring Alan Curtis and Gloria Jean, directed by Jules Duvivier.

The oddness is easily explained when one realizes that it was originally part of one of my favorite films, Flesh & Fantasy. That film in its final cut had three segments: a homely woman who becomes a beauty after wearing a mask at Mardi Gras; fortune teller tells a man he is going to commit a murder; and a high wire artist dreams that he falls.

Destiny was removed from that film and expanded in its own release. It tells the story of Cliff Banks (Curtis), a former criminal, who is duped into being the getaway driver for a bank robber. (I just saw this same plot in another film.)

Feeling no one will believe him, he goes on the run. He ends up on a farm run by an elderly man and his blind granddaughter Jane (Gloria Jean).

Jane is a unique individual, possessing ESP, the ability to divine water, and seems to be able to communicate with nature. Cliff is impressed by how lucrative the farm is and sees an opportunity to pull a scam, realizing if something were to happen to the grandfather, Jane would be alone to run the farm.

He doesn't count on Jane's abilities.

Very entertaining film, though I can't say I was bowled over by Gloria Jean's singing. This is perhaps because of the bits of songs she sang. She was no Deanna Durbin.

However, seeing her with the birds and squirrels, and being so pretty, I thought there was a missed opportunity to star her in a non-animated Snow White. She would have been lovely.

Recommended - I found this unusual and delightful despite some bad rear projections. Leave it to Universal.

I went by the Duvivier's name and was shocked by the childishly made movie, and then later checked and found the only brilliant piece of the movie - the maniac chasing the girl - was Duviviers, and to accommodate it, the rest of the movie was made. The difference in the quality of not only the filming, but also the plot can be too clearly made out. When you work with these master-class excerpts, probably you need some one professional to add the prologue and epilogue to make it a feature film. Universal wasn't that much in dump in 44s, (thanks to Durbin) couldn't they have made something good about it? Or simply they didn't bother (or may be didn't understand). Probably rather than watching the whole movie, it is better to fast forward to where Julien started, and stop where he did.

"Destiny" is a total mess, and if you know its history, you'll understand why.

The last 30 minutes of the film were intended to be the first story in a four-story anthology movie called "Flesh and Fantasy," directed by Julien Duvivier. The studio apparently thought it was too dark and weird for audiences at the time to handle, so they lopped it off. But they had this 30 minutes of movie they couldn't do anything with. So they hired a new creative team to add new content, fluffing it out into a roughly 60 minute feature. So if the last half of the movie seems like a totally different film from the first, that's why.

I saw this as part of a double feature with "Flesh and Fantasy" at the Noir City film festival in Chicago. Eddie Muller of TCM was there to introduce it, and he actually apologized for the first 30 minutes of this film, but promised us all that it would be redeemed by the last half. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I enjoyed the added on portion of "Destiny" more than any other part of "Flesh and Fantasy." It's definitely more pedestrian than Duvivier's film, but it feels much more like the kinds of noirs I'm used to, which is what I was there for. "Flesh and Fantasy" doesn't feel like a film noir at all, and neither does the last half of "Destiny," so to see it at a film noir festival felt like a disappointment that the B-movie quality of "Destiny's" first half partially made up for.

Grade: C+