Flesh and Fantasy

Although not as good as Tales Of Manhattan where some of the anthology episodes leaned toward comedy, Flesh And Fantasy is like three Twilight Zone episodes strung together. Three fair to middle episodes of that show.

By far the best is Edward G. Robinson, a rather self assured gentleman who doesn't believe in any of this supernatural bunk. At a party he gets his palm read by spiritualist Thomas Mitchell who says that his future shows he will commit an act of murder. As the prediction takes over and he gives way to it, his decision than is who to murder that might do him and the world the most good.

The other two are all right and both lean toward romance. Plain girl Betty Field gets a mask of beauty to bolster her self esteem as she meets up with Bob Cummings on Mardi Gras night. A mysterious stranger played by Edgar Barrier in a beard makes it happen for them, but in a most unusual way.

Charles Boyer and Barbara Stanwyck star in the third episode where Boyer is bothered by a persistent dream of falling from the high wire where he does his circus act. He's got an unusual twist in his routine, he plays a man pretending to be drunk on the high wire and his planned stumbling moves make it all the more dangerous. In the dream he meets Barbara Stanwyck who is in the audience. Later on they meet and fall in love. But it ends for them in another unusual way and in fact it might not be the end.

Club members Robert Benchley and David Hoffman read these stories and discuss the supernatural in between stories. Their parts truly could have been dispensed with.

Not the best anthology movie, but all right and the players acquit themselves well, stars and supporters.

"Flesh and Fantasy" is an astonishing anthology film centered around the themes of destiny and free will. Given its high quality and status as a 1940s Universal production dealing in the supernatural, it beggars belief that it has gone largely unsung over the years.

The closest comparison I can think of is "Dead of Night", another great anthology that would come a few years later. The tone here is more literary and sophisticated, with each chapter bookended by comic segments featuring Robert Benchley of the Algonquin Round Table.

I was moved and utterly gripped by all three chapters. The cast is among the best assembled for a 1940s film, with Betty Field, Edward G. Robinson and Charles Boyer standing out for their compelling performances. No less than Dame Mae Whitty and C. Aubrey Smith are along to provide strong support.

The Robinson segment employs some striking visual effects that supplement Robinson's superb acting, resulting in an almost hysterical intensity at times. The Boyer circus chapter will particularly appeal to those who loved "Nightmare Alley": it shares the common question of man's ability to change his fate with that great movie.

I absolutely loved this picture and plan to revisit it again and again over the years.

Doakes (Robert Benchley) is read 3 stories to help in his decision as to whether or not to believe in fate or dreams.

In the first story, its "Mardi Gras" and everyone is wearing masks and costumes. Henrietta (Betty Field), is depressed as she is ugly and is about to drown herself when a stranger (Edgar Barrier) appears. He leads her to a mask shop and tells her to pick a mask and join the festivities on condition that she return at midnight. She goes out and meets with Michael (Robert Cummings) who she has loved from afar for a considerable time. Wearing her mask, she enjoys a few hours with him before returning to the mask shop at midnight. However, Michael has followed her......

In the second story, a palmist (Thomas Mitchell) is predicting events with astonishing accuracy at a soirée at the house of Lady Pamela (May Witty). Marshall (Edward G Robinson) sees that the palmist is not being honest with him and goes to his house to insist that he tells him the truth about what he can see. He warns Marshall that he will kill someone. The rest of the tale is played out with Marshall struggling with his conscience as he picks victims to kill.....

In the third story, a tightrope-walker (Charles Boyer) has a dream that during his act he falls from the wire while staring at a woman (Barbara Stanwyck) that he has never met. The dream prompts him to cancel the dangerous part of his act. On his way over to America he meets the woman on the boat and they fall in love. He asks her to attend his next show which she does. What happens....?...........

It is well-acted and I liked the first 2 stories in particular. The only dodgy part to the 1st tale is in believing that Henrietta is ugly - she just isn't! In the 2nd tale, Edward G Robinson is very good as he reconciles himself to his fate and delivers some funny lines along the way. There is also good support from the Dean (C Aubrey Smith). The 3rd story develops at a slower pace than the previous two and has an ambiguous ending.....

Its a film that you remember once it has finished.

Flesh and Fantasy is a rare forties Hollywood attempt at an art film, and while I cannot say it's wholly successful, it's a good try. Directed by the highly esteemed French director Julian Duvivier and produced by the highly esteemed French actor Charles Boyer, it consists of three stories of the supernatural, told to Robert Benchley, in a framing device, in what appears to be a men's club.

The first tale concerns a homely girl who is turned beautiful by the power of a mask sold to her by a strange little shopkeeper. It's a slight, lovely fable, well-acted by Betty Field and Bob Cummings. In the second story we find Edward G. Robinson in London, where a fortune teller reveals to him a fate he tries vainly to escape. The third segment, despite the presence of Charles Boyer and Barbara Stanwyck, is rather mediocre, and concerns predictions in a circus setting. Of these three tales the middle one, an adaptation of an Oscar Wilde story, is by far the best; it is also visually the most appealing.

Duvivier brings a Gallic gentility to the film, and his compositions are excellent and always fastidious. One gathers that the movie must have been a labor of love for producer Charles Boyer. All the actors are in top form, and the picture does not at all feel like a product of the Universal studio of this period.

Flesh and Fantasy is one of several wartime movies that dealt with the issues of death and fate, which were obviously hanging heavier than unusual on peoples' minds in those days. Off the top of my head I can think of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, I Married a Witch, A Guy Named Joe, Between Two Worlds, The Uninvited and The Picture Of Dorian Gray. Death, rather than dying, was a feature of most such films, which as a rule steered clear of anything grisly, which is to say reminiscent of battlefields. Flesh and Fantasy is quite good at this. With its soft chairs, cobbled streets and a convincing London bridge thrown in for good measure, it makes facing up to one's fate feel as comfortable and delicious a proposition as attending a masquerade ball.

Even when he is far away from his native France,Julien Duvivier is among the best.

He had already tackled the fantasy and horror genre which he broached in the thirties with such works as "le Golem" (1936) and his remake of Sjostrom's "la Charrette fantôme " (1939).But these two works do not compare favorably with his masterpieces such as "Un Carnet de Bal" "Pépé le Moko" (both from 1937)"la Belle Equipe" (1936) or "la Fin du Jour" (1939).

"Un Carnet de Bal" was a movie made up of sketches ,although it featured the same female character all along the way."Flesh and fantasy" connects the links of the chain:it is a fantasy and horror movie made up of sketches .Here ,Duvivier creates a dreamlike atmosphere far better than his two thirties attempts:he conjures up pictures like a true magician -who was admired by both Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles,even if the self-conscious nouvelle vague used to despise him,Like all his old colleagues.

The three stories are adapted from Oscar Wilde:the first one recalls sometimes "the picture of Dorian Gray" ;the overture is mind-boggling :the drowned man by the river,the disturbing and almost frightening crowd whose masks create some kind of mardi gras nightmare. An ugly girl -with stunning use of lights- finds the beauty of the soul that is in everyone ,even in herself.

The real meat lies in the second segment which features a sensational EG Robinson whose part predates Fritz Lang's "woman in the window" by one year.A fortune teller predicted a man that he would kill someone:it becomes a maleficent obsession,and Duvivier astonishingly cuts loose all the visual tricks at his command (mirrors,shop windows,spectacles ) and literally mesmerizes both Robinson and the audience.Very very langesque!Duvivier,whose pessimism easily equals the great German director's ,seems to believe that crime is a part of the human nature.(I remember actress Danielle Delorme saying :"when I asked Duvivier why my role in "voici le temps des assassins " (1956) was so evil and what could explain her satanic behavior,he simply answered "evil people are evil,period.")

The second segment segues sharply into the third one which takes place in a circus.An acrobat star -Boyer- dreams that he falls from the wire while a woman in the audience (Stanwick) is watching,a woman he's never met before.On a boat he meets her afterwards and they fall in love.Another strange dream puzzles the hero who ,although disturbed and worried,wants to go for broke.

Back in France ,Duvivier took the film made up of sketches to its absolute limits while mixing all his subplots in a seamless whole in "sous le ciel de Paris"(1952) The nouvelle vague tried this kind of "movie in segments" but they never surpassed Julien Duvivier,one of the Masters of the FRench cinema whose work ,both French and American is crying to be discovered.