Os Mistérios da Vida

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.

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.

1943's "Flesh and Fantasy" is included in the Brunas-Brunas-Weaver book UNIVERSAL HORRORS, and as such gained a distinction it probably never wanted. Unusual for the studio, it's an anthology film comprised of three tales about personal responsibility and shaping one's fate, with slight supernatural overtones. Like 1945's "Dead of Night" and its Amicus offspring, we have a framing story, the delightful Robert Benchley playing off against David Hoffman (the face announcing the 'Inner Sanctum' series). Story one stars Betty Field as a plain-looking woman whose belief in her own unattractiveness has left her lonely and bitter; a chance encounter with a bearded stranger (Edgar Barrier) offers her a mask to disguise her ugliness from the man she's loved from afar, who now recognizes her beauty during an evening of Mardi Gras. This seems a bit overlong even at a mere 27 minutes, but the second story breezes by quickly, top billing Edward G. Robinson as wealthy attorney Marshall Tyler, whose belief in an eccentric palmist (Thomas Mitchell) nets him the woman of his dreams, but an ominous future in discord. Only when pressed further does the prognosticator confess that Tyler is going to kill someone; he becomes so obsessed with who his victim should be that he neglects his beautiful bride-to-be (Anna Lee) and comes to a bad end. Story three pairs Charles Boyer and Barbara Stanwyck, but its drawn out shipboard romance is a letdown coming after the best segment. What was intended to be the first tale in a four-part anthology was excised and reshaped into a 64 minute feature, 1944's "Destiny," which may have been the most dazzling of all; judge for yourself. Unbilled bits come from Peter Lawford, Marjorie Lord, Jacqueline Dalya, Doris Lloyd, Ian Wolfe, Clarence Muse, and Grace McDonald (who played a different character in "Destiny").

I finally obtained "Flesh and Fantasy" from someone who taped it off of television. What television, I don't know, since I have never seen it on TCM.

And God forbid that Universal should release it on DVD. Given that there are only 11 reviews, it doesn't appear that it's seen too often.

Charles Boyer coproduced this film, and one assumes that Julien Duvivier and he were friends, and he got Duvivier to direct. Good choice as he does an excellent job. Also, Duvivier had directed the successful anthology film, Tales of Manhattan.

The film begins with a discussion (by Robert Benchley and another man) about the truth of dreams, fortunetelling, superstition and the like.

Then three stories, ostensibly from a book, are told. The first is a story by Ellis St. Joseph, starring Robert Cummings and Betty Field, about a bitter, mean, ugly woman who dons a mask on Mardi Gras that makes her look beautiful.

The second story, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, is by Oscar Wilde, about a fortuneteller (Thomas Mitchell) who tells a man (Edward G. Robinson) that he is going to commit a murder. The ending of this story was changed due to the Hays Code.

The third story, by Laszlo Vadnay, flows from the second one as The Great Gaspar (Charles Boyer) witnesses something at the end of the previous story.

Gaspar is a high wire artist who dreams that he falls, and in his dream, he sees a screaming woman (Barbara Stanwyck) who is wearing unusual earrings. He then meets her when the circus troupe is sailing abroad.

Each story explores some question: can fantasy become reality, can a prediction become a self-fulfilling prophecy, are dreams real warnings? Very entertaining, with good performances and direction, with three good stories.

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.