Os Mistérios da Vida

"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.

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.

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.

The inevitability of Fate and the mysterious movements of Destiny control our FLESH AND FANTASY.

Director Julien Duvivier, in a follow-up to his previous TALES OF MANHATTAN (1942), crafted this new & intriguing sequential film. The emphasis, this time, is on the supernatural and precognition. In spite of the film's homilies about the ultimate power of personal responsibility, the movie is in reality about nothing more than providing some suspenseful entertainment for its audience.

The three sequences are tied together by Robert Benchley, in his famous character of Doakes, who is shown the stories in a book at his men's club in an attempt to help him get over a case of the jitters.

SEQUENCE ONE A bitter, unattractive seamstress (Betty Field) hopes a Mardi Gras mask will help her attract the affections of a young student (Robert Cummings). Edgar Barrier appears as the mysterious mask maker. Movie mavens will spot Marjorie Lord as a desperate client and Peter Lawford as an inquisitive Pierrot, both unbilled.

The most intriguing moments in this sequence happens in the first few seconds, when demons are shown pulling a corpse out of the water, and in the last few, when the viewer sees what is in the mask shop window. Mr. Barrier's voice, honed by years of stage and radio experience, is put to good effect.

SEQUENCE TWO A London lawyer (Edward G. Robinson) is told by a celebrated palmist (Thomas Mitchell) that he will commit a murder. Anna Lee appears as Robinson's fiancée; Dame May Whitty as her gossipy godmother. Wonderful Sir C. Aubrey Smith makes the most of his short role as a saintly cleric. Doris Lloyd plays a grieved widow, and Ian Wolfe a librarian, both uncredited.

Based on a short story by Oscar Wilde, this is the film's most compelling episode. The acting is especially good, with Robinson topnotch and Mitchell turning in a canny performance. The special effects, in which Robinson discourses with his own reflection, are executed very nicely. Notice the mistake in the credits when they refer to Sir C. Aubrey Smith's character as the Dean of Chichester rather than the Dean of Norwalk.

SEQUENCE THREE A circus aerialist (Charles Boyer) has a frightening dream in which he sees a beautiful woman (Barbara Stanwyck)-- and then he meets her. Charles Winninger plays the concerned owner of the circus. Clarence Muse appears unbilled as Boyer's attendant.

The story is slightly silly, but the stars make a fine effort and the high wire scenes, using a double, are indeed suspenseful.

A charming "anthology" motion picture, of the kind that was briefly popular in the 1940s. This one contains three stories, each of a supernatural bent. None really brilliant, but diverting.

The second piece was the best. This was based on a story by Oscar Wilde (not Noel Coward, as incorrectly stated in another review). Edward G. Robinson plays a lawyer haunted by a prediction that he will murder someone, and the always-watchable Thomas Mitchell is the palm-reader.

The first, with Robert Cummings and Betty Field in a story set in the Mardi Gras, is appealing in a naive way. The third segment, set in a circus, is the weakest. Charles Boyer an acrobat? No way.

This movie suffers somewhat from some of the most unconvincing studio-bound "locations" I have ever seen. I know, this was the 1940s and all that, made in the middle of the war, but puh-lease!