Flesh and Fantasy

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.

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").

And director Julien Duvivier. In the framing story, a nervous man (Robert Benchley) at a private club is told or reads through a series of tales meant to ease his discomfort. In the first tale, a homely woman (Betty Field) wears a magical mask during Mardi Gras to attract her long-sought lover (Robert Cummings). In the second tale, a man (Edward G. Robinson) has his fortune told by a palm reader (Thomas Mitchell), but he doesn't like what he hears. And in the third tale, a high-wire circus acrobat (Charles Boyer) has reoccurring dreams about a mysterious woman (Barbara Stanwyck) and his own demise. Also featuring Dame May Whitty, C. Aubrey Smith, Charles Winninger, Anna Lee, Edgar Barrier, David Hoffman, Eddie Acuff, Marjorie Lord, Peter Lawford, Ian Wolfe, Hank Worden, and Clarence Muse.

French director Duvivier worked in the U. S. during much of the war years. He had a hit in '42 with another anthology film, Tales of Manhattan over at Fox, so this follow-up seemed like a sure bet. He co-produced it with Boyer, which is ironic since the weakest segment to my mind was the last one which featured Boyer. The first segment had loads of atmosphere, and one can see how the blank mask worn by Field inspired the later Euro-horror classic Eyes Without a Face. The second segment, featuring Robinson and Mitchell, is the most like an episode of The Twilight Zone, and it also has excellent camerawork. The last segment isn't bad, but it seems to be the least inspired, and suffers a bit from dated effects work during the many high-wire scenes.

An interesting story concerns the original version of the film, which did not have the humorous framing story featuring Robert Benchley. Rather it began with another tale, this one focusing on a fugitive murderer (Alan Curtis) who runs into a farmer (Frank Craven) and his blind daughter (Gloria Jean). This segment ended with the killer dead and floating down a river. Preview audiences loved it, but for some reason it was removed from the film and the new framing device added. However, each story bleeds into the next, so even in the released version, the story with Field and Cummings begins with Mardi Gras celebrants finding the dead body of the killer from the deleted story in the river. Universal later used the removed footage, padding out the running time and changing the ending, ultimately releasing it as Destiny in 1944.

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.

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!