Flesh and Fantasy
Tags: paranormal

Plot synopsis:
First segment The setting is New Orleans. Plain and embittered Henrietta (Betty Field) secretly loves law student Michael (Robert Cummings). On Mardi Gras night, a mysterious stranger (Edgar Barrier) gives her a white mask of beauty that she must return at midnight. At a party, Michael falls in love with Henrietta but has yet to see her face under the mask. Henrietta encourages Michael to follow a better life although it may mean losing him forever. Henrietta removes the mask at midnight discovering she is now beautiful and that her old, selfish attitude was really the cause of her ugliness.
Second segment The second story is based on Oscar Wilde's short story Lord Arthur Savile's Crime. A palmist named Podgers (Thomas Mitchell) is making uncannily accurate predictions at a party for the rich and bored. He tells skeptical lawyer Marshall Tyler (Edward G. Robinson) to avoid a certain street intersection on the way home. The palmist also acts as if he sees more in his hand but does not admit it. Tyler eschews the advice and almost gets shot during a police chase at the intersection. Tyler goes to the palmist’s home. Under pressure, the palmist admits that he saw that Tyler is going to kill someone.
The notion obsesses Tyler, who decides that he must kill someone, anyone, just to get it over with. He comes close to killing two people but is unable to do so. He finally meets Podgers by accident on a bridge one night, and blaming Podgers for his problem, strangles him to death in a rage. Trying to escape, Tyler is hit by a car. The accident is witnessed by the Great Gaspar (Charles Boyer), a high-wire artist, and it leads without pause into the third segment of the film.
Third segment High-wire artist the Great Gaspar is haunted by dreams of falling, and in each dream of doom encounters a woman (Barbara Stanwyck) he has never met. These dreams affect his performance as he backs down from the most dangerous stunt, jumping from one wire to another. Eventually he meets his dream girl, who has serious troubles of her own. Gaspar later decides that he will not let his bad dreams affect him and that his life is his own. He performs the stunt successfully, not knowing that the woman that he has now fallen in love with is about to be arrested.

Review: 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Robinson) is told by a celebrated palmist (Thomas Mitchell) that he will commit a murder.
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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Story three pairs Charles Boyer and Barbara Stanwyck, but its drawn out shipboard romance is a letdown coming after the best segment.
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 plots involve a woman who learns about inner-beauty, a man's dramatic experience with a fortune teller, and a circus performer who is hounded by an admirer.
Superficial nonsense has few surprises, but cast players Barbara Stanwyck, Charles Boyer, Robert Benchley and Edward G.
Plus, obviously, their styles of writing are very different.Just a little film history about the second tale:made into a U.S. theatrical movie in 2006 ("First Snow"); made into a Russian TV movie ("Prestuplenie lorda Artura") in 1991; made into a French TV movie in 1968 ("Le Crime de Lord Arthur Saville"); made into a British TV movie in 1960; made into a U.S. TV episode of "Suspicion" in 1958; enfolded into a theatrical movie in the U.S. in 1943 ("Flesh and Fantasy") made into a theatrical movie in France in 1921 or 1922.Enjoy!.
The best is the central one, based on a Noel Coward story, in which Edward G.
Anthology film from Universal with three stories of the bizarre, as told through a framing story with David Hoffman and Robert Benchley.
The first story is about a plain-looking woman (Betty Field) who wears a mask on Mardi Gras that is supposed to make her appear attractive to the man she loves (Robert Cummings).
The second story is about a fortune teller (Thomas Mitchell) who tells Marshal Tyler (Edward G.
The third story is about a circus high-wire artist (Charles Boyer) who has premonitions about falling that involve a woman (Barbara Stanwyck).
A fourth story was originally part of the film but Universal removed it.
Try telling that to Hollywood: Having prevailed upon him to remake his masterpiece Un Carnet de bal as Lydia they next got him to follow it with Tales Of Manhattan and then yet another episodic piece Flesh and Fantasy.
Stuff like this tends to distract from the film which, in this case, is as good as one might suppose with anything to which the name Duvivier is appended.
The first segment reunites Robert Cummings and Betty Field who had starred the year before in a similar multi-storied adaptation King's Row; Field plays the Ugly Duckling who convinces Cummings via a little sleight-of-hand that she is a Swan.
Robinson initially bemused then increasingly terrified by a palmist's prediction that he will commit murder whilst the final segment sees tightrope walker Charles Boyer dreaming of falling from the high wire watched by a Barbara Stanwyck he has yet to meet.
An intriguing movie, more for what it could have been rather than for what it is."Flesh and Fantasy" is made up of three loosely connected segments – from stories by three different authors.
They unfold as tales of the supernatural told by Davis (David Hoffman) to 'humourist' Robert Benchley in a series of linking sequences.The first story is set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras.
A plain young woman, Henrietta (Betty Field) receives a beautiful white mask from a stranger.
After she attracts a young man, Michael (Robert Cummings), she performs an unselfish act, revealing her inner beauty to him without the aid of the mask.
When Marshall Tyler (Edward G Robinson) is told by clairvoyant (Thomas Mitchell) that he will murder someone, he becomes so anxious waiting for it to happen that he attempts to kill two people at random before confronting the clairvoyant again.The third segment has the least connection to the supernatural.
A high wire artist, Paul Gaspar (Charles Boyer), loses his nerve performing a dangerous feat, When he dreams about a strange woman (Barbara Stanwyck) with distinctive earrings, he meets her on board a ship bound for New York.
He falls in love and his confidence returns, but an unexpected problem separates them again.Although the three segments have a definite style, the whole thing is let down by the linking sequences starring Robert Benchley.
They actually make light of the segments we have just seen, and Benchley's brand of humour hasn't really travelled all that well over the decades.When I sought more information about the movie, I found that a fourth segment – much darker in tone – had been filmed, but apparently the studio scrapped it and then added the Benchley touch.Each segment was designed to flow into the next, and although Duvivier turned the deleted segment into another film called "Destiny", "Flesh and Fantasy" would have had an entirely different mood.Back in the day, studios seemed to feel that films with a supernatural theme needed a lot of explaining, and anthology films often had linking sequences.
The first story is overly sentimental and "character-rushed", with Betty Field who we are supposed to think is ugly(!), becoming beautiful after a "Twilight Zone"-like moral lesson.
(I'm surprised they didn't serve us Vivien Leigh or de Havilland as the ugly woman.) The second story is the best and most original one, with a predictable ending but at least it remains interesting throughout.
Robinson is as realistic as Betty Field being ugly.The third story: Boyer is quite sympathetic and Stanwick is good, but the story's ending isn't finite.
An unattractive girl (Betty Field) learns the truth about what real beauty is; a middle aged man (Edward G.
Robinson) discovers that he will kill someone; the third (George Raft) dreams of the lady who will scream at his apparent death, falling off of a trapeze wire.
For Betty Field, there's Robert Cummings, so transfixed by her kind words to him that he ignores the fact that the lips on her realistic looking mask doesn't move.
Thomas Mitchell gives Eddie Robinson his fateful spell, while Dame May Witty, Anna Lee and C.
For Charles Boyer, he has the visions of Barbara Stanwyck who turns up on a cruise, adding to his nightmares and bringing a surprise romance.Three short stories, all tightly told and luxuriously produced, directed with artistic flair by Julien Duvivier who knows a thing or two about artistic flair.
As far as I know, not many movies in the 1940s dealt with topics like dreams, magic, predestination, premonition....the supernatural in general; most horror and / or fantasy films of the era were about monsters, mad scientists, and old dark houses.
"Flesh And Fantasy" is quite different from such movies, which may in large part be attributed to the involvement (as director and co-producer) of the French Julien Duvivier.
It consists of three stories: the first one is both an eerie twist on the classic "Cinderella" fairy tale and a lyrical love story, with a remarkable performance by Betty Field, who has to act a lot with her voice and her amazing eyes, as her face is covered by a mask for most of the running time.
The third story also has a grabber of a premise, a great dream sequence, and two glossy stars (Charles Boyer and Barbara Stanwyck) at their near-peak, but the ending is a bit of a cop-out.
The other thing that hurts this movie is the elimination of a fourth episode which was shot by Duvivier, and which apparently explains the discovery of the drowned body which opens the first (in the film's present form) story.
So perhaps not a great film like it might have been originally, but still a very good one.
Robert Benchley is upset by a dream he's had and it takes three tales of slightly paranormal goings on to get him over the jitters, along with two thirds of a bottle of scotch.
Or, if we compare it to a feature film, the English "Dead of Night" comes to mind.Tale number one is set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras.
(It's always Mardi Gras in New Orleans movies.) Betty Field is a real schlub, dressed in rags, disheveled, mean spirited, and deeply in love with her neighbor, Robert Cummings.
She glows with good-heartedness.The second story is from Oscar Wilde but it seems more like Poe. It's about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A palmist, Thomas Mitchell, tells Edward G.
So he kills somebody.In the third story, Charles Boyer is a circus tightrope walker.
He has a dream in which he falls during a difficult stunt and the image that sticks with him is Barbara Stanwyck, a stranger, shrieking in the audience.The three stories having been read, Benchley duly exits the scene by turning it all into a joke and squeezing past a step ladder rather than walking under it.Universal Studios wasn't noted for nuance.