Review of Flesh and Fantasy

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 second story presents a brain-twisting cause-and-effect paradox (Edward G. Robinson decides to kill someone only because a chiromantist tells him that he will....but the chiromantist only tells him that he will because he sees in the future that Robinson will decide it!), and a clever visualization of Robinson's "talks" with his conscience - "it" appears as his own shadow and mirror image; overall, it is the best of the three. 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. *** out of 4.