Universal was so impressed with the opening story for Julien Duvivier's anthology film Flesh and Fantasy that they cut it and filmed new material (under the helm of director Reginald Le Borg) to make it its own picture. Being something of a Universal completist, I waited years to see this one and finally got the chance last year. I was pretty disappointed with what I finally saw after hearing so many good things. I decided to give it a second viewing after a little bit of time to see if it's better with less expectations. Truthfully it isn't any better than it was the first time. The Duvivier material is great. A haunting little parable with lots of atmosphere. Had it been left in Flesh and Fantasy, it would have helped that movie out tremendously. Unfortunately the new material is strictly forgettable B crime picture stuff. Worse it winds up sinking the movie with a tacked-on "it was all a dream" happy ending. For those wondering, basically the first half-hour and the final few minutes are the Le Borg scenes and most of the stuff with the blind girl and her father is Duvivier's work. It won't be too hard to distinguish which is which as the direction and photography on the Duvivier parts is clearly superior, even with the less-than-stellar copy I saw.
It's not a bad movie but not the classic it could have been either. I'm glad I got to see it. Maybe someday Universal will release a cleaned-up version. Better yet maybe they'll release Flesh and Fantasy with the Destiny scenes Duvivier directed edited back in. I'd love to see that.
It's not a bad movie but not the classic it could have been either. I'm glad I got to see it. Maybe someday Universal will release a cleaned-up version. Better yet maybe they'll release Flesh and Fantasy with the Destiny scenes Duvivier directed edited back in. I'd love to see that.