This exceedingly uneven film, starts out with quite a bit of promise then like a bad night in a house of ill repute, goes downhill speedily.It is, however full of spritely moments, that you have to stick around for, for at least the first half of the film. The rest is blahsville, with the last segment just downright stupid. However, the first half is still better than almost any film being made these days. As some of the viewers here have stated, or at least one, the best segment is the Edward G. Robinson. He turns in his usual impeccable performance. Just an amazing actor. And Gleason and George Saunders are also top notch in theirs. The first tale is not badly done, with a very measured performance by Thomas Mitchell. Boyer and Hayworth are up to snuff as well. Though near the end of the segment its gets more than a shade unbelievable, too bad too, because it was building to something nice. The section with Fonda, Romero, and Ginger Rogers was pretty lame, handled differently could have been great screwball comedy. One thing, however, Duvivier has a pretty darn good eye. For something that was probably churned out quickly, a very good journeyman director. But the real prize in this whole thing was the bits by Victor Francen. Every moment the camera is on him is magic. The only other performance in all cinema that matches his take on a famous conductor is the one by Claude Rains in Deception. Both miracles of acting. Francen played opposite Zachary Scott in Mask of Dimitrios, was also very good in that, though Scott delivered such a powerful punch in that, that Francen had to take a back seat to him for the story, but here he can play the thing with all the stops pulled out and he is amazing. So do yourself a favor and don't miss the music segment, and the one with Robinson, and the first bit with Hayworth, and bits of the one with Ginger Rogers, and give up, don't mess with the second half. It begins to not only nose dive but starts taking a very weird turn not unlike the Terrentino Vampire film many years later that you don't know is a vampire film until you are halfway in. Although Tales, of course, has nothing to do with vampires, its just gets more unbelievable and weirder as it goes along. Too bad.
Review of Tales of Manhattan
