Some motion pictures about famed literary writers come across rather stilted or insipid, but this is one of the more inspired productions. Much better than 20th Century Fox's THE LOVES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE, this film-- based on the life and legend of Poe-- comes to us from MGM and it boasts a wonderful cast: Joseph Cotten, Barbara Stanwyck, Louis Calhern, Leslie Caron, Jim Backus—need I go on? Stanwyck was a last-minute replacement for Marlene Dietrich, and while one wonders what putting Dietrich with Calhern would have been like, the results of this motion picture concoction are so smooth and so good that it seems to have turned out the way it should have. The film has some genuinely suspenseful moments, and it brims with atmosphere, enhanced by the studio's generally excellent production values.
Review of The Man with a Cloak
