If you like vignettes like O. Henry's Full House or the game "Six Degrees of Separation"-or if you like the connection of clues between movie stars on Hot Toasty Rag-you'll probably like Tales of Manhattan. It's the story of a tuxedo coat that gets passed down to five different owners, and each vignette shows how the coat changes the owner's situation. The biggest criticism of the film is the title. It's so obvious! It should have been called Tails of Manhattan. What were they thinking?Anyway, the coat is first given to Charles Boyer, an actor who's having an affair with a married Rita Hayworth. His segment is interesting, but it goes on a little too long. Next up is the worst vignette, despite the very promising premise. Cesar Romero is about to marry Ginger Rogers, but when she finds an incriminating love letter in his coat pocket, he panics and begs his best man Henry Fonda to pretend that the coat and note are his. Sounds good, right? Then it goes downhill. Cesar disappears and takes the good comic timing with him. Henry and Ginger have zero chemistry together, and the dialogue is beyond stupid. Plus, her terrible wig makes her look homely.Next up is the lovable Charles Laughton. He's a struggling musician who wears the coat when he's finally given the opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall. As you might expect from anything starring Charles Laughton, his segment is sad and touching. As I always do, I wanted to reach into the screen and give him a big hug. After that, the even more lovable Edward G. Robinson is given the best vignette. Had a different actor been cast, the entire Tales of Manhattan would have infinitely less class and heart. He's going to a college reunion and wants to impress all his old friends, but in reality he's homeless and an alcoholic. He borrows the topcoat from the Salvation Army in an effort to look presentable.Last but not least-that award goes to Ginger Rogers's wig-the story gets taken to a poor farming village. Paul Robeson and Ethel Waters find the coat, which by now has thousands of dollars in its pockets, and they take it to the town minister, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. What will happen? Well, just as I haven't told you the endings to the other four tales, I won't tell you about this one. You'll just have to watch this entertaining little classic to find out!

Four or five short stories cobbled together by means of a mysterious frock coat that's passed from hand to hand. Some are amusing and some dramatic. The principals are Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth, Henry Fonda, Ginger Rogers, Charles Laughton, Edward G. Robinson, W. C. Fields, and an ensemble cast of poor black farmers featuring Paul Robeson and his magnificent voice. The plot dynamics include love and money, which seem to go together so often. All of the endings are more or less happy. The less happy one include Boyer as a womanizer who is shot and winds up in hospital, and J. Carrol Naish as a robber who we last see on fire in a smoking airplane.None of the performances fall flat and the direction by Julian Duvivier is functional and suitably light hearted, sometimes perhaps too light hearted, so that in retrospect the movie looks as much like a piece of froth as a morality play. The segment involving Henry Fonda and Ginger Rogers is like spun candy. Not necessarily the best performances, but the most memorable are those of Marion Martin, the blond tart., You may remember her as Gloria the Pom Pom girl who sings "Palsy Walsy" in the Bob Hope comedy, "They Got Me Covered." And then there is Paul Robeson who gives a brief speech that sounds very much like an expression of the ideology that had Winston Churchill so awfully worried around the time of World War II. I suppose, given the picture of blacks that's presented, the segment could be accused of perpetuating a racial stereotype -- all those poor hymn-singing Darkies -- but it could have been far worse. Instead of Paul Robeson, the producers might have given us Stepin Fetchit. And in many ways the blacks are superior to most of the others in the film, despite the Hallelujas and the heavenly choir., After all, instead of merely grasping for money or for love, they share it or give it away.Withal, it's more than two hours long and sometimes seems like it lags behind the clock. After all, the Brits brought in the splendid collection of linked horror stories, "Dead of Night," in a tidy 103 minutes.

Anthology film that centers around a formal tailcoat and the different people who come into possession of it. The first story is about an actor (Charles Boyer) in love with a married woman (Rita Hayworth). Her husband (Thomas Mitchell) doesn't like it one bit. Boyer and Mitchell are fine but Hayworth overacts big time. The story is thin but, as with the rest of the picture, director Julien Duvivier and cinematographer Joseph Walker make it look beautiful. The second story is also about a love triangle, although lighter in tone than the previous tale. This one's about a woman (Ginger Rogers) who suspects her fiancé (Cesar Romero) is cheating after finding a love letter in the pocket of his coat (same coat from before), which leads to her taking a second look at his best man (Henry Fonda). This is probably the weakest story in the movie. Just not as amusing or cute as it wants to be. Also Ginger Rogers sports one of the ugliest hairstyles I've ever seen.The third story has a struggling composer (Charles Laughton) getting his big chance to conduct his own composition in front of a large audience. But the tailcoat he's wearing (yup, same one) is too small and rips in front of everyone. What happens next I won't spoil but I thought it was pretty neat. This is my favorite part of the movie, albeit for sentimental reasons. The fourth story is the most widely-praised one, judging by the reviews I've read. It's a great story about a down-on-his-luck former lawyer (Edward G. Robinson) who borrows the tailcoat to attend his college reunion. Again, I don't want to spoil too much because of how good this one is, but it's another one that pulls at the heartstrings.Next is an interesting story in that it was originally cut to reduce the running time but has since been restored to the film, despite apparently missing a part at the end that connects it to the next segment. It's a funny story about a man (W.C. Fields) giving a lecture on the dangers of alcohol at the home of a wealthy woman (Margaret Dumont). But it turns out the woman's husband has spiked the milk they're all drinking with booze so everybody at the anti-alcohol meeting gets drunk. Simple story but fun. Fields is a hoot as usual. The final story has a crook (J. Carrol Naish) stealing the coat to help him commit a robbery at a casino. As he escapes via plane, he dumps the coat and it lands in a field where a poor black Southern couple (Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters) find it. The coat has the money from the casino heist in it, which pleases the couple at first as they believe it is a gift from God. But it dawns on them God would want them to use the money to help others, not themselves. It's a nice story, if a little patronizing. Paul Robeson, a devout communist who liked the story's 'community before the individual' philosophy, was so disappointed by the finished product and its stereotypical depictions of poor blacks that he would never make another Hollywood movie.In addition to the stars I've listed already, the cast includes many wonderful supporting actors like George Sanders, Victor Francen, Eugene Palette, Roland Young, Elsa Lanchester, Harry Davenport, James Gleason, Phil Silvers, Gail Patrick, and Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson. Julien Duvivier would do another anthology film for Universal the following year called Flesh and Fantasy. Boyer, Robinson, and Mitchell would also appear in that film. Dynamite cast and fine direction make this one something that I think most classic film fans will enjoy. The stories aren't all home runs but they're all interesting in different ways.

I think it's fairly safe to say that this is the finest film that Julien Duvivier made outside France, let alone made in America; Anna Karenina which he made in England doesn't really compete with the Don Camillo films he shot in Italy - in fact on reflection The Little World Of Don Camillo may tie Tales Of Manhattan for Best-Duvivier-Made-Outside-France. He was a master of the 'anthology' movie and both Un Carnet de bal and Sous le ciel de Paris are outstanding examples that had the advantage of tighter scripting - in Tales Of Manhattan the roster of credited writers threatens to outnumber the cast and Duvivier deserves a small accolade for unifying so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole. Others have provided details of the several episodes as well as pointing out that not Every sequence takes place in Manhattan, notably the final sequence which is set in the Deep South and provides a perfect coda when the tuxedo in question finds a final resting place on a scarecrow. It feels as if every Hollywood actor who wasn't on active service in 1942 was on Duvivier's set standing up to be counted and Phil Silvers is brilliant in an all-too-brief segment working a pre-Bilko scam on W.C. Fields. A delight.