The Great Flamarion is directed by Anthony Mann and collectively written by Anne Wigton, Heinz Herald, Richard Weil and Vicki Baum. It stars Erich von Stroheim, Mary Beth Hughes, Dan Duryea, Stephen Barclay, Lester Allen and Esther Howard. Music is by Alexander Laszlo and cinematography by James S. Brown Jr.Back stage of a vaudeville show and a woman is killed, the perpetrator of the crime escapes up into the rafters. Soon he falls to the ground, and cradled by one of the stage employees, he tells a story of lust, deceit, murder and broken hearts...Though it falls into a familiar subset of film noir that encompasses the obsessive dupe, reference Criss Cross, The Killers, Scarlet Street et al, Anthony Mann's film has a most interesting structure. Story is essentially told from the mouth of a dying man, his guilt set in stone, we spin to flashbacks and narration as The Great Flamarion (Stroheim) himself clues us in to the dangers of not following your brain, but what's in your underwear.Flamarion, wonderfully essayed by the acid faced Stroheim, is a sharp-shooter on the vaudeville circuit. Once burned in love years previously, he now lives only for his work and he's friendless, miserable and intolerable to work for. His two assistants are husband and wife team Connie (Hughes) and Al (Duryea) Wallace, he's a drunk and she's out for what she can get, and what she wants at this moment in time spells trouble for Flamarion and Al. So begins a treacherous tale as a once wise and closed off man falls hook, line and sinker for a pair of shapely legs young enough to be propping up his daughter.Connie Wallace (Hughes excellent) is one of the classic femme fatales, she's not just duping one man, not even two, her capacities for feathering her own nest are enormous. Watching her break down Flamarion's walls is pitch black stuff, as is Flamarion's pitiful descent into becoming a broken man, while Duryea's (another in his long line of great film noir losers) Al roams the edges of the frame as a pitiful drunk stumbling towards doom. The dialogue may not always catch the mood right, but as a story, performed and written, it's clinical noir.Out of Republic Studios, there's obviously budget restrictions, but Mann was a shrewd director in noir circles and crafts a tight and crafty picture. It's never overtly expressionistic but the all round effect garnered by the lighting techniques pumps the haunting like tale with atmosphere. There's also a gentle pulse of sexual politics in the narrative, and saucy suggestion as well, with the director asking us to peek under the curtain to spy a world of horny sad-sacks and dangerous females. It's not front line Mann or as good as Scarlet Street (released after The Great Flamarion), but it is a little noir gem. With top performances, pitch black plotting and a message that tells us to never take our eye off the ball, it's very much recommended to the film noir faithful. 8/10

William Lee Wilder was the older brother of Billy Wilder and "The Great Flamarion" was his first motion picture production. He didn't have a lot of flair but he did put Anthony Mann on the ladder to directorial fame and he also used a couple of great actors in Erich Von Stroheim and Dan Duryea. The film had a European flavour (it was adapted from a Vicki Baum story "The Big Shot") and Stroheim was perfect as an obsessed vaudevillian - a role he had perfected in "The Great Gabbo" (1929). He drew viewer's attention in every scene he appeared.A shot is heard throughout a Mexico City music hall - when a man falls from the rafters, Tony an old trouper, recognises Flamarion (Erich Von Stroheim), once the world's greatest sharp shooter. Dying, Flamarion tells his story:- Flamarion lived only for his work until he fell in love with Connie (Mary Beth Hughes), who with her husband Al (Dan Duryea) form Flamarion's shooting act. Connie and Al seem happily married, but behind closed doors her ruthless ambition has turned him into an alcoholic and rumour has it she is having an affair with Eddie (Stephen Barclay), a cyclist with the troop. Connie leads Flamarion to think she cares about him but her motive is to convince him to kill Al during a performance and make it look like an accident. He does and the coroner believes Al died due to his own drunken miscalculations. Connie and Flamarion agree to meet in Chicago, but she has her own plans that include Eddie, not Flamarion and he waits at the hotel in vain. To me, the best scene in the film is where Von Stroheim does a little dance in his eager anticipation to soon be with Connie.He sets out to find her and eventually traces both Connie and Eddie performing at a cheap theatre in Mexico City. He upbraids her for her duplicity but Connie pretends she still loves him - all the time reaching for his gun to shoot him. With his ebbing strength he strangles her before crawling away to die.Is there another actor more under-rated than Dan Duryea. He was a stage actor who was bought to movies to repeat his success in the stage play "The Little Foxes" but soon found himself in demand playing everything from pimps and spongers ("Scarlet Street" (1945), "Too Late For Tears" (1949)) to saddle tramps ("Black Bart" (1948)). "The Great Flamarion" presented him with a rare sympathetic role and as usual he perfected it. Mary Beth Hughes, originally a blonde bit player ("These Glamour Girls" (1939)) went back to her natural hair color (red) and became a noir cult favourite. Martha Vickers can be glimpsed as a chorus girl in the first scenes.Recommended.

For a minute, I thought I was going to find out what a flamarion was, never figuring that it was only somebody's name. In this case, "The Great Flamarion" was a trick shot artist, portrayed by German actor Eric Von Stroheim. Told in flashback, the story reveals how Flamarion came to murder his scheming lover after she shot him in self defense. But that's getting way ahead of the story.I never really got the impression that Connie Wallace (Mary Beth Hughes) loved Flamo, he with the Nazi like exterior and the vein popping out of his head. When it looked like she was getting ready to ditch alcoholic husband Al (Dan Duryea), the story started to come together with a bit more sense. Turns out that Connie's hobby was actually collecting and discarding men as circumstances warranted, so she wasn't all that sympathetic a character to begin with. Getting Flamarion to do her dirty work was just part of a plan.Considering the plot, this all might have worked better if the setting was a traveling carnival show instead of a stage act, with other strange and weird characters interacting with the principals. As it was, it all seemed a bit too sterile, even with Connie's underhanded machinations in play. Too bad, as I was really hoping a flamarion would show up to make things more interesting.

Little Republic studio must have been a come-down for the great European impresario Erich von Stroheim. But he caught a tail wind in this minor production in the persons of an outstanding supporting cast and some fine visual moments from up-and-coming director Anthony Mann. The part is tailor made for the imperious von Stroheim. As Flamarion, a trick shot artist, he's all stiff-necked aloofness. That is until trollopy assistant Mary Beth Hughes decides to rid herself of dipso husband Dan Duryea. Then the heartless schemes fly fast and furious, resulting in a complex rectangle of passions -- so keep a score card handy.Though Stroheim certainly looks the part, he's really not a very good actor, especially when he goes all soft hearted. No, the film really belongs to the brassy, baby-faced Hughes, as she does a number on the men around her. No doubt about it, underneath that cheap, calculating exterior lies an even cheaper, more calculating interior. And when she and Duryea go into their tiger shark mode, the film reaches a blood-letting high. Too bad, Duryea plays drunken weakness most of the time, since their bouts of sarcasm show true championship form. Then too, adding real color in a bit part is Esther Howard as the boozy floozie dog lady, with a canine nose for sniffing out phonies. Stylish director Mann has yet to blossom, but shows early flair, especially in the shadowy backstage scenes. On the other hand, there's the program music. Whoever did the score must have gone to the Muzak School of Fine Arts, for where else would that kind of silliness play except in elevators. Also, the cheap park sets betray Republic's long established address along economy row. In fact, I almost expected a tree to fall over. No, this isn't a submerged gem unless you're a Mary Beth Hughes fan. But it does have its moments, and a chance to view one of glamor-obsessed Hollywood's biggest rarities-- a truly unattractive face in the lead role. Perhaps that's why the conventional finish manages a degree of pathos despite being a drop-dead certainty from the start.