Customer Reviews

Tales of Manhattan

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tales of Manhattan is a star-studded movie that featured 46 supporting players as well as a main cast including Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Edward G. Robinson, W.C. Fields, Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters, and Eddie Rochester Anderson. A film like this could never be made today because each star would demand so much money that the budget would be so high.

The film begins when a tailor and his assistants bring a tailcoat to the apartment of stage actor Paul Orman (Charles Boyer). They then inform him that the cutter put a curse on the suit, but he assures Mr. Orman¡Ēs that it will bring him happiness.

Paul¡Ēs next play is a smash hit, but he leaves as soon as he takes his bow. He tells Luther (Eugene Pallette), his servant, to drive him to Ethel Halloway¡Ēs (Rita Hayworth) home. He is in love with her, but she is married to John (Thomas Mitchell). He is supposed to go hunting tomorrow in Canada, so the two lovers plan to meet in town. At Ethel¡Ēs home, they discuss the plan, but the inquisitive John is always near. He decides to clean his gun when he begins to talk to Paul. While Ethel watches in horror, Paul is shot. But he gives a performance pretending he was missed. Paul manages to get out to Luther, who takes him the St. Luke¡Ēs Hospital.

Now that Paul doesn¡Ēt need the tailcoat any more, Luther brings it to his friend Edgar (Rolland Young). He is the butler for Harry (Cesar Romero) who is marrying Diane (Ginger Rogers) that evening. While in her own apartment, Ellen (Gail Patrick), Diane¡Ēs friend comes and tells her that when she was looking in her husband¡Ēs tailcoat, she found a comb with red hair. She knows her own husband has been cheating on her. They both go off the Harry¡Ēs together.

While waiting for him to get up, they find his tailcoat just lying on the back of a chair. Ellen coaxes Diane into looking through it. In the last pocket she looks in, she finds a love letter from ¡ÈSquirrel.¡É They read it out loud, and Harry hears them. He runs to the kitchen and calls his friend George (Henry Fonda) to come and get him out of the fix. George comes and says that he accidentally left his own tailcoat at the apartment last night when he came for a party and he gives Harry Paul Orman¡Ēs tailcoat saying its his.

There is also a big break for a musician (Charles Laughton) and another vignette in which Edward G. Robinson is transformed from a bum to a classy lawyer attending his college re-union. There is also a great segment with W.C. Fields. It was not included in the original release, but it is included in the new home video version. Finally, the coat falls on a poor sharecropper community with some stolen money in it. It provides the townspeople with a wonderful Christmas! The coat ends up as a scarecrow on the farm, a far way from the tailcoat of a wealthy actor!

This movie has something for everybody. My Dad¡Ēs favorite vignette was the Edward G. Robinson episode. He liked it because it was very deep, talky, and ironic. My mom disliked that version because of the very same reason. Her favorite was the episode with Charles Laughton because it was heartwarming and charming. My favorite was the Ginger Rogers/Henry Fonda version because it went so smoothly and all the actors were at their best! All in all, it was a fantastic film, and everyone, not just film buffs, should enjoy it!

I became aware of this masterpiece through reading about W.C. Fields and his involvement. Always fascinated by stories of "lost" or "deleted" footage from classic stars (i.e. many Laurel and Hardy segments, Elvis Presley's 1955 movie short, the Three Stooges alternate version of "Malice in the Palice" with a cameo by Curly three years after he retired, etc.), I purchased this tape immediately after discovering that Field's originally removed segment, described as a fairly long, verbal sequence coming at a time when his film career was decidedly in decline, was included in this release.
I was not at all disappointed in the "temperance lecture" scene beautifully executed by the master. (It's somewhat understandable that the bit was cut, as the movie was very long. Too bad that the material could not have been fashioned into a one or two-reeler at the time, as slightly outdated as they were by '42).
Other memorable performances come from Edward G. Robinson (at a class reunion), and Ethel Waters, who is brilliant despite the stereotypical Southern scene.

5 different vignettes telling the "tales" of one coat of "tails" - the different owners of the tailcoat, and the different dramas of each life during the time each person wore the garment. Each story stands alone in dramatic strength and appeal - from film noir to romantic comedy, to poignant and touching dramas, finishing off with an exhilarating comedy featuring some of the finest black actors of the era. I do not think you could find a finer classic film to watch, and that is why I decided to purchase this!

I first saw this movie years ago on AMC - I'd never heard of it but there wasn't anything else on, so I settled in to watch. After all, with the cast of stars including Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton and Edward G. Robinson, I figured it couldn't be too bad. I was wrong - it was GREAT! The story involves a tailcoat which is passed from one story to the next and affects the lives of each person who receives it. Some of the stories were pure 40's fluff and that's okay - I like fluff. But two of the "tales" especially touched my heart - so much so that here I sit, years later, writing a review that I hope will inspire someone else to watch this hidden gem. You'll see other people talk about the vignette with the great Edward G. and I agree - it's absolutely one of the best stories and the performance he gives is one for the ages. However, my personal favorite is the piece with Charles Laughton - a truly gifted and underrated actor. He plays a man of little means whose love of music leads him to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to conduct a symphony orchestra performing his own composition. I don't want to give away too much but suffice it to say that there is a single moment in this story that will cause tears to form in your eyes - much in the way that I cry everytime I watch Harry Carey as the Vice President looks at Jimmy Stewart's Mr. Smith (Goes To Washington) at the very end of the film when it looks as if all hope is lost (that little smile he gives gets me everytime!) Tales of Manhatten is a wonderful film to watch again and again - it doesn't feel dated at all - because the glory of the human spirit is the same now as it has always been....enjoy!

This is the kind of film you buy (as opposed to rent) because you want to share it with your friends. Every person I've shown this film to agrees that it's a first rate classic. When they say, "They don't make films like that anymore," they're talking about this film. Enjoy!

Other reviewers have given plenty of information regarding the general shape of this film--stars, cast, vignettes. A wonderful collaboration of ten different writers who together with a cast of stars, character actors, the Hall Johnson Choir (one of the gems of the Harlem Renaissance), and probably every extra then available in Southern California trace the path of a tailcoat cursed by it's tailor. This film was released in September 1942, the same month the German 6th Army began it's advance on Stalingrad; it was, and should be, considered light entertainment. Not Frank Capra-ish, each vignette weaves into the next with the final feeling of the film leading the viewer to believe that people, good and bad, somehow get what they deserve. A gentle gem with a particularly wonderful performance by Edward G. Robinson. Watch it with an open mind.

Like "The Yellow Rolls Royce", "Tales of Manhattan" is a movie about a single object owned by many different people over time, and how the object plays a role in the lives of those owners, in this case, a formal tailcoat. "Tales of Manhattan" is a virtual Syms clothing store of a movie, chock full of "names you must know": Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth, Charles Laughton, Edward G. Robinson, Cesar Romero, and WC Fields. I think it is about one tale too long--the WC Fields one--and that's why I bobbed this tail down to 3 stars instead of 4. His skit is way too long and frankly rather boring. Otherwise, there's a melodrama, a few get-out-your-hankie pieces, and a comedic romp. Really an omnibus, with something for everyone. Unless you're into WC Fields, fast forward when you get to that one, and you'll be okay.

*Bit of an ending SPOILER ahead*

I'm a sucker for the concept of the "life as a circle" in film, with some plot device used in most cases to carry the story from character to character through the whole film, possibly back to the person it started with and possibly not. This is one of the earlier examples I know of; Max Ophüls' 1950 French film LA RONDE is probably the best-known and loved classic example; a couple of other well-known renditions of the basic idea are THE YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE (1964) and SLACKER (1991). It's always fun to see just how the filmmakers will maneuver the story to get back to the beginning, and just how readily they can make the characters' crossing of paths both interesting and at least faintly realistic. In this case, the ending is truly bizarre and unlikely, and almost kills a film which was a whole lot of fun up until that point.

There's a jacket, see, a handsome tailcoat that belongs to a famous Broadway start, and it's the jacket that migrates, from Charles Boyer the start to playboy Caesar Romero, on to would-be composer Charles Laughton and down-and-out lawyer Edward G. Robinson, while also touching friends, lovers and enemies like Elsa Lanchester, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell, Ginger Rogers, W.C. Fields, and Henry Fonda. All well and good with plenty of moments of intrigue, romance, and good old fashioned star-power, until the coat makes one last journey, out of an airplane and into the hands of a poor black man in some unnamed and somewhat unearthly southern town. Paul Robeson's voice and presence are certainly powerful enough, but they aren't alone enough to keep the last segment's religious mawkishness from leaving a bad taste in the mouth as songs are sung and massive amounts of money are miraculously found and put to good use by the poor townspeople. Well, it was the war, and I guess they needed an uplifting ending, and maybe at the time it seemed like nothing less than a miracle would do...

Still absolutely worth seeing, and one of the better all-star "revue" type films from the era. Director Julien Duvivier really ought to be better known generally; this probably isn't one of his best films by any means, but he invests it with a great deal of wit and a very facile and light touch in the transitions that keeps the film from betraying the essential determinism of the plot for quite a while.

The studio apparently agreed with the previous reviewer, since the W.C. Fields segment was cut from the movie when it was initially released in theaters.

I have high hopes for this video. The cast is super great, Rita Hayworth and Charles Boyer and W C Fields and still it goes on...Edward G Robinson and Charles Laughton and all about the traveling Tale coat. I have seen this movie about 25 years ago, and so I don't remember it well. I have planned to watch it on Christmas night with my family, after a huge supper. I think every one will love it. Old movies rock.