French director Julien Duvivier’s broad, easy, even facile technical command made his WWII Hollywood sojourn smoother than fellow exiles like Max Ophüls or Jean Renoir. And this portmanteau pic, a series of short stories charting the downward social trajectory of a fancy formal tailcoat, his biggest commercial success from those years, shows a remarkable range in genre and style, elegant and unfazed in any situation. It gets off to a smart start as Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth and jealous husband Thomas Mitchell find out whom she really loves . . . and if his new tailcoat is bulletproof. Then things turn a bit too coy as bride Ginger Rogers finds a billet-doux in a pocket of that same tailcoat, now owned by tonight’s groom Cesar Romero. Best man Henry Fonda shows up and says it’s his. The note or the bride? Hence our tailcoat becomes used goods, and just the right price for Charles Laughton’s debut at Symphony Hall conducting his own composition ‘Bacchanal Moderne.’ But it's an awfully tight fit. Now the tails are really down on their luck; so too Bowery bum Edward G. Robinson who finds his mission pals have buffed up the tails for him to attend a posh college reunion dinner. Too bad the donation box had no dress shirt to go with it. But a ‘dickie’ will do . . . as long as he keeps vest & jacket buttoned up. Then, a big robbery and escape by plane by J. Carroll Naish. He’s in the air when a spark sets the jacket aflame. Nothing to do but toss it out, loot and all! And so it floats down to a poor black community where Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters and Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson figure out, with The Lord’s help, how to share the wealth. There's even a happy end for the bedraggled tailcoat. With its remarkably high percentage of winners, and standout perfs from Laughton, Robinson & Boyer, TALES is also a great period overview.
DOUBLE-BILL: Duvivier followed up with another omnibus pic, FLESH AND FANTASY/’43, moving from 20th/Fox to Universal and bringing along Boyer, Robinson & Thomas Mitchell.
LINK: The little robbery section was apparently a replacement for an axed comic turn by W. C. Field which has occasionally been included as an extra. You can check it out via these two low-quality, but watchable youtube clips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RW1eBG33Uk&list=RD0RW1eBG33Uk&t=5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6N9hbJ68Vw&index=2&list=RD0RW1eBG33Uk
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