Tales of Manhattan
Encyclopedia
Tales of Manhattan is a 1942 American anthology film
directed by Julien Duvivier
. Thirteen writers, including Ben Hecht
, Alan Campbell
, Ferenc Molnár
, Samuel Hoffenstein
, and Donald Ogden Stewart
worked on the six stories in this film.
The first is a love triangle between Charles Boyer
, Thomas Mitchell
, and Rita Hayworth
. Boyer plays an actor who gives his finest performance when he's shot while wearing the jacket.
The second tale is a comic story featuring Ginger Rogers
who finds a romantic love letter in her future husband's jacket. Her boyfriend (Cesar Romero
) enlists his best man (Henry Fonda
) to help bail him out. Things don't go as expected when Rogers falls in love with Fonda and dumps her boyfriend.
The third tale stars Charles Laughton
. He plays a poor but brilliant musician, composer and conductor whose one big chance at fame and recognition is in jeopardy. While he attempts to conduct, the small jacket rips and the audience erupts with laughter. In a poignant moment the audience emphathises with him by removing their own coats and he triumphs.
The fourth story stars Edward G. Robinson
as an alcoholic bum who takes a last shot at life by borrowing the tailcoat to attend his 25th college reunion. The lawyer tries to convince his former classmates that he is successful, but one of his fellow classmates George Sanders
knew Robinson was disbarred for unethical behaviour as a lawyer. When one of the guests loses his wallet the group hold a mock trial
where Robinson ultimately decides to admit that he is a bum. The next morning his classmates come to his mission where he is offered a good job, and is back on the road to respectability.
A fifth story involves a thief J. Carroll Naish stealing the coat from a second-hand store and then committing a robbery at an illegal casino where no one is admitted unless wearing evening dress
. When he attempts to escape by plane in an open cockpit, the jacket catches fire from sparks from the engine with a panicked Naish removing his burning jacket with the money still in the pockets and throwing it out of the plane. A poor African-American couple (Paul Robeson
and Ethel Waters
) in a deep South shanty community finds the jacket along with over $40,000. They take it to their minister (Eddie Anderson
) who gives out the "money from heaven" to people so that they can buy what they prayed for. After distributing the cash, the minister asks loner Christopher (George Reed) what his wish was. He says he prayed for a scarecrow for the fields. They take the now practically shredded jacket and make a scarecrow out of it. The sequence features musical numbers by Paul Robeson and the Hall Johnson
choir.
and Margaret Dumont
. A conman (Fields) buys the jacket, thinking that it is stuffed with money from its fomer owner, who, according to a crooked clothing store salesman (Silvers), was "a millionaire." The conman wears the jacket to a lecture he is to give on abstinence from alcohol at the home of a wealthy woman (Dumont), where the cocoanut milk served as an alcohol alternative has been spiked with booze by her husband - turning the lecture into a drunken party.
This story would have been fifth in the sequence and was cut when the film was released to reduce running time. It was the easiest tale to cut without losing continuity, and, ironically, it was by far the funniest. Some sources indicate the "running time" was a convenient excuse; others among the cast were not too crazy about the Fields sequence stealing more than its fair share of thunder.
This sequence was discovered in the Fox vaults in the mid-1990s seemingly intact and used in Kevin Burns
' Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults, a 1997 television documentary spotlighting cut sequences from the studio's films. It was later included as a supplement on the VHS release of the Tales of Manhattan. The Fox Movie Channel runs the film in its entirety, with all six stories intact and in their intended sequence.
The restored cut sequence as it appears in these releases is apparently incomplete as it does not reveal why Fields is in Dumont's limousine at the beginning, nor how the tailcoat gets back to Silvers' store in the ending (in order for it to be stolen by the thief in the last story).
, which featured what were considered black stereotypes even in 1942, came under severe criticism from both Edward G. Robinson
, and especially, Robeson, a champion of good film roles for blacks. After a career of only 12 movies and refusing lucrative film offers for over three years, Tales of Manhattan was Robeson’s final attempt to work within Hollywood, yet Robeson was deeply disappointed with the film. He initially thought the depiction of the plight of the rural black poor - shown in the film as investing the bulk of their windfall in communal land and tools - would demonstrate a share-and-share-alike way of life. Although he attempted to change some of the film’s content during production, in the end he found it "very offensive to my people. It makes the Negro childlike and innocent and is in the old plantation hallelujah shouter tradition ... the same old story, the negro singing his way to glory".
Some reviewers and black entertainers (including Clarence Muse
), noted that the film exposed blacks’ living conditions under the sharecropping system, but Robeson was so dissatisfied that he attempted to buy up all the prints and take the film out of distribution. Following its release, he held a press conference, announcing that he would no longer act in Hollywood films because of the demeaning roles available to black actors. Robeson also said he'd gladly picket the film along with others who had found the film offensive.
The sequence was, in the past, sometimes cut from television showings, giving the film a very abrupt ending.
Anthology film
An anthology film is a feature film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event . Sometimes each one is directed by a different director...
directed by Julien Duvivier
Julien Duvivier
Julien Duvivier was a French film director. He was prominent in French cinema in the years 1930-1960...
. Thirteen writers, including Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
, Alan Campbell
Alan Campbell (screenwriter)
Alan K. Campbell was an American writer, actor, and screenwriter. He and his wife, Dorothy Parker, were a popular screenwriting team in Hollywood from 1934 to 1963....
, Ferenc Molnár
Ferenc Molnár
LanguageFerenc Molnár was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar...
, Samuel Hoffenstein
Samuel Hoffenstein
Samuel "Sam" Hoffenstein was a screenwriter and a musical composer. Born in Russia, he immigrated to the United States and began a career in New York City as a newspaper writer and in the entertainment business. In 1931 he moved to Los Angeles where he lived for the rest of his life where he wrote...
, and Donald Ogden Stewart
Donald Ogden Stewart
Donald Ogden Stewart was an American author and screenwriter.-Life:His hometown was Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Yale University, where he became a brother to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity , in 1916 and was in the Naval Reserves in World War I.After the war he started to write and found...
worked on the six stories in this film.
Cast
- Charles BoyerCharles BoyerCharles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
as Paul Orman - Rita HayworthRita HayworthRita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
as Ethel Halloway - Ginger RogersGinger RogersGinger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
as Diane - Henry FondaHenry FondaHenry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
as George - Charles LaughtonCharles LaughtonCharles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...
as Charles Smith - Edward G. RobinsonEdward G. RobinsonEdward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
as Avery 'Larry' L. Browne - Paul RobesonPaul RobesonPaul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
as Luke - Ethel WatersEthel WatersEthel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...
as Esther - Eddie Anderson as Rev. Lazarus
- Thomas MitchellThomas Mitchell (actor)Thomas Mitchell was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. Among his most famous roles in a long career are those of Gerald O'Hara, the father of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, the drunken Doc Boone in John Ford's Stagecoach, and Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life...
as John Halloway - Eugene PalletteEugene PalletteEugene William Pallette was an American actor. He appeared in over 240 silent era and sound era motion pictures between 1913 and 1946....
as Luther - Cesar RomeroCesar RomeroCesar Julio Romero, Jr. was an American film and television actor who was active in film, radio, and television for almost sixty years...
as Harry Wilson - Gail PatrickGail PatrickGail Patrick was an American film actress.Born Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick, she appeared in 62 movies between 1932 and 1948, usually as the leading lady's extremely formidable rival; some of these roles include the second wife in My Favorite Wife with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, Anna May Wong's...
as Ellen - Roland YoungRoland YoungRoland Young was an English actor.-Early life and career:Born in London, England, Young was educated at Sherborne School, Dorset and the University of London before being accepted into Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...
as Edgar - Marion MartinMarion MartinMarion Martin was an American movie and stage actress.Martin was born, Marion Suplee in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a Bethlehem Steel executive. She became an actress after her family fortune was lost in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and appeared in the Broadway productions...
as Squirrel - Elsa LanchesterElsa LanchesterElsa Sullivan Lanchester was an English-American character actress with a long career in theatre, film and television....
as Elsa Smith - Victor FrancenVictor FrancenVictor Francen , born Victor Franssens, was a Belgian-born actor with a long career in French cinema and in Hollywood....
as Arturo Bellini - George SandersGeorge SandersGeorge Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
as Williams - James GleasonJames GleasonJames Austin Gleason was an American actor born in New York City. He was also a playwright and screenwriter.-Career:...
as 'Father' Joe - Harry Davenport as Prof. Lyons
- J. Carrol NaishJ. Carrol NaishJoseph Patrick Carrol Naish was an American character actor born in New York City. Naish was twice nominated for an Academy Award for film roles, and he later found fame in the title role of CBS Radio's Life With Luigi , which was also on CBS Television .Naish appeared on stage for several years...
as Costello - Uncredited cast members include Frank OrthFrank OrthFrank Orth was an American actor born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By 1897, he was performing in vaudeville with his wife, Ann Codee, in an act called "Codee and Orth"...
, Christian RubChristian RubChristian Rub was known as a character actor from the late 1910s to the early 1950s, and was featured in more than 100 movies, often uncredited. He was born in Passau, Bavaria, Germany. His first appearance was in the movie The Belle of New York...
, Sig ArnoSig ArnoSig Arno was a German-Jewish film actor who appeared in such films as Pardon My Sarong, and The Mummy's Tomb...
, Harry Hayden, Morris AnkrumMorris AnkrumMorris Ankrum was an American radio, television and film character actor.-Early life:Born Morris Nussbaum in Danville, Illinois, Ankrum originally began a career in academics. After graduating from USC with a law degree, he went on to an associate professorship in economics at the University of...
, Don DouglasDon DouglasDon Douglas was a film actor, born Donald Douglas on 24 August 1905 in Kinleyside, Scotland, UK.He appeared in over 100 films from the late 1920s to the 1940s including The Great Gabbo , Life Begins , Men in White , Madame X , Cheers for Miss Bishop , Now, Voyager , Little Tokyo, U.S.A. , Tall in...
, Mae MarshMae MarshMae Marsh was an American film actress with a career spanning over 50 years.-Early life:...
, and Clarence MuseClarence MuseClarence Muse was an actor, screenwriter, director, composer, and lawyer. He was inducted in the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1973. Muse was the first African American to "star" in a film. He acted for more than sixty years, and appeared in more than 150 movies.-Life and career:Born in...
.
Plot
The stories follow a black formal tailcoat as it goes from owner to owner, in five otherwise unconnected stories.The first is a love triangle between Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
, Thomas Mitchell
Thomas Mitchell (actor)
Thomas Mitchell was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. Among his most famous roles in a long career are those of Gerald O'Hara, the father of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, the drunken Doc Boone in John Ford's Stagecoach, and Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life...
, and Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
. Boyer plays an actor who gives his finest performance when he's shot while wearing the jacket.
The second tale is a comic story featuring Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
who finds a romantic love letter in her future husband's jacket. Her boyfriend (Cesar Romero
Cesar Romero
Cesar Julio Romero, Jr. was an American film and television actor who was active in film, radio, and television for almost sixty years...
) enlists his best man (Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
) to help bail him out. Things don't go as expected when Rogers falls in love with Fonda and dumps her boyfriend.
The third tale stars Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...
. He plays a poor but brilliant musician, composer and conductor whose one big chance at fame and recognition is in jeopardy. While he attempts to conduct, the small jacket rips and the audience erupts with laughter. In a poignant moment the audience emphathises with him by removing their own coats and he triumphs.
The fourth story stars Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
as an alcoholic bum who takes a last shot at life by borrowing the tailcoat to attend his 25th college reunion. The lawyer tries to convince his former classmates that he is successful, but one of his fellow classmates George Sanders
George Sanders
George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
knew Robinson was disbarred for unethical behaviour as a lawyer. When one of the guests loses his wallet the group hold a mock trial
Mock trial
A Mock Trial is an act or imitation trial. It is similar to a moot court, but mock trials simulate lower-court trials, while moot court simulates appellate court hearings. Attorneys preparing for a real trial might use a mock trial consisting of volunteers as role players to test theories or...
where Robinson ultimately decides to admit that he is a bum. The next morning his classmates come to his mission where he is offered a good job, and is back on the road to respectability.
A fifth story involves a thief J. Carroll Naish stealing the coat from a second-hand store and then committing a robbery at an illegal casino where no one is admitted unless wearing evening dress
Evening dress
Evening dress may refer to:* White tie, the most formal civilian dress code in Western fashion* Black tie, a semi-formal dress code for evening events and social functions in Western fashion...
. When he attempts to escape by plane in an open cockpit, the jacket catches fire from sparks from the engine with a panicked Naish removing his burning jacket with the money still in the pockets and throwing it out of the plane. A poor African-American couple (Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
and Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...
) in a deep South shanty community finds the jacket along with over $40,000. They take it to their minister (Eddie Anderson
Eddie Anderson (comedian)
Edmund Lincoln Anderson , also known as Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, was an American comedian and actor. His most famous role was that of Rochester van Jones, valet of Jack Benny, on his radio and television shows.-Early life:Anderson was born in Oakland, California...
) who gives out the "money from heaven" to people so that they can buy what they prayed for. After distributing the cash, the minister asks loner Christopher (George Reed) what his wish was. He says he prayed for a scarecrow for the fields. They take the now practically shredded jacket and make a scarecrow out of it. The sequence features musical numbers by Paul Robeson and the Hall Johnson
Hall Johnson
Hall Johnson was one of a number of American composers and arrangers—including Harry T. Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Eva Jessye—who elevated the African-American spiritual to an art form, comparable in its musical sophistication to the compositions of European Classical...
choir.
Deleted sixth story
A sixth story starred W.C. Fields, with Phil SilversPhil Silvers
Phil Silvers was an American entertainer and comedy actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah." He is best known for starring in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S...
and Margaret Dumont
Margaret Dumont
Margaret Dumont was an American comedic actress. She is remembered mostly for being the comic foil to Groucho Marx in seven of the Marx Brothers films...
. A conman (Fields) buys the jacket, thinking that it is stuffed with money from its fomer owner, who, according to a crooked clothing store salesman (Silvers), was "a millionaire." The conman wears the jacket to a lecture he is to give on abstinence from alcohol at the home of a wealthy woman (Dumont), where the cocoanut milk served as an alcohol alternative has been spiked with booze by her husband - turning the lecture into a drunken party.
This story would have been fifth in the sequence and was cut when the film was released to reduce running time. It was the easiest tale to cut without losing continuity, and, ironically, it was by far the funniest. Some sources indicate the "running time" was a convenient excuse; others among the cast were not too crazy about the Fields sequence stealing more than its fair share of thunder.
This sequence was discovered in the Fox vaults in the mid-1990s seemingly intact and used in Kevin Burns
Kevin Burns
Kevin Burns is an American television and film producer, director, and screenwriter. His work can be seen on A&E, National Geographic Channel, E!, Animal Planet, AMC, Bravo, Travel Channel, Lifetime, and The History Channel.-Early life:...
' Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults, a 1997 television documentary spotlighting cut sequences from the studio's films. It was later included as a supplement on the VHS release of the Tales of Manhattan. The Fox Movie Channel runs the film in its entirety, with all six stories intact and in their intended sequence.
The restored cut sequence as it appears in these releases is apparently incomplete as it does not reveal why Fields is in Dumont's limousine at the beginning, nor how the tailcoat gets back to Silvers' store in the ending (in order for it to be stolen by the thief in the last story).
Controversy surrounding fifth story upon 1942 release
The story starring Paul RobesonPaul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, which featured what were considered black stereotypes even in 1942, came under severe criticism from both Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
, and especially, Robeson, a champion of good film roles for blacks. After a career of only 12 movies and refusing lucrative film offers for over three years, Tales of Manhattan was Robeson’s final attempt to work within Hollywood, yet Robeson was deeply disappointed with the film. He initially thought the depiction of the plight of the rural black poor - shown in the film as investing the bulk of their windfall in communal land and tools - would demonstrate a share-and-share-alike way of life. Although he attempted to change some of the film’s content during production, in the end he found it "very offensive to my people. It makes the Negro childlike and innocent and is in the old plantation hallelujah shouter tradition ... the same old story, the negro singing his way to glory".
Some reviewers and black entertainers (including Clarence Muse
Clarence Muse
Clarence Muse was an actor, screenwriter, director, composer, and lawyer. He was inducted in the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1973. Muse was the first African American to "star" in a film. He acted for more than sixty years, and appeared in more than 150 movies.-Life and career:Born in...
), noted that the film exposed blacks’ living conditions under the sharecropping system, but Robeson was so dissatisfied that he attempted to buy up all the prints and take the film out of distribution. Following its release, he held a press conference, announcing that he would no longer act in Hollywood films because of the demeaning roles available to black actors. Robeson also said he'd gladly picket the film along with others who had found the film offensive.
The sequence was, in the past, sometimes cut from television showings, giving the film a very abrupt ending.