----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
>
>I recently saw a bit of Tales of Manhattan (1942), starring among others
>Henry Fonda, on AMC.  Does anyone know if AMC plans to broadcast it again
>this month or of a potential video supplier?  So far I've checked Facets
>published listing without luck.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>
>Joseph Carey
>English Department
>University of Chicago
>[log in to unmask]
***************************************************************
TALES of Manhattan is again on AMC Thursday 23 February at 11 am
(Chicago-Peoria-Champaign-Urbana Time). Here's some stuff on it.
 
TALES OF MANHATTAN (1942) Once much admired episodic film was made in
Hollywood with an all-star cast by the French director Julien Duvivier,
there during WWII. It is about tail coat and its  successive users. Episode
1,involving French heartthrob Charles Boyer and his affair with married
Rita Hayworth, is suave and dark in tone. Number 2 is a silly  farcical
affair with Ginger Rogers and "dim" Henry Fonda who is hard to take
seriously as a romantic figure. Numbers 3 and 4 are sentimental kitsch,
respectively about the triumph of poor musical genius Charles Laughton and
the redemption of down-and-out ex-Ivy Leaguer E.G. Robinson.  In # 5,
thrown from a plane by a burglar, the coat, with a loot,of  $41,000 in it,
lands among poor black sharecroppers (Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters, et al)
who put it to good use. This last part, judged by many (especially later
on) as racially demeaning, speaks loudly about the insensitivity of the
times. Film has creamy black and white photography and no less than 13
scriptwriters  (Edwin Jahiel)