Rather well linked portmanteau of five stories set in Manhattan and featuring increasingly poor sections of society as posh new designer tailcoat finds new owners. (It is apparently cursed, but turns out not really to be.) This linking idea derived from a German 1931 book of short stories by Max Nosseck.
Originally called Tails from Manhattan, Fox's legal records show that the opening episode, involving Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth and her murderous husband Charles Boyer, was derived from a play by Ferenc Molnar. (Eugene Pallette features). The second sequence, in which Cesar Romero has left an incriminating letter in his tailcoat on the day of his proposed wedding to Ginger Rogers, was from another play, 'Sextette' by Ladislas Fodor (both these playwrights are in the opening credits). The rest of the material was original. Henry Fonda and Roland Young feature.
The third features the debut of a new composer / conductor Charles Laughton - the tailcoat splits on the opening performance to the merriment of the crowd, but the concert maestro gives them all a lesson in manners. He is Victor Francen; with Elsa Lancaster.
Now in charity shops, the coat is given to destitute Edward G Robinson, who's attending a class reunion at The Waldorf, where his poor circumstances are revealed, mainly at the prompting of trouble-maker George Sanders. Harry Davenport is a professor, James Gleason is the lovely charity worker.
And finally the coat - stuffed with cash - falls on poor black folk Paul Robeson and Ethel Waters, who go see preacher Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson on what the Lord wants to do with it. This caused some controversy over its depiction of blacks and prompted Robeson to leave the business.
The other credited writers are Alan Campbell, Ben Hecht, Donald Ogden Stewart, Samuel Hoffenstein, Laszlo Vadny, Laszlo Gorog, Lamar Trotti and Henry Blankfort.
Charles Brackett records in his diary he and Billy Wilder were approached by producers Sam Spiegel and Boris Morros to contribute an idea, which was approved (doesn't say which one). They were subsequently also called in to work on the Ginger Rogers episode (maybe this was their's - it's not clear) which was 'pretty bad..' They subsequently lunched with Alan Campbell about it, saw the footage that had been shot at Fox and it was 'way above average, distinguished in fact..' (This must have helped Ginger agreeing to work with Wilder and Brackett for the director's debut The Major and the Minor. It isn't mentioned at all in McBride's pretentious tome, which considering the dozens of pages of references is rather poor...)*
Intriguingly another episode was filmed, with W.C. Fields, Phil Silvers and Margaret Dumont, but not released (perhaps at two hours it was already long enough). It did resurface on a VHS copy but has since gone missing again. "Fields played a confidence man who speaks before a temperance society headed by Dumont and accidentally gets his audience drunk. A 3 May 1942 NYT article reported that the sequence was deleted because "the producers, having shown it at sneak previews, feel that it is not in keeping with the other five sections." (All this non-Brackett info is from the most useful AFI catalogue.) Interestingly a Spanish DVD entitled 6 Destinos may include the missing chapter.
Duvivier made Pépé le Moko in 1937, was highly regarded but little known outside France. Flesh and Fantasy (1943) is another multi-story Hollywood film.
The film was shot by Joseph Walker, and the score by Sol Kaplan.
* In fact I subsequently read in Zolotow's 'Billy Wilder in Hollywood' that Wilder had had the tailcoat idea at UFA and gave it to hard-up Spiegel as a favour. Spiegel was so grateful he promised Wilder a pair of regency chairs he fancied, then didn't provide them. After the debut Billy sent a sarcastic reminder - Spiegel delivered the chairs... but with an invoice to Billy! Billy never worked with Spiegel the Shit again.
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