Erich von Stroheim in Anthony Mann's "The Great Flamarion" (1945) - feat. Dan Duryea
66In 1936, a performance in a Mexico City vaudeville hall is interrupted by gunshots. The body of one of the performers, Connie Wallace (Mary Beth Hughes), is found. The police arrest her husband, Eddie Wheeler (Steve Barclay, as Stephen Barclay).
A man with gunshot wounds falls from the rafters. Tony (Lester Allen), the clown, recognizes the man as "The Great Flamarion" (Erich von Stroheim), a former, renowned vaudeville marksman.
Certain that he will die, Flamarion confesses to Tony why he, and not Eddie, murdered Connie. Some time before, in Pittsburgh, Flamarion worked the vaudeville circuit, with Connie and her then husband, Al Wallace (Dan Duryea), as his assistants. Connie, a scheming confidence woman, tires of Al, who is weak and perpetually drunk. Determined to better her situation by using Flamarion, Connie entraps him in a love affair, seducing him despite his long-standing mistrust of women. While Connie is trying to convince Flamarion that Al must be killed because he will never divorce her, she is also having an affair with Eddie, who does a bicycle act on the same bill with them.
One night, Connie finally persuades Flamarion to kill Al, and Flamarion shoots Al during a performance. The coroner's inquest determines that Al was drunk and that Flamarion killed him accidentally. The love-addled Flamarion wants to leave immediately with Connie, but she tells him that they must wait to avoid arousing suspicion. Instructing him to meet her in Chicago in three months, Connie tells Flamarion that she is going to live with her mother, but actually, she leaves with Eddie for a year-long tour of Central America, during which time they are married.
Three months later, Flamarion arrives at the appointed meeting place and is crushed when Connie does not appear. He discovers that the address she gave him for her mother does not exist and then begins searching for her. After Flamarion has lost all his money and has even pawned his prized pistols, he learns from Cleo, another performer, that Connie is in Mexico City with Eddie. Flamarion travels there and confronts Connie in her backstage dressing room. Connie desperately tries to convince Flamarion that it has all been a mistake and that she will go away with him, but the weary marksman knows that she is lying again. Although she wrests his gun away from him and shoots him, he strangles her before climbing to the rafters to hide. His story finished, Flamarion dies in Tony's arms as the police arrive.
A 1945 American Black & White film noir crime mystery romance drama film (a/k/a "Dead Pigeon" and "Strange Affair") directed by Anthony Mann, produced by W. Lee Wilder, screenplay by Heinz Herald & Richard Weil & Anne Wigton, story by Anne Wigton, based on the short-story "Big Shot" and the character created by Vicki Baum, cinematography by James S. Brown Jr., starring Erich von Stroheim, Mary Beth Hughes, Dan Duryea, Stephen Barclay, Lester Allen, Esther Howard, and Michael Mark. Released by Republic Pictures.
Based on the short story "Big Shot" by Vicki Baum in Collier's (Sep 19, 1936).
Erich von Stroheim and director Arthur Mann clashed during production of this movie. Mann later said "Von Stroheim, to say the least, was difficult. He was a personality, not really an actor. He looked well on film. But he was a great director. I’ll never forget one thing. He said: ‘Tony, do you want to be a great director? Photograph the whole of Great Flamarion through my monocle!’ I said: ‘That’s a helluvan idea, but I only have $150,000 and fourteen days.’ I said: ‘It might be a fascinating idea, but I’ll let you do it'... He drove me mad. He was a genius. I’m not a genius: I’m a worker. Geniuses sometimes end up very unhappy, without a penny. That’s what happened to Erich and Preston Sturges, too."
Anthony Mann's career started in B-movies, where he quickly made a mark for himself with some superlative film noirs such as T-Men (1947), and Border Incident (1949), projects frequently characterised by striking monochrome cinematography as well as taut and assured direction.
This marked the debut of William Wilder as a motion picture producer. Wilder, who was sometimes credited as W. Lee Wilder on his later films, was an "eastern industrialist," according to a September 1944 Hollywood Reporter news item, and was the brother of director Billy Wilder, who rarely talked about his brother, and when he did the theme was always the same: "A dull son of a bitch," Billy said of him in 1975. Years later he called him "a fool" who thought he could make it in Hollywood simply because his more famous brother had.
Out of Republic Studios, there's obviously budget restrictions, but this film noir gem features top performances from von Stroheim, Hughes, and Duryea. Pitch black plotting and a message that tells us to never take our eye off the ball is enhanced by the photography reflecting the rich life of the theater. Recommended to film noir faithful and Dan Duryea completists.