A beautifully tailored tailcoat, cursed by its maker to bring bad luck to any wearer, ties together several short stories in this film. A lovely set of tales each very different in tone, from a kooky segment where WC Fields gets a lot of society folks loaded off "coconut milk" to a harrowing Cinderella story, in which a skid-row alcoholic, played by Edward G Robinson, gets one evening to don the tailcoat and one opportunity to pass himself off as a legitimate member of society to his successful university friends at a twenty-five year reunion. Duvivier's gorgeous visions in black and white, shadow and smoke give this film a pictorial quality. Followed a year later by
Flesh and Fantasy, another Duvivier film that also takes the format of short stories tied together by a narrative device; it also uses some of the same actors. It's a pity these films are difficult to locate because they are so lovely and unusual.
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