The Great Flamarion

Director Anthony Mann honed his skills with this early, quirky noir that reshapes the fatal love triangle structure of Double Indemnity (1944) from the prior year. (Maybe not coincidentally, this film’s producer, W. Lee Wilder, is the lesser known brother of the earlier film’s superstar director, Billy Wilder.) Erich von Stroheim plays the title character, a vaudeville performer seduced by his assistant Connie (Mary Beth Hughes), who then persuades him to kill her husband Al (Dan Duryea). Von Stroheim plays the tortured patsy quite well, but Duryea steals the film as the dipsomaniac husband; few actors can combine toughness and vulnerability as well as Duryea. Watch for early Mann visual touches like the performers’ shadows springing to life during the circus scenes and the reflections of the ticking clock when Connie first proclaims her (fake) love.