VividSimon Simply Perfect

Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

nomoons11 I expected an early 40's cheer me up type of film but got a really entertaining look into how a Tops and Tails coat effects the lives of everyone it comes into contact with.I could go into each of the 6 stories but it would take too long. A coat is designed by a tailor and his best sewer decides to quit and throws a curse on the coat. After this, we get 6 really interesting stories on how the coat will effect each one. With loads of star power from Charles Boyer to Edward G. Robinson and Ginger Rogers. There are just bags full of great actors in this and they all do a very good job for each of their stories. Some are funny and some are uplifting. If I were to pick one of the bunch that I really liked it would be the one with Edward G. Robinson. Watch a master at work. He's just a superb actor and in his section of this fine film, he shows you why he's so well regarded.Not a lot to say about a film with so much to see. Just trust me. Give it a watch and see a lot of familiar faces give you 2 hours of entertainment you won't forget.

jbviolin Excellent film in the genre. I agree with the previous comments with one addition. One cannot ignore the historical significance of the final scene. The last scene features the great bass singer Paul Robeson, celebrated singer-turned-actress Ethel Waters, and the memorable Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson. The scene also has the music of Hall Johnson and the Hall Johnson singers. With this stellar cast of talent the film finishes by showcasing some of the finest black talent ever in the business. Finding good recordings of the arrangements of Hall Johnson by his singers on film is very difficult to do. Here we have it included in a very entertaining film.

Bob Taylor We think of Jean Renoir's, Rene Clair's and Julien Duvivier's sojourns in Hollywood during the war as difficult times for these creators, and certainly Renoir's experience with the studio system was not a happy one. But I find Tales of Manhattan to be a light frolic that betrays little of the cultural confusion that these transplanted Frenchmen must have felt.It's by no means a delight from beginning to end: the W. C. Fields episode is not funny at all, and the finale with Paul Robeson and Ethel Waters as sharecroppers drowns in bathos. There is enough fun from Henry Fonda and Ginger Rogers as tentative lovers to compensate, and Edward G. Robinson as the disgraced lawyer is worth the effort to find this film.NOTE: How did Charles Laughton get so shapely? He can't be called slender here, but he is far from the obese hulk that we remember from his later years.

writers_reign I think it's fairly safe to say that this is the finest film that Julien Duvivier made outside France, let alone made in America; Anna Karenina which he made in England doesn't really compete with the Don Camillo films he shot in Italy - in fact on reflection The Little World Of Don Camillo may tie Tales Of Manhattan for Best-Duvivier-Made-Outside-France. He was a master of the 'anthology' movie and both Un Carnet de bal and Sous le ciel de Paris are outstanding examples that had the advantage of tighter scripting - in Tales Of Manhattan the roster of credited writers threatens to outnumber the cast and Duvivier deserves a small accolade for unifying so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole. Others have provided details of the several episodes as well as pointing out that not Every sequence takes place in Manhattan, notably the final sequence which is set in the Deep South and provides a perfect coda when the tuxedo in question finds a final resting place on a scarecrow. It feels as if every Hollywood actor who wasn't on active service in 1942 was on Duvivier's set standing up to be counted and Phil Silvers is brilliant in an all-too-brief segment working a pre-Bilko scam on W.C. Fields. A delight.