The Great Flamarion

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The Great Flamarion
GreatFlamarion.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Anthony Mann
Screenplay byHeinz Herald
Richard Weil
Anne Wigton
Based onthe short-story "Big Shot"
by Vicki Baum
Anne Wigton
Produced by W. Lee Wilder
Starring Erich von Stroheim
Mary Beth Hughes
Cinematography James S. Brown Jr.
Edited byJohn F. Link, Sr.
Music by Alexander László
Color process Black and white
Production
company
W. Lee Wilder Productions
Distributed by Republic Pictures
Release date
  • March 30, 1945 (1945-03-30)
Running time
78 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$150,000 [1]
The Great Flamarion (1945) by Anthony Mann

The Great Flamarion is a 1945 American film noir mystery film directed by Anthony Mann starring Erich von Stroheim and Mary Beth Hughes. The film, like many films noirs, is shot in flashback narrative. The film was produced by Republic Pictures. [2]

Contents

This film is now in the public domain.

Plot

Mary Beth Hughes as Connie Wallace Greatflamarion1.jpg
Mary Beth Hughes as Connie Wallace

The film opens following a murder at a cabaret in Mexico City in 1936; a shot is heard, but the body of the female victim (Connie) has been strangled. The police take the woman's husband into custody, assuming he is the murderer. But Flamarion, who has been shot, is the murderer and he explains to a stagehand why he killed Connie in flashback.The Great Flamarion (Erich von Stroheim) is an arrogant, friendless, and misogynous marksman who displays his trick gunshot act in the vaudeville circuit. His show features a beautiful assistant, Connie (Mary Beth Hughes) and her drunken husband Al (Dan Duryea), Flamarion's other assistant. Flamarion falls in love with Connie, the movie's femme fatale, and is soon manipulated by her into killing her no good husband during one of their acts.

After Al's supposed accidental death, Connie convinces Flamarion to wait three months before the two can marry and flees back to Hibbing, Minnesota. Meanwhile, Connie has already begun a relationship with another performer, Eddie (Stephen Barclay). After she fails to show up at an arranged meeting place three months later, Flamarion goes into a downward spiral of drinking and gambling. Flamarion eventually finds Connie who informs him that she never loved him and used him to get rid of her husband.

Cast

Production

Mann 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." [1]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 Wicking, Christopher; Pattinson, Barrie (July–October 1969). "Interviews with Anthony Mann". Screen. Vol. 10. p. 34.
  2. The Great Flamarion at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films .