Tales of Manhattan
Based on the Mexican writer Francisco Rojas González's novel, Historia de un frac ("Story of a Tailcoat"), the stories follow a black formal tailcoat cursed by a cutter as it goes from owner to owner, in five otherwise unconnected stories.
The first is a love triangle between Charles Boyer, Thomas Mitchell, and Rita Hayworth. Boyer plays an actor who gives his finest performance when he's shot by a jealous husband while wearing the jacket.
The second tale is a comic story featuring Ginger Rogers who finds a romantic love letter in her future husband's jacket. Her fiance (Cesar Romero) enlists his best man (Henry Fonda) to help bail him out. Things don't go as expected when Rogers falls in love with Fonda and dumps her boyfriend.
The third tale stars Charles Laughton as Charles Smith, a poor but brilliant musician, composer and conductor whose one big chance at fame and recognition is in jeopardy. While he attempts to conduct, the small jacket rips and the audience erupts with laughter. In a poignant moment, the orchestra's Maestro (Victor Francen) empathizes with Smith, removes his own tailcoat, and begs him to continue; the "gentlemen" in the audience remove their own tailcoats in a show of solidarity.
The fourth tale stars Edward G. Robinson as an alcoholic former lawyer who takes a last shot at life by borrowing the tailcoat from a rescue mission to attend his 25th college reunion. The lawyer tries to convince his former classmates that he is successful, but one of his classmates (George Sanders) knows that Robinson was disbarred for unethical behavior. When a guest loses his wallet the group hold a mock trial where Robinson ultimately decides to admit that he is a derelict. The next morning his classmates come to his mission where he is offered a good job, and is back on the road to respectability.
The final tale involves a thief (J. Carrol Naish) who steals the coat from a second-hand shop to commit a robbery at a gambling party where everyone is in evening dress. In his escape by plane, the jacket catches fire and the panicked thief throws it out with $43,000 still in the pockets. The day before Christmas, Luke (Paul Robeson) and Esther (Ethel Waters), a poor black couple, find the jacket and money. They take it to their minister (Eddie Anderson) to give to his congregation to buy what they pray for. An old farmer (George Reed) tells Luke that the only thing he prays for is a scarecrow. They take the shredded jacket and make a scarecrow out of it.
romantic