Flesh and Fantasy
First segment The setting is New Orleans. Plain and embittered Henrietta (Betty Field) secretly loves law student Michael (Robert Cummings). On Mardi Gras night, a mysterious stranger (Edgar Barrier) gives her a white mask of beauty that she must return at midnight. At a party, Michael falls in love with Henrietta but has yet to see her face under the mask. Henrietta encourages Michael to follow a better life although it may mean losing him forever. Henrietta removes the mask at midnight discovering she is now beautiful and that her old, selfish attitude was really the cause of her ugliness.
Second segment The second story is based on Oscar Wilde's short story Lord Arthur Savile's Crime. A palmist named Podgers (Thomas Mitchell) is making uncannily accurate predictions at a party for the rich and bored. He tells skeptical lawyer Marshall Tyler (Edward G. Robinson) to avoid a certain street intersection on the way home. The palmist also acts as if he sees more in his hand but does not admit it. Tyler eschews the advice and almost gets shot during a police chase at the intersection. Tyler goes to the palmist’s home. Under pressure, the palmist admits that he saw that Tyler is going to kill someone.
The notion obsesses Tyler, who decides that he must kill someone, anyone, just to get it over with. He comes close to killing two people but is unable to do so. He finally meets Podgers by accident on a bridge one night, and blaming Podgers for his problem, strangles him to death in a rage. Trying to escape, Tyler is hit by a car. The accident is witnessed by the Great Gaspar (Charles Boyer), a high-wire artist, and it leads without pause into the third segment of the film.
Third segment High-wire artist the Great Gaspar is haunted by dreams of falling, and in each dream of doom encounters a woman (Barbara Stanwyck) he has never met. These dreams affect his performance as he backs down from the most dangerous stunt, jumping from one wire to another. Eventually he meets his dream girl, who has serious troubles of her own. Gaspar later decides that he will not let his bad dreams affect him and that his life is his own. He performs the stunt successfully, not knowing that the woman that he has now fallen in love with is about to be arrested.
paranormal