bkoganbing Although Erich Von Stroheim is top billed in The Great Flamarion this film really belongs to Mary Beth Hughes who was the model for playing two timing dames that others took as the standard. She's at her worst when she does it to Von Stroheim. She's playing with fire because the cinematic Von Stroheim is not one to be trifled with.Von Stroheim plays the title role, he's a vaudeville headline with a trick sharp shooting act like Annie Oakley. Hughes and her alcoholic husband Dan Duryea, a former dance act work as Von Stroheim's stooges in the act with him throwing carefully timed shots. Duryea and Hughes are breaking up and Duryea won't give her a divorce. So Hughes plays up to Von Stroheim as eagerly as Barbara Stanwyck did with Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity to get him involved in her deadly game. In fact there's a lot of resemblance between The Great Flamarion and the Billy Wilder classic.Von Stroheim is a pitiable character in the end, his fall and degradation is like a Greek tragedy. But Hughes who two timed Henry Fonda and married for money in The Oxbow Incident and is best known for that part is the one to watch her. This is one evil woman.This one is an undiscovered gem from Republic so discover it.

classicsoncall For a minute, I thought I was going to find out what a flamarion was, never figuring that it was only somebody's name. In this case, "The Great Flamarion" was a trick shot artist, portrayed by German actor Eric Von Stroheim. Told in flashback, the story reveals how Flamarion came to murder his scheming lover after she shot him in self defense. But that's getting way ahead of the story.I never really got the impression that Connie Wallace (Mary Beth Hughes) loved Flamo, he with the Nazi like exterior and the vein popping out of his head. When it looked like she was getting ready to ditch alcoholic husband Al (Dan Duryea), the story started to come together with a bit more sense. Turns out that Connie's hobby was actually collecting and discarding men as circumstances warranted, so she wasn't all that sympathetic a character to begin with. Getting Flamarion to do her dirty work was just part of a plan.Considering the plot, this all might have worked better if the setting was a traveling carnival show instead of a stage act, with other strange and weird characters interacting with the principals. As it was, it all seemed a bit too sterile, even with Connie's underhanded machinations in play. Too bad, as I was really hoping a flamarion would show up to make things more interesting.

dbborroughs Told in flashback story of a trick-shot artist who gets involved with his assistant who will do anything to get what she wants. Directed by Anthony Mann and produced by Billy Wilder this is a by the book melodrama of one woman destroying the lives of every man she comes in contact with. Far from a bad movie the movie suffers from the fact that we know the ending (Erich Von Stroheim is telling what happened as he lays dying). Even if we had seen this from the beginning we'd know it ends bad but we wouldn't be able to work out several of the twists that knowing the end imparts.If there is any real flaw beyond knowing how it ends, its the casting of Von Stroheim who seems too old and a bit too stiff for his man led astray. Still its the work of two cinema legends doing out what they do best and thats turning out a decent little film. Definitely worth a look if you're in the mood for a good film noir.

whpratt1 Enjoyed this 1945 film directed by Anthony Mann and William Wilder creating a great film with great veteran actors. Erich Von Stroheim,(The Great Flamarion),"Napoleon",'55, plays a sharpshooter or a type of William Tell, who can shoot a cigarette right out of your mouth. Flamarion could also shoot the straps off a dress that Mary Beth Hughes,(Connie Wallace),"Close to My Heart",'51 was wearing in their act they performed on the stage. Dan Duryea,(Al Wallace),"The Flight of the Phoenix",'65 also appeared on the stage with his wife Connie. However, Al was always drunk and getting into trouble with Flamarion, who was a stuffed shirt about his performance and never made any mistakes, or in other words, killed someone. The story thickens as Connie decides to put the make on poor Flamarion and from then on the story gets interesting.