If The Great Flamarion seems unnecessarily turgid and dour even by that great master of hard-boiled cinema Anthony Mann's standards, it can perhaps be forgiven on account of the director's relative inexperience and the meagerness of the production. A (very) poor man's Double Indemnity, the film tells the story of the Great Flamarion, a callous and cold vaudevillian performer with a trick gunshot act. He is eventually approached by his lovely female assistant Connie who seduces him with promises of happiness in exchange for "accidentally" shooting and killing her husband, another one of Flamarion's on-stage assistants, during his act. The deed is done, Flamarion is cleared by a grand jury, and, predictably, Connie suggests that they "spend some time apart." The last few scenes are an effective rehash of the opening sequence where Connie is murdered backstage by the heart-broken Flamarion. If there is one good thing to take away from The Great Flamarion, it is a truly virtuosic tracking shot that opens the film. It enters a theater from the outside behind a thick crowd and glides down the center row until it halts with the stage performers in tight focus. The shot continues until off-stage (and off-screen) gunshots bring the performance to a screeching halt. Truly, this tracking shot is a moment of artistic clarity in an otherwise forgettable film. The performances range from the competent (Mary Beth Hughes as the femme fatale Connie), to the amateurish (Dan Duryea is rather one-note even by his own 1940s standards as Connie's doomed husband), to the unfortunate (the mighty Erich von Stroheim has been reduced to literally doing parlor tricks as Flamarion). One scene where Stroheim does a little jig while anticipating the arrival of Connie is particularly grotesque and cringe-worthy. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
5/10
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