Review of Tales of Manhattan

I'm a sucker for the La Ronde or Slacker-type "life is a circle" films, with some plot device used in most cases to carry the story from character to character through the whole film, possibly back to the person it started with and possibly not. In this case, the ending is truly bizarre and unlikely, and almost kills a film which was a whole lot of fun up until that point. There's a jacket, see, a handsome tailcoat that belongs to a famous Broadway start, and it's the jacket that migrates, from Charles Boyer the start to playboy Caesar Romero, on to would-be composer Charles Laughton and down-and-out lawyer Edward G. Robinson, while also touching friends, lovers and enemies like Elsa Lanchester, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell, Ginger Rogers, and Henry Fonda. All well and good with plenty of moments of intrigue, romance, and good old fashioned star-power, until the coat makes one last journey, out of an airplane and into the hands of a poor black man in some unnamed and somewhat unearthly southern town. Paul Robeson's voice and presence are certainly powerful enough, but they aren't alone enough to keep the last segment's religious mawkishness from leaving a bad taste in the mouth as songs are sung and massive amounts of money are miraculously found and put to good use by the poor townspeople. Well, it was the war, and I guess they needed an uplifting ending...