Review of The Great Flamarion

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.