Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Panamint Deserves a fairly good rating because it has one of the most skillfully set up and well done endings ever. Once in a while a golden nugget of movie brilliance can be found lodged within a cheap forgotten film. That is the case here.Most of the cast is lively if not memorable and they are better than the film itself. They keep it watchable despite the drabness of the PRC production values and undoubtedly rushed filming schedule. Von Stroheim is his usual menacing self and does a good job in the title role. Von Stroheim is effective but the hypnotism techniques used in this film are rushed and not well thought out. Despite many such weak elements "The Mask of Diijon" holds together and moves along in a fairly well paced linear b-movie style. Its not a terrible example of the dark 1940's b-movie creepy murder genre, and certainly worth a look.

MARIO GAUCI Erich von Stroheim's acting career often saw him playing some kind of variety-act performer: in THE GREAT GABBO (1929), which I own but have yet to watch, he was a ventriloquist; in THE GREAT FLAMARION (1945), an expert marksman; and here, as in the French-made L'ALIBI (1937; which I have now acquired), he dabbles in mind-reading (though, in this case, he starts out as a magician who 'trips up' in front of an unforgiving audience and is humiliated – to the consternation of his heavy-set promoter, who has no qualms about receiving guests at home while slumped on a bed in his tank top undershirt!). Incidentally, most sources give the film's title as THE MASK OF DIJON, so that I was surprised to notice the extra "i" in the credits! While the script makes no particular exertion on the star's immense talent, his commanding presence and accented delivery of lines is more than enough for him to create a memorable character nonetheless (making good the publicists' dubbing of the former auteur as "The Man You Love To Hate"!); interestingly, just as he had been flanked by Dwight Frye in THE CRIME OF DR. CRESPI (1935), this time around Edward van Sloan is on hand to evoke that distinct Universal Horror flavor (the director having previously helmed THE RAVEN [1935] for that studio, despite the film under review itself bearing the low-rent PRC logo)! The one other strong point here, in fact, is the atmosphere (aided by alternately odd and menacing camera angles, expressive night-time lighting and even fast cuts during an especially tense and paranoid moment for Stroheim's character). While the remaining supporting cast is weak – fatally, the young leads whose innocuous romance sends the unbalanced yet egomaniacal protagonist off the deep end – it does include Denise Vernac, the star's current real-life partner, as another down-on-her-luck entertainer. Throughout, Stroheim hypnotizes a number of people – among them driving Vernac's associate/husband to suicide and a stick-up man at a diner who immediately returns the dough to the befuddled proprietor – but his efforts to dispose of his amorous rival (again, and much like in the afore-mentioned CRESPI!) ends in disaster, and death for himself…here meted out in unforgettable, and most ironic (given the film's opening sequence), fashion: let me just say it involves a guillotine and a playful kitty and leave it at that!

Howard_B_Eale No one will ever accuse THE MASK OF DIIJON of being a landmark thriller/drama/noir/whatever. But this film deserves the honor of having the all-time greatest final 30 seconds in the history of cinema. To reveal its wonderful climactic secret would be to rob the viewer of easily the best moment in the whole film, so I will resist, but it's all more worth watching than one might think.Erich Von Stroheim chews up every scene he is in, which is the bulk of the picture, and this is a good thing. Anyone who adored him as Max Von Mayerling in SUNSET BLVD. knows full well that there isn't really any such thing as a bad Stroheim performance. He even smiles and laughs - admittedly rather briefly - in THE MASK OF DIIJON.And the film is, for all its faults in narrative, an inevitably fascinating ultra-cheapie. The very fact that Stroheim committed to the project at all raises eyebrows; he treats the whole picture as a gag and is arguably the only sparkling performer in the whole project, and must have known this. The very opening sequence shows his character reduced to peddling cheap carnival tricks (and in doing so, tricks the audience by creating a fake beginning to the film), so there had to be an air of self-consciousness here, considering that the main conceit of the film (the power of hypnosis) is entirely preposterous. And there are a handful of nice touches throughout, particularly an outlandish sequence where Stroheim hypnotizes a would-be robber and stops the crime cold.It's all a sublimely ridiculous tale, never believable for a moment, and pure entertainment. And it has the greatest ending ever. Trust me.

JohnHowardReid Disappointing. The screenplay always seems on the verge of presenting some interesting plot twists and spell-binding effects, but they never happen. The attractively noirish black-as-a-nightmare lighting photography also constantly signals that some intensely gripping story development is about to occur, but once again all we get are the usual predictable situations which lead to a dull if action-full climax.Steadfastly routine and even turgid direction from Lew Landers doesn't help matters. On occasion, Mr Landers can direct a movie with both punch and style; but in this instance, he exhibits neither quality. And as might be expected, aside from the charismatic von Stroheim, the players are not much to write home about either. Both hero and heroine wear out their welcome, and even von Stroheim's performance suffers from the film editor's tendency to hold shots far too long. Trimming the close-ups would have improved the movie a lot. As is, it's far too slow.Production values are also somewhat limited. True, the camera-work rates as a definite notch above the usual flat Producers Releasing level, and the sets are fulsomely dressed. But we tire of them. The one small set in front of Sheffield's shop is used over and over, and the fact that it becomes so familiar negates whatever small impact the brief spurt of climactic action might otherwise have enjoyed.