by Hal Erickson
synopsis
The French Histoires Extraordinaires is an "omnibus" film in the traditon of the English Somerset Maugham anthologies and Hollywood's Tales of Manhattan and Flesh and Fantasy. The three stories dramatized herein are based on the works Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas De Quincey. The Poe stories utilized are "The Tell Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado." The DeQuincey yarns concern a killer on the loose in a girl's school and a murderer who is frightened into confessing. Best of the batch is "Cask," with bravura performances by Jules Berry and Fernand Ledoux. Unifying the four stories is a wraparound story concerning a veteran gendarme relating his most difficult cases to a group of young recruits.
