Flesh and Fantasy

In New Orleans on Mardi Gras night, Henrietta, plain and embittered, secretly loves law student Michael. A mysterious stranger hands her a white mask of beauty and tells her to return it at midnight. The gift becomes a moral test that foreshadows how vanity and desire could reshape her life.

At a lively party, Michael falls in love with Henrietta, even though he has not yet seen her face beneath the mask. Henrietta remains largely faceless to him, keeping the truth about her ugliness hidden behind the beauty of the mask. The moment hints at the power of appearance to shape love.

Henrietta, masking her own selfishness behind beauty, encourages Michael to pursue a better life, even if that choice might cost them each other. The advice reveals her inner conflict and foreshadows the mask's transformation. Her guidance plants a moral complication into their budding relationship.

As midnight strikes, Henrietta removes the mask and discovers she is now beautiful. She realizes that her earlier ugliness stemmed from a selfish attitude rather than any physical flaw. The transformation forces a reckoning with her identity and choices.

The second story opens with palmist Septimus Podgers making uncanny predictions at a party for the rich and bored. He tells the skeptical lawyer Marshall Tyler to avoid a certain street intersection on his way home. His seemingly harmless counsel plants a dangerous fixation in Marshall.

Podgers insists on his warning about the particular intersection, hinting at a fate Marshall cannot escape. Marshall dismisses the advice as superstition. The pronouncement seeds doubt and curiosity in his mind.

Undeterred by fear, Marshall proceeds along his route and is nearly shot during a police chase at the warned intersection. The close call unsettles him and plants a seed of fear about fate. He begins to view Podgers's prophecy as a personal challenge.

Marshall goes to the palmist's home to demand answers. Podgers reluctantly confirms that Marshall is destined to kill someone. The confession unsettles him further and deepens his fixation on killing as a way to end the sense of doom.

Haunted by the prophecy, Marshall becomes obsessed with killing someone to end the fear. He comes close to harming two people but is unable to do so. The fear of the future drives him toward a drastic, fatal conclusion.

Marshall ultimately encounters Podgers by accident on a bridge and, in a blind rage, strangles him to death. His attempt to escape ends in a car collision, further destabilizing his life. The violent act shifts the narrative into the next segment of the film.

Great Paul Gaspar, a high-wire artist, is haunted by dreams of falling and by a mysterious woman named Joan Stanley whom he has never met. The dreams begin to influence his thoughts and, at times, his performance, shaping his sense of risk and fate.

Affected by the dreams, Gaspar hesitates and backs down from the most dangerous jump. He resolves to claim agency over his own life and not let dreams control him. The crisis of confidence marks a turning point in his approach to the performance.

Paul Gaspar finally meets the woman of his dreams, Joan Stanley, who shares his troubles. The real-life encounter deepens his connection with the imagined partner and ties dreams to tangible, emotional stakes.

Paul decides that he will not let his dreams control him and that his life is his own. He asserts authority over his fate by choosing to perform on his own terms. The resolve reinforces the film's motif of autonomy versus predestination.

Paul Gaspar completes the stunt successfully, proving that fear will not dictate him. The victory on the wire stands in contrast to the looming trouble, as the arrest of the woman he loves—Joan Stanley—hangs over the outcome. The scene blends triumph with an ominous future.

Unbeknownst to Paul, Joan Stanley—the woman from his dreams and now in his life—faces imminent arrest. The revelation casts a shadow over his victory and hints at consequences that may ripple beyond the stunt. The ending leaves his personal triumph unsettled by real-world peril.