We are pleased to present this visually splendid film (which we have previously shown in 16mm) in a 35mm print recently restored from the nitrate by UCLA Film Archives. In this allegory, Fredric March is a delightfully arrogant Death, masquerading as a mortal in order to discover why humans fear and loathe him, and spending three days on Earth in an elaborate Florentine palazzo. Director Mitchell Leisen spent some ten years as a costume designer and art director, and critic John Baxter (Hollywood in the '30s) notes the "extravagant...concept and design" of this film: "(March's) romance with the beautiful but self-destroying Grazia (Evelyn Venable) is played out among drooping Italianate gardens, silent fountains and pools of black water...It is a strange film...skating the delicate line between poetry and comedy but never quite slipping over."