The Scoundrel

This film is very old style; early days of the talkies. In the beginning of what we now think of as the film industry there was a good deal of holdover from stage work. D. W. Griffith had shown film makers what was possible but it hadn't really taken hold yet. MacArthur, Hecht and Coward were playwrights experimenting with film making. This film was essentially a platform for clever dialog, such as could be expected in one of their stage plays. You can't judge it by modern cinema narrative standards. You can only appreciate it for itself. The emotions are rather raw and the characterizations are somewhat simplistic but that's because it's all just backdrop for the dialog. Speaking of which, at one point Coward's character is speaking to the girl whom he has seduced and abandoned. She is sobbing her heart out and he says, "Tears always make me crueler than I really am." He then goes on to say, "I can't cry for my sins. If I could I would now. I don't particularly like myself." Truly cruel people are forever saying how much they dislike being cruel. Characters in Coward's plays always come off as being flip and shallow but somewhere down deep, they are sincere. I've read that in real life Coward was one of the nicest people you could know. Perhaps he was simply afraid of emotion, afraid of being hurt.

Unlike children, "The Scoundrel" should be heard and not seen. This very disappointing movie has a terrific script, containing dialogue delivered the way only Noel Coward could deliver it. Those familiar with his witty, supercilious delivery are in for a treat, and the team of Hecht-MacArthur have spread enough to go around to the entire cast.

Having said that, the acting in this picture was so bad as to be almost embarrassing, overwrought to the point of ham. Coward himself seems uncomfortable when not reciting his lines and seems to say them unnaturally, as though from memory and not as an actor would. The rest of the cast follows suit and seems bedazzled by his presence.

I find it astounding that this picture won an Academy Award (Worst Idea For A Motion Picture?) as the film starts out OK but quickly descends into goofy fantasy and ultimately into maudlin burlesque. Several actors are miscast and flounder about, except for Stanley Ridges, who plays the boyfriend of the girlfriend. "The Voice", Lionel Stander, as a poet? Come on. A hit-man, maybe, but not a poet. Ditto Eduardo Ciannelli. The best that can be said, apart from the dialogue, is that it is mercifully short at 76 minutes - but bring a blindfold.

Oddly enough, for the longest time, I had believed that this movie was a recipient of the full four star rating on Leonard Maltin's film guide; ultimately, it only got three stars there, which nicely corresponds to the two allotted it by Leslie Halliwell. In any case, THE SCOUNDREL's inclusion in my ongoing Oscar marathon comes courtesy of its winning an Academy Award for Best Original Story. The sophisticated yet fanciful plot tells of a ruthless heel of a publisher who treats his equally callous writer clients terribly and his coterie of long-suffering client girlfriends abominably until he meets his comeuppance in a plane crash at sea; God allows him to return to earth for a month but, unless he can find someone there able to shed genuine tears for his demise, his soul will condemned to roam restlessly for all time.

The film marked the starring screen debut of British theatrical institution Noel Coward following a small role in D.W. Griffith's Silent WWI epic HEARTS OF THE WORLD (1918) and is notable for bringing him together with two of America's most renowned playwrights/screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (here making their sophomore directorial effort in Hollywood). For the record, Coward's erratic film career peaked with his WWII propaganda classic IN WHICH WE SERVE (1942; which he starred in, wrote, produced, composed and co-directed with a debuting David Lean!) but he did lend, albeit briefly, his legendarily suave presence to a few noteworthy films, namely Otto Preminger's BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (1965), Joseph Losey's BOOM (1968) and the cult caper comedy THE Italian JOB (1969); indeed, his only other starring role came 15 years after THE SCOUNDREL in Terence Fisher's THE ASTONISHED HEART (1950; which I own a copy of but have yet to watch).

With regards to the two directors, MacArthur only helmed three more movies, all in collaboration with Hecht – including CRIME WITHOUT PASSION (1934) and SOAK THE RICH (1936) which, again, are both in my unwatched pile; on the other hand, Hecht lasted for three more films (often in collaboration with celebrated cinematographer Lee Garmes), including SPECTER OF THE ROSE (1946) and ACTORS AND SIN (1952) which, you guessed it, I have yet to delve into. Interestingly, Garmes' name also crops up in THE SCOUNDREL where he is billed as cinematographer and "Associate Director"…as seems to have been the case with the duo's directorial debut the previous year.

The mainstay of the movie is undoubtedly Noel Coward's magnetic central performance forever quipping the vitriolic epigrams that the superb script is chock-full of. Yet, therein, lies the film's most glaring problem: being in the company of these disagreeably amoral and irredeemably cold-hearted characters – even if for a relatively slim 76 minutes – does wear the viewer down; indeed, even the one humane character here (Coward's latest conquest, a poetess played by Julie Haydon) is made to utter, "I just realized there IS a God" upon reading the newspaper headline of his death at sea! Still, having the cast peppered with a slew of Hollywood and Broadway notables helps immeasurably in removing the traces of bad taste: from Stanley Ridges to Harry Davenport (who suffer the most from Coward's egomaniacal antics) and from Lionel Stander to Edward(!) Cianelli to Alexander Woolcott (who, conversely, show the least remorse for his passing). Allegedly, the mystical final third of the film also has the directing duo and a debuting Burgess Meredith among the inhabitants of a flophouse Haydon visits in her desperate search for Ridges; although this segment might strike one as incongruously sentimental, the stylishness of the visual treatment in which it is rendered manages to smooth over such lapses in tone. In fact, according to a contemporary review of THE SCOUNDREL in "The New York Times", it is mentioned that the film fades out on a shot of "the River Styx and Mr. Coward presumably journeying across it into the great beyond" but this is nowhere to be seen in the copy I watched which ends more prosaically on a close-up of a ghostly Coward's grateful face turned upwards towards God for granting him eternal peace after all.

If you haven't seen "Crime Without Passion", the previous Ben Hecht - Charles MacArthur collaboration made in 1934, "The Scoundrel" will strike you as a particularly interesting and unusual film; if you have (like I did, yesterday no less) it will still be interesting, but you can not help but notice that the two writers-directors are essentially reworking the same main theme (and character), to the point where it sometimes feels as if you're watching the same movie (except made with less style this time). Ultimately, it's a moralistic fairy tale, but Noel Coward gives a tour-de-force performance in a rare acting gig. Warning: do not read IMDb's plot summary - it practically gives the entire movie away! **1/2 out of 4.

The Scoundrel is a fantastic film which takes the viewer on an emotional and linguistic journey that reminds one of the power of the film medium. Everything from costumes to sets and lighting changes for the darker in a brilliant way. The whole film shifts in tone radically and boldly. The character MALLARE, whom Noel Coward plays, expresses the psychology of the dark side of humanity in times of love. He articulates what few rarely say, and this makes the dialog exceptional. The perception of human nature. Hecht wrote the pseudo-decadent Huysmans homage FANTAZIUS MALLARE some years before, hence the character's name, I'd imagine. The movie dialog is rich, baroque and sardonic as well. The poet's works were clearly inspired by maxwell Bodenheim's poetry and persona and are hilarious. A real treat.