Provincial University professor from England chances to meet his diabolical, selfish twin while on vacation in Paris. Daphne Du Maurier's novel gets a highly polished screen-treatment, with star Alec Guinness very fine in the dual role, the split-screen photography and editing pulled off with skill. After being tricked into assuming the French nobleman's eccentric life, the teacher finds himself settling well into this new role as a business tycoon and family man--until his glinty-eyed look-alike returns. Bette Davis has a small but important, amusing role as a dowager Countess, and there's also a wreck of a wife, a wise little girl, a loyal chauffeur, and an Italian mistress. Gore Vidal worked on the adaptation, and the literate script is absorbing yet constricting for the teacher-character (he can only attempt to explain so much without throwing the whole plot off-course). There's a lot of talk in the early stages that the Count is delusional and perhaps schizophrenic, all of which is quickly dropped once the teacher assumes his life. Still, it's a smartly-planned movie, one without hysterics or false dramatics. Guinness seems a bit uncomfortable at times, though this may have been intentional and is acceptable behavior here. A very entertaining film with some weak or disappointing passages, but just as many adept ones and a satisfying finish. *** from ****
Add a Review
-
l_rawjalaurence20 October 2013Based on a Daphne du Maurier source-text, THE SCAPEGOAT is very much in the tradition established by Hamer's more famous earlier film KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949), also starring Guinness. In this film Guinness plays two roles; that of a mild-mannered university teacher whose identity is stolen by a rakish French aristocrat. The university teacher takes over the aristocrat's life, and proves rather good at it; so much so that he does not want to recover his old life when the aristocrat asks him to. The climax is a violent one. Hamer's film, although set in France, takes a particularly English approach to death; the performances are quietly understated, and the atmosphere of menace restrained. Bette Davis seems rather out of place in a cameo role as the aristocrat's mother; her grande dame performance, complete with rolling New England vowels, contrasts starkly with that of Guinness. The ending is a bit peremptory, betraying the fact that THE SCAPEGOAT was not without its production difficulties, especially when scriptwriter Gore Vidal had to deal with an increasingly alcoholic director. Nonetheless THE SCAPEGOAT is definitely worth a view, if only for Guinness' versatility as an actor.
-
blanche-212 August 2005We've seen it done a hundred times - twins switching identities - but somehow, having Alec Guinness as the twins makes The Scapegoat a cut above the other switch films. Guinness, of course, played multiple roles with great success in the fantastic Kind Hearts and Coronets, so twins for him must have seemed a cinch. In Kind Hearts, he had the benefit of a variety of disguises and voices. In this film, he had to create two completely different characters who look exactly alike. Of course he does so magnificently.
This isn't the most successful DuMaurier adaptation - that honor has to go to Rebecca, in my book, but The Scapegoat has a strong cast - Guinness, Bette Davis, Irene Worth, Pamela Brown, and the lovely Nicole Maurey. The atmosphere of this black and white film is somewhat depressing, given the gargantuan, ugly home the family resides in - but it is certainly the right mood for what Guinness inherits when his double disappears. Bette Davis is good, if on the grand guignol side. Guinness does so much with just a gesture, her histrionics seem out of place. All in all, it's a good film - it's very hard to go wrong when Alec Guinness is involved. -
gleywong4 April 2003As part of a birthday celebration of the late Sir Alec, TCM placed this seldom shown character study in between two hilarious Guinness farces, "Hotel Paradiso" and "All at Sea." In combination with "The Malta Story," "Scapegoat" allowed Guiness to indulge both his more serious dramatic inclinations as well as play another double role, something for which he was a master. His "Kind Hearts and Coronets" is the tour de force of this genre of multiple identities.
This adaptation of Du Maurier's novel has also the advantage of five strong female leads, three of them, Bette Davis, Irene Worth and Pamela Brown, known in their own right for their dramatic achievement. Actually, all of the supporting roles are excellently cast, even to the faithful manservant, Gaston, and especially the count's precocious and very articulate daughter.
Bette Davis, as the matriarch, sets the tone for neurotic tyranny in this family; but it is a role that could have been less of a caricature if Dame Wendy Hiller had played it instead (See Dame Wendy in "Murder on the Orient Express" for the epitome of "noblesse oblige.") In the role of the wife, Irene Worth gains some of our sympathy as the high-strung and beautiful, sensitive but persecuted spouse unable to give the count a male heir. Her mobile and expressive face is a perfect foil to Guiness's stoic reserve.
As the count's sister, Pamela Brown's natural reticence and grave air, her huge luminous eyes and rich voice (which can be savored in an earlier role in "I Know Where I'm going") made her a likely choice in the role of a sibling, however, the differences she shares with her brother are not resolved nor explained, neither is her motivation for being so antagonistic toward him. In other words, through the eliptical, somewhat ambiguous dialogue, there is a history or subtext of sibling rivalry of which we must remain ignorant. (Perhaps the novel delineated this more clearly.)
Despite the strong and balanced cast, I found the ending a surprise and a slight disappointment. For me it failed to resolve Guiness's relationship with the other females save one, his lover. Therefore, despite the putative attempt to plumb his character, it remained an identity problem hardly more than skin deep. Still, all in all, it is a fascinating attempt and a rare chance to see Guinness in a noncombative drama with strong females, somewhat like a diamond set among a ruby, emerald and pearl.
Of four stars, definitely a strong three*** for the excellent cast. -
I was lucky enough to see this movie during a TCM Bette Davis Marathon. Although her part is relatively small, I was thrilled to see Sir Alec Guinness in a very unusual story. He encounters a man that is for all purposes identical to him. They drink, go to his apartment, and in the morning one is gone leaving the other one to fill in his shoes at home. At first of course he protests- saying he is John Barrat. But the Count has made sure that no one will listen by telegraphing his doctor that he's been having delusions that he's someone else. Being a man that really had no one that cared about him to begin with, he decides to go on with the charade. The plot thickens from there on. Good story & a fine supporting cast make this an interesting murder mystery. Enjoy it if you can find it. (TCM is short for Turner Classic Movies cable station.) It is worth note that this story is by the same author of Hitchcock's Rebecca- another murder mystery worth viewing & much easier to find.
-
HotToastyRag11 November 2020This movie has such an interesting premise, I almost don't want to tell you about it. As it unfolds, the twists and turns will keep you on your toes from start to finish. Let's start off with the least surprising part of the movie: Alec Guinness plays dual roles. He loves disguises, so it's no wonder he was drawn to The Scapegoat. One Alec Guinness is wealthy, titled, living in luxury with a wife, stepdaughter, and mistress. The other is an inconsequential college professor with apathy for everything in his life. When one Alec keeps getting mistaken for the other, he's confused. When he finally sees his own reflection looking back at him from across the bar, he gets to know the man he might have been. It's very fun, with trick camera angles, and reminds us of all the eight roles he played in Kind Hearts and Coronets.
Well, I've made up my mind: I won't tell you the plot. All you need to know is that it's a tense thriller with two Alec Guinnesses. This is far from an Ealing comedy, so don't expect to laugh. There is one sad part to the movie, one you should be aware of if you're a Bette Davis fan and don't want to see her in her Baby Jane phase. She plays a bedridden morphine addict, and her over-the-top acting style is as out of place in the late '50s as it was in the '60s. I prefer to see her in her prime, but it was still great to see Alec playing his two parts. Check it out! -
herzogvon9 August 2005Alec Guinness once again plays a dual role. In this one, his two personas are that of a wicked French count and a benign Englishman. Despite some interesting supporting cast, including a very Baby Janeish Bette Davis, the story seems somehow only half told, and the two Guinness characters remain frustratingly underdeveloped. We sense a conflict between good and evil, but we are never made to understand why this is nor how it came about. The ending is frustrating in the extreme.
I decided to write this primarily to point out the appearance of Donald Pleasence as a desk clerk. Up till now, he remains uncredited.
All of this said, I would still recommend watching this oddity the next time it happens to come around. It is Alec Guinness, afterall. -
khunkrumark14 February 2017The Scapegoat has flown under the radar over the years and while it's not a classic movie, it is pretty compelling. Just watching the glorious Bette Davis carve up the scenery without moving a muscle is worth your time alone!
Actually; the entire cast is exemplary....
Peter Sallis (you'll recognize the voice/face) makes a very brief appearance at the beginning of the movie as a customs inspector. He must be 100 years old by now! Geoffrey Keen is sublime as the manservant, Gaston. For me, though, the irascible daughter steals this movie and makes it her own. The jolly hockey sticks are strong with this one!
An odd beginning and an unsatisfying ending...
I haven't read the book, but it's never clear to me if the innocent French teacher on holiday in France was deliberately set up way in advance or he really did just meet his doppelganger by chance and allow himself to be dragged into this vortex of intrigue.
But that aside, when John Barrat eventually arrives at the large house and is welcomed as Jacques De Gue, that rather messy start is forgiven and forgotten.
And the ending also fails to satisfy completely, too. I'd like to have seen how his future gets worked out with his adopted family. Instead, we see him snogging his mistress.
It's nice to see France as it once was and how I remember it in my childhood on holidays. Quiet, with serene cobbled streets and ancient houses. I can still remember the powerful smell of fresh French bread in the mornings... What a shame all that is now gone.
Sir Alec underplays his part and casually strolls through the fantastic situation that he's been thrust into. I'd like to have seen David Niven have a shot at this. I think he would have made this movie a lot more exciting... but it is what it is and it's still a pretty interesting way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon! -
joachimokeefe5 April 2008I read the book years before I saw this on TCM; the book is a typical Daphne duMaurier shaggy dog story with plenty of intrigue but no satisfactory resolution. The film is faithful to the book in that way, and it might have been far more effective to dispense with the (albeit well done) melodramatic dual character scene at the end and resolve it another, more ambiguous way. There's plenty in The Scapegoat of interest otherwise; a sprawling château to die for, an amazing car, supporting stiff-upper-lip Brit cast pretending to be Franch aristos pitching the scenery-chewing just right, and Bette Davis, presumably in the days she couldn't get arrested in the States, being as John/Jacques says, 'sulphurous'. If you catch it, try to work out whether all the cars are (UK-style) right-hand drive or not. BTW, my EX father-in-law George Lloyd was the man who made the caged-bird musical box. A real shame about the 'with one bound, he was free' ending.
-
bregund3 May 2008Alec Guinness is in top form here, playing dual roles: one a jaded, aimless teacher on holiday in Paris from GB (Barratt), the other an oily, manipulative French count (De Gue). His performance in both roles is understated; one can imagine that in preparation for this film he read du Maurier's book and easily slipped into character, as he did for so many of his other films. One can feel his delight at meeting his exact double in a Parisian bar, and he laughs and gets loaded in what must be the first time in years. He wakes up the next morning in a hotel room, where he is mistaken for his guest.
At first he's annoyed and protests vehemently, even when driven all the way out to his twin's country château. Everyone thinks he's gone over the edge. Given a few days he makes a game of the whole thing, wondering how long he can fool everyone before he's found out. In a few weeks he has grown accustomed to his new life, develops a fondness for his "wife" and "child", and brings a social conscience to the family by insisting that a failing company remain open, so that dozens of people can keep their jobs. It's a life-changing transformation not just for the family but for Barratt, who realizes he has finally found what he's looking for.
De Gue's dark motives are revealed later when he needs an alibi, and Barratt realizes he has been a patsy.
This movie is kind of stiff and formal, but on the other hand the actors are playing people who probably act like that all the time. Bette Davis, in a weird cameo role, injects a dose of much-needed bitchiness as De Gue's mother, the drug-addicted matriarch of the family. Robert Osborne on TCM said that Davis hated working with Guinness, well big surprise there, was there anyone that she loved working with? -
marktayloruk28 August 2019I intend to read the book. Ending should have been more ambiguous - and wonder what happened next? Wouldn't his university have wondered- and the dog seemed to know,too.Hope he stayed on anyway-pity young Annabelle didn't do any more acting.
-
Although most Americans have little knowledge of his work other than Star Wars, Alec Guinness produced an amazing body of work--particularly in the 1940s-1950s--ranging from dramas to quirky comedies. I particularly love his comedies, as they are so well-done and seem so natural and real on the screen--far different from the usual fare from Hollywood.
I liked this movie a lot--the acting and direction were superb. The only downside is that the movie uses a rather tired old movie cliché--that of identical strangers who switch parts. It's been done with The Prince and the Pauper as well as The Prisoner of Zenda. So to get into the movie, you really need to first suspend your sense of disbelief. Once you've done this and do not question the basic premise, you are rewarded with an excellent little film well worth your time. -
ulicknormanowen11 April 2020On the subject of the impostor ,Du MAURIER's"the scapegoat " is equaled only by Josephine TEY's "Brat Farrar "
In spite of its huge appeal,the novel was completely implausible: it's impossible for a man to take a lookalike 's place whitout nobody noticing a change of voice,of manners ,of behavior ;Tey smartly used an eight-year gap ,which makes the story likelier.
And however ,Du Maurier's novel is gripping ,from start to finish ,and I dare you to leave it before finishing ;it has undergone some changes ,sometimes wisely ,sometimes less so; to make the hero a man who suffers from personality disorders makes sense ,because the impostor denies his identity in front of his family (which he didn't in the book);and the murderer 's alibi is a good trick,although thoroughly invented by Gore Vidal and his collaborator .
But the novel is dense ,and to include almost everything in a 100-minute film is a feat in itself :it's not always successful : the girlie/Blanche relationship ,which verged on bigotry on the paper is only skimmed over ; the affair of the contract with the doomed foundry is botched .And the ending,with the de rigueur happy end is disappointing.
Fortunately ,Sir Guiness shines in his double part ;Bette Davis has a small but effective supporting part ,looking forward to getting her little "present" ;Nicole Maurey in a French actress who never really made it big in her homeland ,but her English is perfect ; the atmosphere of a French town is well depicted .
In fact ,Du Mauriers's book needs a miniseries ,the thing they dId with "Brat Farrar" in which the same actor played both parts too;the action is too hurried for comfort ,and the screenplay is sometimes fizzy. -
TheLittleSongbird13 March 2020There was more than one reason for wanting to see 'The Scapegoat'. Alec Guinness was an enormously versatile actor who played two or more characters in the same film better than a lot of actors (i.e. his tour-de-force work in 'Kind Hearts and Coronets'). Also have always hugely admired Bette Davis and really like to love many of her performances. Daphne DuMaurier was a fine author, and while adaptations of her work varied some of them are truly fine indeed (i.e. 1940's 'Rebecca').
Sadly, 'The Scapegoat' is really not one of her better adaptations. Not an awful film by all means, but its troubled production (most of it revolving around Davis, apparently intolerable to work with with almost nobody being on her good side) is evident all over it throughout and only Guinness and composer Bronislau Kaper come off completely unscathed. Everybody did much better work before and since, for me in particular Davis' performance, coming up to her twilight years period, is one of her worst and it is a shame because she was one fine actress.
Guinness does a noble job in his two roles, underplaying without looking uncomfortable or bored. Irene Worth, Nicole Maurey and Pamela Brown do well with what they have, their characters could have been written with more meat but Worth particularly makes the most of it. 'The Scapegoat' is nicely and professionally made, especially the photography with seamless work done with making the double roles not too obvious.
Kaper's score is both beautiful (with a sumptuously orchestrated but not gloopy love-like theme) and ominous, with shades of Rachmaninov in the piano writing in the main and end title music. Not overbearing what goes on. Enough of the script intrigues and once the film gets going it doesn't feel overly wordy.
It takes time to get going however and some of the plotting later on in the film gets over-complicated and muddled. The book's plot is pretty complex too but not to this extent. Robert Hamer's terrible struggles behind the scenes shows in his direction, which is too often ill at ease and pedestrian.
On the most part, 'The Scapegoat' could have done with a lot more edge and suspense, of which there is not enough of here and they were things that were very much there in the book. The ending takes ambiguity way too far with things crying out for resolution that didn't come and it confused the film even more. As good an actress Davis was, her outrageous hamminess here felt like it came from another film as it really didn't gel with everything else.
Concluding, am very mixed on this film. Has its strengths but too many big problems. 5/10 -
GManfred2 July 2013"The Scapegoat" starts out with a clever premise and the promise of intrigue, but soon settles down as a character study marked by good, solid acting. Alec Guinness is the star with a dual role, first as a drab professor with an empty life, and then as the scion of a wealthy family who parties, womanizes and neglects his family. They meet and decide to switch places. The professor now has a life, but the rich guy vanishes.
Now follows an absorbing story, based on a novel by Daphne DuMaurier, as the professor enjoys his new surroundings and tries to inject some heart and purpose into his new life, which arouses some suspicions. This may have been a novella fleshed out to a feature-length movie, and I say this because the picture does go on, and the pace is somewhat sluggish - that is, until the surprise ending.
Guinness, Irene Worth and Nicole Maurey put this British/MGM film over with superb acting, with an enlarged cameo by Bette Davis. "The Scapegoat" is something of a departure for Alec Guinness as he gets to show off his considerable acting chops, and there are no comic interludes to be found. The viewer is kept in the dark regarding a solution until the very end, and the end is worth the preceding 90 minutes. -
. . . as a lack of affect infects BOTH of his indistinguishable characterizations in THE SCAPEGOAT. "John" is plagued by boredom, and "The Count" suffers from ennui, which hardly makes for a riveting picture. Apparently "Bela" (the Count's mistress) can tell them apart because one of these johns is cut, but Bela's off-screen discovery does nothing to help viewers distinguish between two of the most phlegmatic personages ever expected to carry a plot. At least REBECCA kept us guessing until the end as to whether it was Col. Mustard in the boathouse with a sea anchor or Elvira Gulch in the attic with her candlestick. But since MGM's trailer for the Picturization of Daphne the Muddier's later pin-the-tail-on-the-scapegoat novel contends that this yarn "is Twice as Exciting on the screen" as it is in the book, viewers are likely to rush out of Revival Theater Showings eager to ditch any unread Book-of-the-Month Club copies of THE SCAPEGOAT in their nearest Goodwill Recycling Bin.
-
SnoopyStyle22 September 2022Disillusioned English schoolteacher John Barratt (Alec Guinness) is on vacation in Paris. He encounters his doppelganger, French nobleman Jacques De Gué. After a night of drinking, John sleeps it off in Jacques' hotel room. Jacques is running a scheme for unknown reasons. John wakes up alone and with Jacques' clothing the next morning. Jacques' driver comes in and mistakes John for Jacques.
Initially, I thought I saw this movie before and then I realized that I saw the 2012 remake. I continue to have issue with the logic of the premise but it's a different set of issues in this one. I can't buy that an Englishman gets mistaken for a French noble. He may look the same, but he can't sound the same. I do buy that John is more amenable to be someone else since he's so depressed about being himself. This premise needs some more careful planning. Alec Guinness helps immensely. He makes anything reasonable, and he is fully capable here. He's able to stay on this road despite all twists and turns. -
aratron-0039111 September 2022Excellent performances from all involved. A Mystery with dramatic and comedic elements with some dark turns. I plan to read the book it was based on . There is also a 2012 remake I want to watch . Good direction with a stand out performance from Bette Davis.. What I liked about it was how they unfolded each family members problems and dynamics.. Nice score and set designs.. The story is farfetched but moved along nicely. Very enjoyable film and highly recommend it.. Shocking how people can be so sinister and greedy................
I am Glad I got to watch it on TCM. A must see for fans of classic film. -
ygwerin129 February 2024I came across this movie quite by chance, I'm watching it as a fan of Alec Guinness, and because I have never heard of it.
It also features the American movie legend Bette Davis, I've never seen any of her movies, and I had no idea that they had ever appeared together in a film.
Guinness appears here in multiple roles, not as in his famous movie, Kind Hearts and Coronets.
But as doppelgängers two complete strangers, meeting entirely by accident.
John Barratt and Jacques De Gue appear together only briefly. The whole point being that, they are meant to appear identical to one another.
There are several English actors that I had hitherto, only seen in television programmes. Geoffrey Keen as Gaston, Noel Howlett as Dr. Aoin, Peter Bull as Aristide. Together with Eddie Byrne as the barman, and Peter Sallis as a customs official. -
steven_torrey19 August 2016I saw the movie as a great psychological thriller. (It is available on YouTube.) Alec Guinness plays deadpan, dual and twin role of John Barratt and Jacque De Gué. They accidentally meet while John Barratt, a teacher of French in a British school, is visiting Paris and they both realize how similar they look. Jacque, bored and overwhelmed by family dynamics wants out of his own life, drugs John, and replaces John's passport with Jacque's; and John Barratt is forced to take on the role of Jacque De Gué; however much he initially protests, he soon acquiesces to the switch since no one wants to believe the bizarre story of being a replacement.
The story worked. The supporting cast were more than adequate to the task. The story line and characters were sufficiently complex to be riveting.
But finally, Jacque De Gué reappears. His resolution is to shoot John Barratt dead. Just prior to this, John Barratt had deliberately harmed his right hand to get out of a shooting contest, which would give the game away.
So at the end, there is something of a duel with each other; but only one survives. What one survives? One clue is the bandaged hand; but Jacque De Gué could have replicated a bandage on his own hand. To me the telling moment came with the lack at the end of internal monologue/narrative that John Barratt had engaged in as the movie unfolded to explain motivation. That lack seemed to suggest that Jacque De Gué did indeed shoot to death John Barratt. But like all good mystery films, the ambiguity adds to the suspense. -
journeygal4 December 2019Sir Alec Guiness plays two roles in this movie--teacher John Barratt and French nobleman, Jacques De Gue. John lives a solitary life, no spouse, no children. Jacques, on the other hand has a wife who no longer loves him, a high and haughty mother, a strange daughter and a spinster sister who lives with them. Oh, and a mistress. He also owns a beleaguered glassworks that he dare not close down or it will harm several longtime employees. Jacques is tired of all this. He does not want to remain in his bitter marriage but must, as his wife's money is how they keep the big estate afloat. So he hatches a convoluted but genius way to get what he wants...
Poor John keeps getting mistaken for someone else and is confused, until he meets that someone else face to face. Jacques gets him drunk, then takes him to the inn he is staying at to let John sleep it off.
John is awakened the next morning by Jacques' man, Gaston, who thinks his master is trying to pull a fast one when he claims he is not who Gaston thinks he is. Before John can pull himself together, he is bustled off to the estate, where his pleas fall on deaf ears. Even those closest to him think it is Jacques.
John attempts to leave, but is sucked into the family drama. His mother is wonderfully played by Bette Davis. She only has a few scenes but she has the attitude to pull off both a snooty countess and a raging morphine junkie. Yep, mommy is addicted and cannot live without her hits. Thankfully, Jacques did not forget her and included a large supply of the stuff to calm her down.
Jacques also had three other gifts sent along. His daughter, the artistic Marie Noel, is given paints. Francoise, his wife, is almost shamed when she opens a lovely music box that plays "their" song. You can visibly seeing her soften toward him. Then Marie-Noel looks at the third gift, which simply has the initial "B" on it. She assumes it is for her dour aunt, Blanche, but the card message is confusing. It's a bottle of expensive perfume with the note about using it on the horses if she doesn't like it. The two older women know it is not for Blanche, but for Jacques' mistress, Bela. Any good feeling the music box might have evoked disappears in an instant.
John could easily hitch a ride back to town as he is not being held against his will. Far from it, as he takes his daughter to a lesson and goes to visit Jacques's mistress. She also cannot tell John is a reluctant imposter.
John quickly settles into Jacques's life, and it looks as if he is integrating himself into the household with plans to stay. He is an improvement over Jacques, obviously, and it seems as if John is content with stepping into his shoes. Jacques, however, did not set up this thing without an ulterior motive. He comes back to reclaim the life he left behind, but to do so he needs to murder a few people. Francoise, so he can inherit all her money and live the way he wants and John, of course, who knows too much. Poor Francoise meets an untimely demise, but John and Jacques face off with one another. We hear a gunshot and...which one survives? -
bkoganbing20 September 2020According to Piers Paul Reid's biography nobody got along with anybody involved with the making of The Scapegoat. Not star Alec Guinness, director Robert Hamer, author Daphne DuMaurier and screenwriter Gore Vidal. Maybe had everyone been in sync The Scapegoat might have turned out better and been one of Guinness's classic films.
Like Kind Hearts And Coronets, Guinness has more than one role. He's both a teacher of French at an English school on holiday in France and a French count for whom he is a double.
After a night's carousing with his twin English Alec wakes hung over wih identification gone and the French Guinness's in its place. With no reasonable explanation to offer English Alec decides to enjoy the life of a French noble.
Those includ wife Irene Worth, Sister Pamela Brown, Annabel Bartlett and a demanding mistress Nicole Maurey the only French person in a film set in France..
As Guinness gets acclimated to a new identity he really gets involved with the family and their problems. But when Worth is killed in a fall while he's away from the family chateau, one Guinness realizes the other is setting him up.
Watching The Scapegoat I was expecting some sophisticated comic lines to emerge. This being an Alec Guinness film. It never developed that way, but several times it seemed on the brink.
Bette Davis plays French Alec's grande dame of a mother and the role is done in grand Bette Davis style. According to the Guinness biography Davis disliked everybody on the set and it was like she was giving them all acting lessons.
If everyone had been in tandem The Scapegoat could have been a better film. -
JohnHowardReid3 April 2018Producer: Michael Balcon. Executive producers: Daphne Du Maurier, Alec Guinness. Copyright August 1959 by Du Maurier-Guinness Productions. Released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. New York opening at the Guild: 6 August 1959. U.S. release: August 1959. U.K. trade premiere: August 1959. Australian release: 22 October 1959. Sydney opening at the Liberty. 92 minutes.
NOTES: Location scenes filmed in the Loire Valley, France.
COMMENT: Newsweek headed their review of the book with the caption, "Take Me Back to Manderlay". Indeed, there are so many echoes of Rebecca in the film, it often seems the sprawling chateau and its atmospheric surrounds is the real star of the movie rather than Mr Guinness, or rather two of Mr Guinness who revels in the cleverly crafted split screen special effects. Mind you, that is all to the good, for neither Guinness is terribly convincing. Not all his fault, either. The book takes great pains to point out that the Barrett character can speak French like a native. And what does Mr Guinness speak? English! Not a word of French, would you believe, in either of his incarnations. The same goes for the rest of the cast. British accents all around. In fact the only person who has a foreign accent is the lovely Nicole Maurey.
Still, that is a convention I guess we have to put up with. But even suspending our disbelief, the film still presents insoluble problems. The plot seems not only confused and confusing, but takes an interminable time to get under way. It is Miss Maurey, of course, who makes the picture worth watching. Despite her star billing, Miss Davis has only two or three scenes. It is is young Annabel Bartlett who enjoys the principal female role, though Irene Worth (as the wife) and Pamela Brown (as the sister) are allowed to share in the histrionics.
The Scapegoat is one of those rare movies that actually play better (at least in a wide-screen format) on television where the viewer can relax in comfort and doesn't really care how long the plot takes to make itself clear, or how talkative and slow-moving it all is. True, attractively atmospheric scenery and a fair dollop of production values help too. -
whpratt15 May 2008Glad I finally was able to see this great film from 1959 with a great performance by Alex Guinness, (John Braratt/DeGue) who plays a duel role and is completely outstanding in his great acting abilities. Betty Davis, (Countess) gives a great supporting role and from what I had read, Davis & Guinness did not get along very well during the filming of this film. John Braratt is a professor of French who teaches at a college and runs into a man who looks exactly like him and this other man, DeGue drugs Braratt and leaves him in a hotel with all his passports and clothing. John Braratt gets all caught up in DeGue's family involving a wife, daughter, sister-in-law and his mistress. As the film progresses forward he seems to be enjoying his new role. Great acting and a must see film.
-
bigverybadtom15 August 2017The premise is contrived to begin with: a British professor vacationing in Paris happens to meet a French count who looks and sounds just like him. They converse in a bar, and the professor admits having a dull and empty life while the count has had a very full life. The count tricks the professor into staying at a hotel room, and in the morning, the count disappears, leaving the professor to be mistaken for the count. The professor tries to convince the count's family and associates that he is not really the count, but nobody believes him, and he is forced to play the count's role, dealing with his family, the glass foundry the count owns, and the count's friends and mistresses. The professor's behavior and attitudes differ than that of the real count, but only one of the mistresses puts two and two together.
Akin to Monty Python, the movie is played straight, and the performers all play their parts well. The movie would undoubtedly have come crashing down if it weren't for that. The movie is in fact based on a novel by Daphne DuMarier, whose plot is quite more complicated.