The Scarlet Woman: An Ecclesiastical Melodrama

The undergraduate Evelyn Waugh would no more have wanted to write a good film than he would have wanted to earn a good degree. His priority at Oxford was to avoid being mistaken for a worthy grammar-school striver, and to act casual and slapdash at every opportunity. As for who was meant to be impressed by this time-wasting snob-act, it was probably about a dozen other members of the Hypocrites' Club at most.

The resulting 44-minute effort - silent of course, and produced to rejection standards - would not normally have survived, as its content was blatantly contemptuous of church and monarchy, so it could only have been shown in private, and its cast and crew were all young unknowns anyway. But amazingly, here it is now online, free on the house, courtesy of the BFI.

Announcing itself as an 'ecclesiastical melodrama', it is all about a plot to return England to Roman Catholicism by methods that make no sense whatever, but provide opportunities for Waugh's student buddies to giggle at a comic Pope and cardinal trying to gain influence over a burlesque George the Fifth and Prince of Wales. As the only female, Elsa Lanchester puts on a good ham-act in her first-ever film appearance, though her impression of a cocaine-user is disturbingly realistic, and Waugh himself puts on a reasonable performance in two roles (before converting to Rome himself just a few years later). The Pope is played by a certain Guy Hemingway - not the commonest surname, so we wonder whether he might have been one of that certain clan. But as for why they chose the title The Scarlet Woman, the connection with Aleister Crowley's mythical harlot-goddess remains too obscure for this critic to make out.