The Scoundrel

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.

Watching Noel Coward in an extremely unsympathetic role is interesting in itself. He does well, too. Julie Haydon is good as the innocent woman he seduces.The supporting cast is fine.

The editor Coward plays is shockingly cruel. He knows he is and revels in it. But the movie takes an unfortunate turn: Without revealing anything, I will say that it turns from cold-hearted and dark to mystical. Hecht was a brilliant screenwriter, and Charles MacArthur, his co-director, was a fine playwright as well. But I think one "Specter Of The Rose" is enough. "The Scoundrel" is better than that movie but it veers uncomfortably close to it.

Because so many talented people worked on "The Scoundrel", it pains me to say that this film doesn't work and some parts of it are laughably bad.

Noël Coward plays a character based on Horace Liveright, a (real-life) New York publisher and playboy who was a vicious S.O.B. and an inept businessman; Liveright died broke and friendless. That's not quite what happens to Coward in this movie.

"The Scoundrel" is a fantasy, but we don't find this out until about halfway through the film ... and in a flashback, worse luck. Coward dies and comes back as a ghost, and (unlike in "The Sixth Sense") he KNOWS he's a ghost. After returning from the dead, the first thing he does is go back to his office and perform a long dull dialogue scene with his employees, without bothering to tell them that he's dead. I haven't given away any spoilers here, because this film has very little worth spoiling. Coward delivers all of his dialogue in a slow lugubrious tone. He spends the second half of the movie as a ghost, but he's equally lifeless in the first half.

"The Scoundrel" has a low budget and several continuity errors. It was filmed in New York City (at the Astoria studio) but there are no vintage shots of NYC locations; one street scene is a painfully obvious interior set.

The notorious drama critic Alexander Woollcott appears in a tiny role (basically playing himself), but he's on screen just long enough to prove he's no actor. Lionel Stander (better known as Max from "Hart to Hart") shows up briefly to sip champagne with Coward. This makes Lionel Stander the only actor who worked with both Noël Coward and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. I don't recommend "The Scoundrel" unless you're intensely interested in any of the actors or writers who worked on this film ... all of whom did better work in other films.

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.

"When a book and an head come into contact, and one sounds hollow. Is it always the book?". Noël Coward is the rather superior publisher "Tony" who is surrounded by acolytes who are little more interested in him than he is in them. Even his most loyal stalwarts are mere pawns in his successful business. Then he meets the down-to-earth "Cora" (Julie Haydon) whose approach to his caddish behaviour leads him to believe that she has to be girl for him. She has no intentions on that front though, and absconds to Bermuda. He sets of in pursuit but, well you know what they say about that triangle! Now he has one month to get someone to cry a genuine tear for him else he will face a fate worse than death. He realises now, as do we, just how false his life has been and at how shallow a character "Tony" is, but unless he can manage to find "Cora"... Though sometimes quite witty, this is still a little wordy for the first half hour. Coward exudes a superciliousness and pomposity right from the get go, so I'm not sure we needed too much more of the character establishment part, but once we reach the more metaphysical aspects of the story, it becomes quite a poignant look at hypocrisy and double standards, venality and yes, even a little pity and love. As to the miracle, well that's down to a gently effective effort from Haydon who actually does well to make her presence felt in the ambit of Coward.