Scaramouche

Stewart Granger at his prettiest. Above average film and story. However the final dueling scene maybe just about the very best of its kind. Worth sitting thru the entire film for the fantastic duel between Granger and Mel Ferrer

This is a movie milestone in my life.

I have chosen this handle and this film to be my first review on this site because it was the very first film I ever watched.

However my enjoyment was limited due to the fact that I was five days old at the time. This resulted in a rather poor grasp of the plot and an overall lack of excitement from beginning to end. The story goes that the day my twin brother and I were taken home from hospital after our birth, Scaramouche was the evening film on the BBC and we were given our baths completely oblivious to the movie gem we were being treated to on our first night in our new home.

I personally do not remember this but I have been reliably informed that this is so.

Over the years however, I have acquired a great passion for the films of the golden age and Scaramouche, although not the best of films, is definitely a classic.

Stewart Granger plays Andre Moroe a free spirit, who's life has amounted to nothing more than his constant pursuit of fun and wealthy ladies in 17th Century France. However the murder of his closest friend, a revolutionist in the making, turns him into a man driven by revenge. However there is one tiny drawback as the man on whom he seeks vengeance is the best swordsman in France and Andre has never held a sword in his life. But he is determined to learn it's ways in order to meter out his terrible revenge.

Immediately taking up lessons he wastes no time in becoming an expert fencer........about half an hour in fact.

This however is for me the most entertaining part of the film as the student out-fences the teachers in a series of montage images. It also contains one of the best uses of the English Language I have ever seen on film....or maybe I'm just easily pleased.

'if i can no longer be taught by the man who taught my enemy, then what is more fitting in a mad world,than to be taught by the man who taught the man who taught my enemy' Catchy eh?

However all this time Moroe is evading the villain's men by hiding out in a circus of sorts where he has adopted the role of the masked Scaramouche.....the clown.

It is at one of his performances where Moroe comes face to face with his friends killer and in true Hollywood fashion, they duel in and out of the shocked spectators hanging over perilous ledges and high theatre balconies and of course up and down grand staircases.

Mel Ferrer is wonderful as the evil Demain and gives his role an almost Bond villain presence with his charm ans sophistication, and for love interest we have both Eleanor Parker and Janet Leigh (before she started taking showers) Yet for once Hollywood decided to put romance on the back burner and these two beauties, although great in the roles, have nothing more to do than parade around in cleavage inducing bodices, although that's fine with me. If this film is your cup of tea or not, it's worth watching for that alone.

There are other aspects of the plot which I need not go into here except that they amount to the "he was my father which makes you my sister" scenario and when the unknown brother is revealed, you will be forgiven in thinking you had tuned into a period edition of EastEnders but despite all this is definitely worth the watch.

Incidentally the final sword fight was the longest sword fight in movie history until Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta Jones fenced their way into the record books in The Mask of Zorro. They may now have the longest but Scaramouche still has the best.

The Commedia dell'Arte is an old Italian form of stage presentation, dating from the 16th century and featuring a series of stock characters like Arlecchino, Pantolone, Pulchnello, and Capitano. Everyone in the audience knew their comic weaknesses and looked forward to seeing them on display, kind of like a John Ford movie. The characters were called zanni and played practical jokes on each other (called "burle", which gives us "burlesque.") As in this movie the humor was often improvised. When the form was taken to France, Arlecchino became Harlequin, Pantalone became Pantaloon (from which we get our "pants"), Pulchinello morphed into Punch, and Capitano, a character who was a braggart soldier, was changed to Scaramouche and became an admired acrobatic mime, which suited French tastes. Sorry for the tedious introduction but it helps to get the interesting history out of the way fast.

The rest of the movie is a comic book and, like a comic book, filled with colorful people in comic-book costumes, zestful and exuberant. If you want a movie to have zip, one way of doing it is to have lots of people riding horses. But the horses should always be ridden at a gallop, and with slightly accelerated motion. (The gallops were shot partly in Golden Gate Park.) Another way of adding action is to have the lovers fight each other physically, as in "Taming of the Shrew", instead of wistfully melting into each others' arms at every meeting and parting. A third way is to build the main plot around a few well-choreographed action scenes -- and in this respect the movie is superb.

"Scaramouche" reminds one of Errol Flynn at his best, in "The Adventures of Robin Hood." Instead of Saxons and Normans, we have aristocrats and poor people. (Fortunately the Saxons in "Robin Hood" didn't win a revolution and implement a reign of terror.) The aristocrats dress in outrageously ornate costumes. The poor people are in dark clothes, like the figure on the Quaker Oats package.

There's quite a lot of fencing but much of it is brief and in long shot. There are three main encounters between Stewart Granger and his nemesis Mel Ferrer. Granger is manly and well built and forceful in his style. Ferrer is long-limbed and lanky, deceptively clumsy at times, but he has never given a more graceful physical performance.

In the first match between the two, Granger knows nothing about the sword and hacks away at Ferrer, who stands there nonchalantly, smiling, leaning on his weapon as if it were a walking stick between easy parries. In the second, Granger has picked up a few tricks but is still easily outmatched and has to escape through one of those secret doors in a paneled wall. The third match is more than six minutes long and is as well staged as any duel on screen -- better than anything in "Robin Hood" and at least as good as "The Mark of Zorro." Granger swings off the stage on a rope to confront Ferrer who is in the theater balcony. And you should see Stewart's wardrobe in this scene! Unbelievable skin-tight leotards, white boots with furry tops, a white cape -- everything -- mostly white with black accents. Ferrer strips off his jacket and is dressed in black shoes and stockings, black pants, black vest, and a white blouse with ruffles, mostly black, that is. (I warned you this was a comic book.) The ensuing duel wanders all over the theater while the spectators tumble out of the actors' way. Note the scene where the advantage changes from Ferrer to Granger when the fight moves from the bottom of the stairs to the rows of theater seats. Ferrer does an almost impossible balletic leap from one row to the next, twirling around in midair. (Another footnote: original ballet steps borrowed heavily from contemporary fencing movements. Sorry.)

The movie has its sad moments too, and the plot is a bit complicated although never hard to follow. But its overall tonus is comedic, as befits Scaramouche's venue. Granger may not be Errol Flynn but he's pretty good, and a better actor. The two women in his life are adequate, but Janet Leigh was a beginner and it shows. She was to be better in some later movies like "Psycho." She looks like a porcelain doll in some shots. The supporting players are all professionally competent.

It's an entertaining and well-crafted piece of entertainment -- exciting and vibrant with color. A comic book worth checking out.

I recently saw this movie again on cable - it is a wonderful mixture of period romantic adventure with examples of great comedia del'arte and... especially... the best fencing scenes ever put on film. Both Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer were excellent swordsmen and their final confrontation is a brilliant tour de force. Watch it just for this sequence - remember it was made in 1953 and is still highly enjoyable.

In Scaramouche Stewart Granger hides among a troupe of strolling players while vowing vengeance upon Mel Ferrer who killed Granger's foster brother Richard Anderson. Vengeance however is not a simple matter.

Mel Ferrer plays a foppish privileged aristocrat, favorite of the French Queen Marie Antoinette who's got a deadly blade and killed many a rival, political and personal. Who he has in his sights now is Anderson who is another aristocrat, but a minor one who has taken to hanging out with revolutionaries and publishing incendiary pamphlets.

Ferrer is like a hired gun in the old west, the kind who would goad some poor schnook into a draw and then kill him in 'self defense'. He's unpopular, but damned effective. For Granger to take him on, he's going to have to learn the art of fencing and learn it quickly.

Granger has two women who love him as well, Eleanor Parker from the troupe of players and Janet Leigh another aristocrat who in this case has been promised to wed Ferrer. That gives the Granger-Ferrer rivalry an added incentive for both men to kill the other.

The sets on Scaramouche were quite lavish, why they weren't considered for an Oscar nomination is a mystery. The cast settles nicely into familiar roles and performs well. Elizabeth Risdon and Lewis Stone play Anderson's parents and Granger's guardian. They get a stipend from Granger's unknown father to conceal his origins. The last three films for Lewis Stone, this one, The Prisoner of Zenda and All The Brothers Were Valiant were all done with Stewart Granger.

Scaramouche is a nice tale of adventure and romance in those final days before the French Revolution. It's interesting to speculate just how all these characters might have survived the coming Reign Of Terror in a few years. Things got so insane in France then, it's anybody's guess. One could write all kinds of speculation.

Still I would speculate and still enjoy Scaramouche.