Les amours d'une canaille

George Sanders is the scoundrel in "Death of a Scoundrel," a 1956 film that, though it appears to be a low-budget, boasts a fine cast: Yvonne DeCarlo, Colleen Gray, Nancy Gates, Victor Jory, and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Supposedly the story is based on the antics and ultimate murder of Serge Rubinstein that hit the news around the time the film was made. The lead role was originally given to George Brent, but the actor became ill and couldn't do the role. Because the party scene had already been filmed, he can be spotted there.

In the beginning of the movie, Sanders, who plays Clementi Sabourni, is lying dead. One of his business associates tells his story to the police.

It begins in Czechoslovakia when Sabourni, believed to have died in a concentration camp, appears at the shop of his brother (played by Sanders' real-life brother, Tom Conway).

He wants money and his girl - except there's no money and his brother has married his girl. Furious, Sabourni turns his brother over to the Communist police for being involved in black marketeering and selling stolen goods.

In return, he gains his passage to America. His brother is killed resisting arrest. When Sabourni arrives in New York, he spots a woman (DeCarlo) stealing a wallet. Clementi picks her up and steals the wallet from her. But her husband chases him in an effort to retrieve it, and Clementi is shot. The husband is hit by a truck when Clementi pushes him into the street.

While Clementi is being treated for his bullet wound, he learns of the marvels of a new drug, penicillin. Using a check that was in the wallet, he buys stock in the company. Thus his career begins.

The film is fascinating, in part because of the deals in which Clementi masterminds, and all of the women he juggles as a result. He becomes involved with a wealthy widow (Gabor) while flirting with her aspiring actress secretary (Gates), and trying to convince the wife (Gray) of a successful businessman to divorce her husband so that he can get her stock and take over her husband's company. His schemes grow more outrageous until his brother's widow - who is also his ex-girlfriend - appears.

Zsa Zsa Gabor (a recent ex-Mrs. Sanders at the time of filming) is stunningly beautiful and delightful in her role. Lovely Colleen Gray doesn't have a large part, but she shines when on screen.

The exotic DeCarlo brings an earthiness and sarcasm as Bridget Kelly, who, though rough around the edges, is in love with Clementi and loyal to him.

Sanders is a marvel - always likable no matter how heinous his character, always smooth, and always watchable. If he's a little too old for Clementi, it doesn't matter. He still makes it work.

I don't think this would have been as good a movie with Brent in the lead. A year before his suicide, Sanders appeared in an episode of "Mission: Impossible" and played an elderly con man - magnificently dressed, proud, and elegant.

When he is defeated, the character turns into a tired old man in a matter of seconds. That is true acting, and there aren't many that can do it. Sanders could.

Don't let the black and white and the low budget fool you. "Death of a Scoundrel" is well worth viewing.

I caught this on Turner Classic Movies this morning and found it completely mesmerizing. I'm not quite sure what the other reviewer meant when he/she wrote that real people in the 50's didn't talk this way. Real people don't talk like the folks in Gilmore Girls, but I love that show. Complex, witty dialogue attracts me and this movie has it in spades. George Sander's character is an unapologetic liar, seducer, perpetrator of financial fraud, yet he remains charming and watchable at all times. I compare this to his scoundrel role in All About Eve; that character gave me the creeps when he revealed the corruption under the charm and cynicism. In Death of a Scoundrel, the character instead inspires a whole range of emotions including, finally, pity.

I laughed out loud throughout this movie, as Sanders' rogue juggles multiple women. In one scene, his servant announces a rich woman (Zsa Zsa Gabor) has come to his house unexpectedly. He quickly ushers out the woman with whom he's been having tea and romancing. Zsa Zsa comes in and while exchanging pleasantries with him picks up one of the teacups, examines it for lipstick, and says "Beautiful cup" as she sets it down.

In another scene, he is romancing a married woman and invites her to lunch the next day. She comments that he is very bold, seeing as how she is married. He replies that he finds her too fascinating not to pursue. She says, "But I am attached!", and he replies, "I don't want to attach you, I only want to borrow you for a while." Very funny, melodramatic, and eminently watchable film.

I first became aware of this movie when I bought the soundtrack composed by Max Steiner back in the 80's. With its Eastern European flavour, the score for "Death of a Scoundrel" was Steiner in top form, and as I later discovered, was one of the best things about the movie.

The film begins with Clementi Subourin (George Sanders) lying shot dead across a bed. His assistant, Bridget Kelly (Yvonne De Carlo), tells his story, which is revealed in a long flashback.

In Czechoslovakia just after WW2, Subourin returns from a concentration camp to visit his brother, played in the film by George Sanders' real-life brother, Tom Conway. After discovering that his brother has virtually forgotten him and even married the girlfriend he had asked him to protect, Subourin turns his brother over to the police for dealing on the black market.

He travels to America where he makes a fortune speculating on the stock market - mostly by questionable means. Along the way he encounters people who either become allies or more likely, enemies. Subourin is ruthless and vengeful, and has affairs with many women, often at the same time. He is a forerunner of the Wolf of Wall Street but seen through the heavy filter of 1950's censorship.

Ultimately, it all unravels and we finally learn who pumped the bullets into him.

The movie covers a lot of ground, and has a good script - for the most part. However it falls down visually. Almost totally studio bound, where a filmmaker like Val Lewton and his team could transform a cheap set into a work of art using the shadows from a shuttered window, the guys who made "Death of a Scoundrel" were masters of over-lighting.

The scenes set in Europe are the worst. It's almost as though someone found an unused storeroom at RKO and thought, "Great, this can be Czechoslovakia".

Apart from his trademark arrogance and disdain; George Sanders' character also shows nervousness, petulance and even a little contrition. It almost seems like too much acting from George. I prefer his Addison DeWitt from "All About Eve" where, although he only displays one mood, absolute superiority, it is undiluted Sanders. His back-story is also poorly thought out. After he has just been released from a concentration camp, he looks amazingly healthy - in the pink in fact. At no point does he seem to carry the baggage from the experience that Rod Steiger does in "The Pawnbroker".

The cast is full of beautiful women. Yvonne De Carlo and Zsa Zsa Gabor are foremost among them, and are numbered in the quartet of women looking down on George Sander's body in the striking poster for the film, which along with Sanders and Steiner, was another element in the sum of the parts that turned out to be greater than the whole.

Except for a few "establishing" shots here and there and a heavy dose of rear projection magic in a taxi, this film is anchored to the studio. But James Wong Howe's camera work and Max Steiner's lush and diverse (some characters have their own themes) film score, the director refuses to allow the proceedings to take on a cramped and cold feel. George Sanders as "Clementi" is a piece of work. He germinates schemes with the speed of a jack hammer, and every enterprise he embarks on is cloaked in dishonesty and unethical business practices. Stay away from him like the German measles. He tosses away women like used paper tissues. He has no problem using Yvonne DeCarlo (the narrator of the film) to seduce his clients. She is his one true friend and she loves him. Clementi is nearsighted on such matters of the heart. No matter. Zsa Zsa Gabor is around the corner. She keeps him on a short leash and scores a few minor victories. But even she can't control the evil genius for long. I think the scene at the theater was screen writing genius. Clementi, attempting another play for a woman, bankrolls a young, gifted actress in a stage play she is perfect for. After the performance, she goes back to his room and they play out that very same scene in real life, blurring reality that much more. Marvelous. I love the final speech and walk down a long flight of stairs by DeCarlo. As a former dancer, she always had a great physical presence and grace. The music is soft but builds to a crescendo. She looks one way and then another. The camera pulls back as she turns and exits the house, a policeman's silhouette in the glass door. I'm a sucker for these types of dramatic endings. Think (and watch) Michael J. Fox at the end of Casualties of War, and you'll see what I mean.

Hollywood tries to be topical when it can get away with it. This little film of 1956 is typical of the movies that George Sanders was frequently cast in the lead of (THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF BEL-AMI is a better example of this). Suave and smooth, with that baritone purr that was so full of secret threat, Sanders road it to screen stardom in a way that only Greenstreet, Rathbone, Rains, Price, Webb, Lee, and Cushing could match. And unlike the others, Sanders ended up with an Oscar for his work (as Addison DeWitt in ALL ABOUT EVE).

What is frequently forgotten about Sanders Oscar-role is that the caddish theatre critic is not the worst person in the plot. While his interest in Eve Harrington is partly due to a physical attraction (in the famous scene in the Hartford hotel room he does try to explain how he reasoned this, only to be laughed at for his pains), Addison also is a realist: Eve is a great talent - he's spotted that - and fits the roles Lloyd Richards has been writing for Margo Channing better than Margo does, because she is closer in age to those roles than Margo. In fact, Margo herself realizes that. Moreover, although his snide comments hurt Margo and her friends, he is close to them. If you remember what causes Addison to go to Hartford in the first place is the visit (off screen) by Karen Richards (Celeste Holms) to discuss their mutual problem (keeping Lloyd and Eve apart). The villain of the movie remains Eve, not Addison, and when Addison rips her apart in the hotel room the audience is not hissing Addison but cheering him along. The only one of the major figures in the film with brains and guts, he is the only one capable in tearing down Eve. In fact, as the film ends Addison even realizes that his infatuation with her was misplaced - and he sets the stage for Eve to find herself with an "Eve" of her own.

At his best roles Sanders was in total control of the film for most of the action. DEATH OF A SCOUNDREL finds him in central control as a foreign born scuzzball who claws his way to wealth at everyone else's expense, but who ends up dead from revolver bullets. As such it sounds like some other films (one or two with Zachary Scott come to mind). But this one is actually topical. There was a murder in 1955 that spurred on this Hollywood flick. I refer to the "timely" demise of Serge Rubinstein.

Like Sanders' character (who is from Czechoslovakia), Rubinstein was from Eastern Europe - from Russia. He fled that country in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution, wearing clothing that contained jewelry and money that he used to settle in France and then England. He went to Cambridge (paid for by his brother), and studied (supposedly) with the great John Maynard Keynes. Keynes (if the story is true) was so amazed by Rubinstein's grasp of economics as to predict an amazing future for him. I somehow find that hard to believe. Rubinstein was not the sort to get stuck, a la Milton Friedman, Hayek, or Paul Samuelson with charts and graphs explaining how currency fluctuations might relate to declining revenues in imports ....Rather he was a greedy bastard. He bankrupted his father (who committed suicide). He never repaid his brother (who later tried suing him to recover his money). He would go about playing with national currencies (he hurt Japan's for a couple of years), and various corporations that he plundered. He also used phony papers to avoid the draft in the U.S. (he served some times in prison). His reaction to the hisses of the wives and families of war veterans was to call them suckers.

Rubinstein loved to flaunt it, and to rub it in. He eventually made tens of thousands of enemies by his lifestyle and business methods. Then, in 1955, he was found by his valet tied up on the floor of his bedroom and strangled (not shot like Sanders is found in the movie). The New York City Police Department looked as thoroughly as possible regarding all possible suspects, but none was ever found. The case is still unsolved. The problem was summed up by one police detective who said they had narrowed it down to ten thousand suspects. Too many people had motives for the murder. Moreover most of the public would probably have been willing to award the criminal a medal.

The only thing done in the film to change Rubinstein's character is that Sanders discovers he did love one of his female victims. Before his death he telephones her to ask her forgiveness. But that is an invention of the script writers. It is doubtful that Rubinstein would ever have begged forgiveness from anyone.