Il capro espiatorio

As 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.

Based 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.

There 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

Glad 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.

Alec 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.