Scandale à Paris

"A Scandal in Paris" is a 1946 film starring George Sanders, Akim Tamiroff, Signe Hasso, and Carole Landis. Directed by Douglas Sirk, it's based on the memoirs of François-Eugène Vidocq, a thief who became the Chief of Police in the 18th Century. The story begins with Francois being born in a jail and covers his European escapades. At one point, he poses for a painting of St. George and rides off on the horse he sits on; later, a marquise's granddaughter (Hasso) falls in love with the face in the painting and recognizes him when he comes to stay with her grandmother...and steal her jewels.

A very witty script that is perfect for the elegant, handsome Sanders. This role seems tailor-made for him. The beautiful Carole Landis plays one of his victims, a showgirl with a valuable garter. Sadly, by this time, her career had really stalled out. She's still a bright and glamorous presence. Hasso is an odd choice for an ingénue role, though she does a good job.

Entertaining film, particularly because of George Sanders.

I was already a fan of George Sanders - but this film really gives him the witty language that he can spin under his breath better than any actor in movies. The story itself is far more interesting in its twists and turns than expected. Listen carefully - and you hear real style and imagination.

I love George Sanders; he is actually my favorite actor of all time; and that is quite a list I have. His droll, sarcastic delivery made even the most mundane line of dialogue crackle with wit. There has not been an actor before or since who could do romantic comedy or even romantic drama as well. Cary Grant came close, as did Errol Flynn, but they both took a back seat to Sanders. There is no such thing as a romantic lead that could hold up against him; no female actress could come close to his delivery of lines. Bette Davis was about as close to him as any great actress could get; but even she paled in comparison when he was delivering lines on the big screen. This silly story of the 18th century France could have been set in any century or time period and Sanders would still have made it work. The rest of the characters are quite forgettable, but people will remember this film just for Sanders.

George Sanders as Eugene Francois Vidocq, a clever French crook (and a very flimsy representation of the amazing real-life template), is both the lead actor and narrator of this film in which he neatly swindles his way from a lowly prison cell to the top of French society delivering a bounty of aphorisms along the way. The real-life Vidocq began as a rough-and- tumble child criminal and ended up a government minister.

Sanders basically delivers the same polished performance seen in numerous other films, from "Man Hunt" (1941), through "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945) and "All About Eve" (1950): the cool, cultivated, continental, dry wit with just the right suggestion of the animal beneath. Carole Landis, in what may be her finest role, is both funny and chilling as a self-centered show girl who blatantly uses her beauty to catch wealthy men. Signe Hasso (who looks distractingly like Margaret Sullavan) plays the daughter of the minister of police; she falls in love with Sanders but is as lifeless and damp here as she is vivacious and crackling in "The House on 92nd Street," made the year before.

The film is obviously 100% studio made, with painted backdrops to represent the French countryside. But since scenery is not the point here, this drawback can be overlooked. It's an unusual film about an extraordinary man, here reduced to a sort of Sherlock Holmes who strides both sides of the law.

A kind of anti-Les Miserables, this sophisticated period comedy inverts conventional morality, following a thief/scoundrel as he rises to become the chief of police of Paris. This makes an ideal showcase for George Sanders at his peak of suavity, which he maintains even in a blond wig while posing for a portrait of St. George [this evolves into a theme of the film: "In all of us there is a St. George and a dragon"]. Naturally, Sanders effortlessly spins aphorisms: on adultery, he murmurs, "Sometimes the chains of matrimony are so heavy they have to be carried by three".

Very much a production of displaced Europeans [Sirk, Shuftan, Eisler, Pressburger], the story celebrates a continental tolerance ["No man is a saint"]. Douglas Sirk clearly enjoys the subversive charm of the criminal mind which stays sharp by exploring all the possibilities for larceny. However, Sirk is not cruel: the provincial victims are not buffoons; they are just not sharp enough to see all the angles in each situation. He does not mock the cheerful dowager [Alma Kruger] who is eager for more adventurous company, and even the bumbling cuckold [Gene Lockhart] is ultimately touching when he disguises himself as a canary-merchant.

Like its contemporary, Renoir's DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID, this sometimes seems like a European film trapped in Hollywood. However, while the first hour sometimes strains to be "naughty" [as in a decorous skinny-dipping scene], Sirk is able to unify the tone more successfully than Renoir. If Signe Hasso seems a bit old [at 30] as the wide-eyed ingenue, and Carole Landis struggles through her music hall number, Sirk guides both of them to satisfying moments, justifying their casting. The plot – involving a garter made of rubies, a monkey called Satan, and a Chinese carousel with a giant Pekinese to ride -- develops increasingly clever and surprising twists, to a pleasing conclusion.