Great Lost Movies of the Thirties (An Occasional Series)

Print Article

posted September 17, 2008 6:21 AM

the scoundrel.jpg

I'm shocked -- shocked! -- to find that the 1935 ghost noir The Scoundrel isn't on home video.

Seriously, this is one of the strangest films you've probably never seen. The plot:

Noel Coward , in his feature debut, plays a magazine magnate who wants to ruin the life of every person he comes in contact with and whose every utterance is a faux Wildean epigram delivered in cold lifeless tones. A creep for all seasons, he is at least somewhat self-aware, remarking to his staff at one point that he has found the perfect woman - one as empty as he is: "I must marry her......it would be like two empty paper bags belaboring one another". He finally manages to destroy an aspiring young author (Stanley Ridges) and his girlfriend (Julie Haydon); the latter curses him with the hope that he will die friendless. Surprise surpise: Shortly afterwards he 's killed in a plane crash. Haydon, hearing of the tragedy, remarks, "I've just found out there IS a God!". God has a sense of humor, however; instead of sending the SOB straight to hell, he redeposits him on Earth, where he is doomed to wander until he can find one person who will mourn for him . (Those around him are astonished to see him apparently alive and back at work, but gradually become aware that something supernatural is afoot when he manages to get one of his magazines out ahead of its normal pub date.)

Seriously, leaving aside the casting of Coward as a lady killer(!), it's nothing short of remarkable that this epicene moralistic melodrama was written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, the corrosively cynical pair best known for the often-filmed The Front Page. Even weirder, the script is essentially The S.I. Newhouse Story some thirty years before its time. (But I kid contemporary publishing magnates!)

In any case, the film seems to have disappeared down the collective memory hole; there isn't even a YouTube clip, alas. Memo to Paramount: If you're not too busy putting new CGI spaceships in old episodes of the original Star Trek, it might be nice to do a DVD of this.

Thank you.

9 Comments

Rupert Murdoch said:

A Si Newhouse joke.

Yes!!!!!!

September 17, 2008 8:02 AM

Marty Peretz said:

What am I -- chopped liver?

September 17, 2008 8:30 AM

sightunseen said:

And to think that I've known people like this.

September 17, 2008 8:44 AM

Annonymous in Alaska said:

I think I saw this in the 80s...back when American Movie Classics was what Turner Classic Movies is now.

September 17, 2008 2:50 PM

left rev said:

Never heard of it before now, but it sounds like a good way to kill a rainy weekend afternoon when there is no football on.

Is it played for laughs?

Beer me.

September 17, 2008 4:55 PM

drano said:

I must see this movie at once.

September 17, 2008 5:27 PM

Xan said:

You at last seduce me into commenting with (1) an apparently working, or at least completely readable, page and (2) invocation of the name of Noel Coward.

I am just mad about the boy. Care not at all that he was gay, and just a bit that he is dead, he was a fascinating guy and I shall always adore him.

This one I somehow managed to miss though. I can picture it; he could do deadpan with the best of 'em. thanks for the heads-up, I shall keep an eye out.

September 17, 2008 7:46 PM

dSmith said:

I think it was based on publisher Horace Liverwright. Somewhere between 4 to 6 people showed up for his funeral and even they didn't like him.

September 17, 2008 8:54 PM

Steve Simels said:

Xan -- trust me, I'm a Coward fan. I just think this flick is completely nutso...
:-)

September 17, 2008 9:03 PM

Leave a comment