According to Piers Paul Reid's biography nobody got along with anybody involved
with the making of The Scapegoat. Not star Alec Guinness, director Robert Hamer, author Daphne DuMaurier and screenwriter Gore Vidal. Maybe had
everyone been in sync The Scapegoat might have turned out better and been one
of Guinness's classic films.
Like Kind Hearts And Coronets, Guinness has more than one role. He's both a
teacher of French at an English school on holiday in France and a French
count for whom he is a double.
After a night's carousing with his twin English Alec wakes hung over wih
identification gone and the French Guinness's in its place. With no reasonable
explanation to offer English Alec decides to enjoy the life of a French noble.
Those includ wife Irene Worth, Sister Pamela Brown, Annabel Bartlett and a
demanding mistress Nicole Maurey the only French person in a film set in France..
As Guinness gets acclimated to a new identity he really gets involved with
the family and their problems. But when Worth is killed in a fall while he's
away from the family chateau, one Guinness realizes the other is setting him up.
Watching The Scapegoat I was expecting some sophisticated comic lines to
emerge. This being an Alec Guinness film. It never developed that way, but several times it seemed on the brink.
Bette Davis plays French Alec's grande dame of a mother and the role is done in grand Bette Davis style. According to the Guinness biography Davis disliked
everybody on the set and it was like she was giving them all acting lessons.
If everyone had been in tandem The Scapegoat could have been a better film.
