Filmed at Paramount's Astoria Studios, New York. Copyright 6 June 1935 by Paramount Productions, Inc. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall, 2 May 1935 (ran one week). Australian release: 14 August 1935. 8 reels. 76 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: In this unusual but extremely well-acted film, Hecht and MacArthur explore the twilight world of book publishing. The script is loaded with literary allusions and inside jokes.
NOTES: Academy Award, Original Story, Hecht and MacArthur (beating Broadway Melody of 1936 and The Gay Deception).
3rd of the Hecht-MacArthur movies (preceded by Crime Without Passion and Once in a Blue Moon; followed by Soak the Rich).
COMMENT: A typically off-beat Hecht-MacArthur production. Though it's a bit dated today and seems only half as clever as it did in 1935, it's still a dazzling and fascinating film. Not only is it brilliantly acted, but its bizarre script gives rise to some marvelous photographic effects (like Coward's silhouette outlined against the storm- battered window). Music is effectively employed to enhance the grotesque atmosphere and all other technical credits are likewise first-class. But, as usual, it's the acting that's the most interesting aspect of the movie. Making his first American appearance (if we exclude his participation in Griffith's Hearts of the World, made in Europe in 1918),
Noel Coward is caustically perfect as the ultra-cynical publisher. He is more than ably supported by Julie Haydon (star of Max Reinhardt's fabulous Broadway production of A Midsummer Night's Dream),* Alexander Woollcott, the famous critic and commentator (immortalised by playwrights Kaufman and Hart as The Man Who Came to Dinner), Lionel Stander, Stanley Ridges, Harry Davenport, Eduardo Ciannelli (his second talkie, his first being Sidney Franklin's Reunion in Vienna in 1933), and Ernest Cossart, whose role here is entirely different from the obsequious butler/valet which later became his special forte. Here he uses his natural voice for possibly the only time in his screen career.
It's impossible to overstate the dramatic effect that the combined acting of all these comparatively new faces had on 1935 audiences. If The Scoundrel is no longer the innovative masterpiece which dazzled 1935 with its wit and cynicism, its intellectualism and sophistication, that is our loss.
* Julie Haydon had bad luck in Hollywood, ending up as Andy Hardy's older sister in A Family Affair, after which she returned to the stage, making only one more movie, Citizen Saint, in 1948. Contrast her ill-fortune with the success achieved by the star of Reinhardt's Hollywood Bowl production of the same play, — Olivia de Havilland!
Few of Hollywood's "ethnic" character actors used their natural voices in their screen impersonations. The "funny" voices adopted by Leo Carrillo and John Qualen are two of my special hates.
SYNOPSIS: In this unusual but extremely well-acted film, Hecht and MacArthur explore the twilight world of book publishing. The script is loaded with literary allusions and inside jokes.
NOTES: Academy Award, Original Story, Hecht and MacArthur (beating Broadway Melody of 1936 and The Gay Deception).
3rd of the Hecht-MacArthur movies (preceded by Crime Without Passion and Once in a Blue Moon; followed by Soak the Rich).
COMMENT: A typically off-beat Hecht-MacArthur production. Though it's a bit dated today and seems only half as clever as it did in 1935, it's still a dazzling and fascinating film. Not only is it brilliantly acted, but its bizarre script gives rise to some marvelous photographic effects (like Coward's silhouette outlined against the storm- battered window). Music is effectively employed to enhance the grotesque atmosphere and all other technical credits are likewise first-class. But, as usual, it's the acting that's the most interesting aspect of the movie. Making his first American appearance (if we exclude his participation in Griffith's Hearts of the World, made in Europe in 1918),
Noel Coward is caustically perfect as the ultra-cynical publisher. He is more than ably supported by Julie Haydon (star of Max Reinhardt's fabulous Broadway production of A Midsummer Night's Dream),* Alexander Woollcott, the famous critic and commentator (immortalised by playwrights Kaufman and Hart as The Man Who Came to Dinner), Lionel Stander, Stanley Ridges, Harry Davenport, Eduardo Ciannelli (his second talkie, his first being Sidney Franklin's Reunion in Vienna in 1933), and Ernest Cossart, whose role here is entirely different from the obsequious butler/valet which later became his special forte. Here he uses his natural voice for possibly the only time in his screen career.
It's impossible to overstate the dramatic effect that the combined acting of all these comparatively new faces had on 1935 audiences. If The Scoundrel is no longer the innovative masterpiece which dazzled 1935 with its wit and cynicism, its intellectualism and sophistication, that is our loss.
* Julie Haydon had bad luck in Hollywood, ending up as Andy Hardy's older sister in A Family Affair, after which she returned to the stage, making only one more movie, Citizen Saint, in 1948. Contrast her ill-fortune with the success achieved by the star of Reinhardt's Hollywood Bowl production of the same play, — Olivia de Havilland!
Few of Hollywood's "ethnic" character actors used their natural voices in their screen impersonations. The "funny" voices adopted by Leo Carrillo and John Qualen are two of my special hates.