From the 1950s: Scaramouche

1952 Adventure

From MGM

Directed by George Sidney

Starring

Stewart Granger

Eleanor Parker

Janet Leigh

Mel Ferrer

Henry Wilcoxon

Nina Foch

Richard Anderson

Robert Coote

Lewis Stone

It is certainly one of the grandest of the swashbuckling spectacles of the decade.   There were plenty to rival it, some of which were very deserving of the compliments heaped upon them.  I saw it when I was a kid and while it played for the standard week or two period, I saw it several more times.  

It was then and still is as of yesterday's viewing just gloriously entertaining.  The two leading men are obviously immensely enjoying themselves... for some, stepping into these swashbuckler roles isn't as much about acting as it is fulfilling childhood dress-up and make-believe, MGM-style.  There are two beautiful actresses dressing up in those French Revolution-style gowns (and petticoats... lots of petticoats).  These women don't walk into rooms but rather sweep in.  Even as they come to a stop, the dresses are still in motion a bit longer.

There is great, vividly colorful MGM photography catching every verdant hill and valley, perhaps as a backdrop to an exciting chase on horseback or perhaps just to solicit the oohs and aahs of soaking up such peaceful beauty.

At eight minutes, the finale serves up the longest fencing dual ever seen on film, at least up to that time.  It is always what fans remember the most and it's worth waiting for.  More on it later.

George Sidney directed some of MGM's greatest entertainment pieces and he was the logical choice for such a movie.  The four leads were all under contract to the studio so that worked out well.  It was this quartet and the genre that put me in that theater seat several times.  I didn't care what the story was about.

The story concerns a nobleman's bastard son, Andre Moreau (Granger), who disguises himself as an actor to be positioned closer to a wicked marquis (Ferrer) who killed Andre's best friend (Anderson).  Andre joins a commedia dell'arte troupe (a form of early comedy theater), dons a mask (allowing him to hide from the marquis's henchman, led by Wilcoxon) and becomes the character Scaramouche.

Putting on that mask he realizes he has some talent as an actor and he continues with the masquerade for some time, partly to continue hiding and partly to be near his leading lady Lenore (Parker).  He has been romantically involved with her in the past and just saved her from a marriage she really didn't want... one of the film's fun comedy moments.

The queen, Marie Antoinette (Foch), wants the marquis (a  cousin who loves her) to keep the bloodline going by marrying one of her wards, Aline (Leigh).  Around the time that Aline meets Andre, whom she obviously fancies, he learns that the name of his real father who happens to also be Aline's father.  He then keeps his ardor at bay but doesn't tell Aline why, leaving her a bit confused.

Ferrer and Leigh are not bonding as he would like.  And Granger and Parker are both high-spirited people who have their own bonding issues.  They admit to a love of the flesh but she is basically a party girl who may never be able to settle down and he appears to live as Scaramouche on and off the stage with his seeming inability to take life (or Lenore) seriously.  

Scaramouche is often around the marquis and his men who love watch him perform, even spending time with him backstage, blithely unaware of who he really is.  Andre  spends his off time learning how to fence, knowing the need for such skills is soon coming.

While the two have a couple of fencing opportunities, the best is at the end, at the theater after a performance.  All the main cast is present.  Andre/Scaramouche swings from a rope on the stage up to a second-floor box where he confronts the marquis in the presence of Aline.

That glorious swordfight that always puts a huge smile on my face and gets my heart racing is simply magnificent... I don't know what else to call it.  Granger and Ferrer prepared eight weeks for the sequence, having to memorize 87 different sword passes and learning 28 stunts.

It's said that it was choreographed as a dance.  It ranges throughout the theater... first in the hallway outside the box, then atop the railing of the box, then on the backs of the seats on the first floor, then in back of the theater and finally out on the stage.

Granger suffered several injuries and a few indignities.  When he was walking backward on the six-inch railing, he fell 20 feet to the first floor, landing (mercifully) on his shoulder which, unfortunately, smarted for the rest of his life.  (He also threw a sword which narrowly missed wife Jean Simmons's beautiful face as she sat with Tony Curtis near the set.)

When they were on the stage, Ferrer is to slash at the rope that is holding up a large chandelier.  Granger was on the ground underneath it.  As it is careening down, Granger is to roll out of the way.  He was told that chandelier had been rigged to stop a fair distance from his face.

Parker, Wilcoxon, Leigh

Oh no, no, no, said Granger... he wanted to see how it worked without him on the ground.  The director said no because it would involve too much work but Granger wisely (very wisely) insisted.  And sure enough, the chandelier crashed right to the floor, tearing it up badly.

When he was running across the tops of the first-floor seats, he slipped.  Things had gone perfectly in rehearsals but he was getting a little too self-assured for the actual filming and that slip messed up his knee.

As the swordfight is about to end with the marquis's death, the two men, who never particularly had a good look at one another, suddenly realize something that stopped the fight.  The realization would change things for both men and would determine which beautiful woman would end up with our hero.

Granger had picked up a sword or two in his British movie career and he had to admit that he loved it.  After he got to America and signed on with MGM, there were many films where he strapped on the sword and it all started with Scaramouche.  The Prisoner of Zenda, Salome, Young Bess and Beau Brummell would follow.  

When the studio hired him in 1950 to make King Solomon's Mines, Granger agreed on the condition that he also got to star in Scaramouche.  The studio had owned the rights for a dozen years but had only recently decided to make it as a musical to star Gene Kelly, Ava Gardner and Elizabeth Taylor.  

But Granger was persuasive.  Despite his work with a sword, he went back into training, knowing his work here would be more than at any time before.  He became a good swordsman who was playing, at first, a man who was new to it.  Ferrer, by contrast, was the best in the land as the marquis but not so good in actuality.  The same man who coached Granger for the film stood in for Ferrer in many scenes.  

Granger, always so conceited, puts the trait to good use in both the comical scenes.  His general devil-may-care demeanor, how well he filled out period costumes, how his characters were always in danger, how he was determined to sweep his leading ladies off their feet just watching him was so much fun.  

Ferrer & Granger... an important shot

One leading lady who was decidedly not swept off her feet by Granger was Eleanor Parker.  He was apparently the only person in her career with whom she didn't get along.  While that sounds a bit exaggerated to me, she went on to say it wasn't just a conflict between the two of us.  Everyone disliked this man.  Stewart Granger was a dreadful man, rude, just awful.  Just being in his presence was awful.   Wow.  She must have loved their antagonistic scenes and hated their lips locking.  Now just for a little contrast, Granger, in his autobiography, said on the whole it was a happy film.

Eleanor Parker, never more sultry, beauty mark in place, flashing eyes, is the complete temptress.  She became a redhead for the first time as Lenore and liked it so much she kept the color for many years.  Fans of Parker who have never seen this movie should rectify that soon.

We don't want to slight Janet Leigh, especially under that  white wig and in those gorgeous gowns.  Aline is not a goody-two-shoes but she's certainly the opposite of Lenore.  Aline is at a critical time in her life where she is rebuffed by the man she loves and used by the man who intends to marry her.  

Leigh and Ferrer

Ace cinematographer Charles Roster handles his chores perfectly as mentioned earlier.  His full-screen face shots at various times of the four leads are breath-taking.  Perhaps my favorite sequence, photographically, is of Leigh riding sidesaddle atop a handsome stallion, her long, full skirt cascading down the animal's left flank.  She is being pursued by Ferrer through the fog, along a row of tall trees, up two sets of outside stairs and finally into the courtyard of a castle.   

Mel Ferrer, ever to the manor born, like Granger, is an easy pick for this type of movie.  Aristocratic, graceful, entitled, always working the room, in a former life he surely must have lived during the French Revolution.  Tall, thin and handsome in his own white wig, he's also great fun to watch.  While he did little of the actual swordplay, he was able to put his dancing background to good use on the physical moves.   

Henry Wilcoxon, usually in movies directed by his good friend, Cecil B. DeMille, knew a thing about pageantry and is a perfect fit as the marquis's trusted soldier.  He is not so much a bad guy as he is working for one and simply doing his job.  He seems most capable of accomplishing what he's set out to do.

Nina Foch

Nina Foch has only a couple of scenes to convey the frivolous French queen, Marie Antoinette, but they are beautifully measured and handled elegantly.  She should have been given more opportunities by her profession.

Richard Anderson, never a big star but always a polished featured actor, was under contract to MGM and had small roles in many films.  Here he plays the man whose death sets the rest of the story in motion.  His scenes with Granger seem a bit homoerotic to me.

Character actor Lewis Milestone, who had a couple of scenes as Anderson's father, had the role of the villainous marquis in the 1923 silent original.

The movie took a few liberties with the novel written in 1921 by Rafael Sabatini.  

There's such a wonderfully cheeky attitude about the entire movie.  There's a great sense of adventure.  And as Leigh said... I don't think I've ever made a movie that was so pretty.  So, when the weather outside is frightful, grab your favorite libation, your plastic sword, curl up in your favorite chair and spend 115 minutes with Scaramouche.

Here's the trailer:

Next posting:

Won't be until Dec 30... taking a little 

break over the holidays.  When we come

back... a legend.