Alec Guinness Excels in 'The Scapegoat'

Any performance by Alec Guinness is a major event (though one may, as it turns out, be more major than another). For Guinness, together with Brando and Gielgud, constitute the reigning triumvirate of English-speaking actors.

Guinness' current vehicle, now at the Saxon Theatre, is a film version of Daphne DuMaurier's novel The Scapegoat. This affords the star another opportunity to undertake more than one role. But whereas he portrayed an octet of completely different characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets, his task here is in some ways much more difficult: Guinness, without benefit of contrasting makeup or costume, has to portray two men visually identical and sometimes conversing with each other--a British college French teacher on vacation in France, and a French count. The latter tricks the former into taking his place for three weeks as a "scapegoat." The problem is that, inside, the two men are basically different--the Briton kind and thoughtful, the Count cruel and selfish. Yet, despite protestations, the Count's entire household refuses to believe the two are not the same man; and only the Count's lovely Italian mistress (Nicole Maurey) senses a difference. Thus the two roles demand the subtlest of distinctions and preclude all obvious ones--a challenge Guinness meets masterfully.

In this suspenseful Romantic tale, all the supporting roles are expertly handled, especially the curious roster of people living in the Count's ancestral chateau: the Count's morphine-addicted mother (Bette Davis), who keeps to her bed and board (chess); his neurotic wife (Irene Worth); his young daughter (Annabel Bartlett) with a passion for the more morbid aspects of hagiolatry.

Robert Hamer's restrained direction and Paul Beeson's camera work are fine. The film's only major fault is the screenplay, written by Hamer from an adaptation by Gore Vidal. It's a pity Vidal wasn't allowed to do the whole job. Hamer's script leaves a number of loose ends and unclear motivations; and the denouement is both trite and inexcusably abrupt. But the picture is worth seeing for its performances.