The Scapegoat

It's extraordinary that this film, directed by Robert Hamer, has been almost forgotten.

Ask most people when Alec Guinness and Bette Davis appeared together, and the reaction is usually a wrinkled brow.

It's from a Daphne Du Maurier novel, adapted by Hamer and produced by Guinness/Du Maurier. Set in northern France, it casts Davis as a cigar-smoking, bed-ridden, morphine-addicted French countess and Guinness as an Englishman who assumes the identity - and destiny - of a blueblooded identical French twin.

The film wasn't a great success at the time. Davis, who had lost her grip on her career, later said she wished a double had done her work for her. And Hamer was dying of drink.

But it holds more than a museum interest now that both stars are no more and the talents involved can easily stand inspection even if it's on an 'off' day.

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