Six A.M. Cinema: Scapegoat

     I saw an absolutely "topping" movie this morning as the English say.  It's called "Scapegoat" and it takes place in 1952 during Queen Elizabeth's coronation.  It's based on a book by Daphne Du Marier, a very popular English writer of suspense novels and short stories.  She wrote the short story that Hitchcock turned into "The Birds".

     A Greek teacher is sacked because the headmaster decides that "conversational French" is what the boys need more than a dead language.  He is drowning his sorrows at the local pub wondering "whither goest I now".  Out of the corner of his eye he sees another chap who looks just like him.  He confronts him in the bathroom and after marveling at their resemblance, they sit down and have a few drinks.  This "other John" (their both named John) is the prodigal son and heir to one of those formerly formidable, now crumbling, family estates.  He is a rogue and the black sheep of the family.  He is supposed to be on his way back to the family castle to settle affairs and do a deal to keep the family's glass foundry from foundering (sorry, couldn't help myself...).

  The Greek teacher (the good John) wakes up the next morning in one of the bedrooms above the pub.  His clothes are gone and they have been replaced by bad John's clothes.  Not having many options, he puts on bad John's clothes and decides to go along with the conceit that bad John has hatched and he allows the chauffeur to take him home to the family castle.  The first shot of his new home is well done.  It looks like an English version of the Taj Mahal with turrets everywhere.  He slowly finds out what a "toff" his roguish doppelganger has been; rogering his younger brother's wife; ignoring and abusing his own, long suffering wife, plundering the family's fortune, ignoring his daughter etc. etc.

He pretends that he has signed the contract that saves the foundry so that all the local village people get to keep their jobs. As he delves into the family finances, he finds that bad John has already sold everything of value to continue to support their opulent lifestyle.  His wife has a trust fund of one million pounds that can only be released if she bears a male child or if she dies. Apparently, the difficult birth of her daughter makes the probability of her birthing a male heir problematical.  While good John is out on the annual pheasant shoot with the village swains beating the brush to roust the local fowl, bad John sneaks back into the house and convinces his wife that only her suicide will save the family by releasing her fortune.  He induces her to write a suicide note then injects her with a lethal dose of morphine.  The daughter, affectionately known as "Piglet" sees what's going on and puts two and two together.

In an earlier scene, as good John was tucking her into bed, she remarks on how he seems different and he even smells different.  "You don't smell the same, Daddy.  You smell more like a doctor" she exclaims.  She gets word to good Johnny, who is gamely trying to lead the shoot that bad Johnny has been up to same major mischief.  He also puts the numbers together and runs back to the house just in time to get the wife to the hospital for a life saving stomach pump.  He surmises that bad Johnny has gone to the foundry.  It's time for a showdown between the two Johnnies. When good Johnny confronts bad Johnny, bad pulls a gun and tells good to take off his clothes.  Now that he thinks he has killed his wife, he will inherit the trust fund loot and good Johnny is expendable.  While they are both dressed down to their identical shirts and slacks, good Johnny says to his evil twin, "What's to become of me now?"  "Ashes to ashes" says bad Johnny.  He marches good Johnny to the foundry's huge coal fired industrial furnace.  Ashes to ashes indeed...  Good John manages to grab the gun and a jolly good row ensues.  One of the Johnnies manages to shoot the other, but by the semi-dark light of the furnace, we don't know which Johnny prevailed.

A quick exterior shot of the foundry with smoke billowing from the chimney informs us that the other Johnny has been reduced to unidentifiable ashes.  Surviving Johnny rushes to the hospital to see how his wife is doing.  By now, the poor viewer doesn't know if he is going to comfort her or put a pillow over face while she sleeps off the effects of the morphine.  With other family members in attendance he can't reveal his true intent.  Eventually, as he deals with each of the family members we realize that "Yea!" good Johnny has prevailed.  In the last scene, everyone is gaily playing ping pong and the wife has not only recovered she is with child.  Once again, this being the movies, good has triumphed over evil.  We are left to assume the bun in the oven will be a boy child; large trust fund monies will be released; the village people's foundry, and their jobs, will be saved and all but bad Johnny shall live happily ever after.  A jolly good show and I propose we have a Pimm's cup all around.

In other nooze, I'm off to get my leg sawed open again to excise any more tissue that may be cancerous.  Wish me luck as I've grown rather fond of that particular leg...  Cheerio and all that rot, Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres