Main Cast: George Sanders, Signe Hasso, Carole Landis, Akim Tamiroff, Gene Lockhart
Release Year: 1946
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
Plot
A Scandal in Paris is a liberal adaptation of the life story of Eugène François Vidocq, who was French prefect of police during the Napoleonic era. George Sanders stars as Vidocq, who spends most of the film as an aimless rogue willing to lie, cheat, and steal for his own comfort. The women who affect Vidocq's life include a saucy cabaret entertainer (Carole Landis) for whom Vidocq steals, and a good woman (Signe Hasso) for whom he straightens himself out. Fledgling director Douglas Sirk displayed his love of the Baroque (both in decor and characterizations) that would distinguish his later high-budget Universal soap operas. Most prints of A Scandal in Paris bear the film's alternate title, Thieves' Holiday. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
A Scandal in Paris is a film that seems to divide partisans of director Douglas Sirk. Many find it vastly inferior to his trademark 1950s glossy melodramas that managed to entertain while simultaneously subverting and critiquing the mores of the era. Others feel Scandal is worthy of greater respect, that it is a much more complex piece of work than it is appears. Certainly, Scandal will be a departure for those who know Sirk only from his later melodramas. It's interesting to see him working in a period piece, and with a script that, while flawed, is filled with dialogue and language that is distinctly of a higher order. Scandal deserves many points for its observations on the dual impulses of man, the inclination to be both a St. George and a dragon. If this point is perhaps belabored on occasion, it still comes across powerfully. Sirk's pacing is a tad off in Scandal, but his visual flair is intact; the Carole Landis introductory number is both hot and ironic, in a way that only Sirk could manage. George Sanders is marvelous as the cad who changes his ways to keep a woman of purity from changing hers. No one could handle this kind of dialogue with his style and flair. Landis and Signe Hasso are also quite good, and the cast as a whole is fine. While not to everyone's taste, Scandal is a good film that Sirk fans especially should see so that they can judge it for thsmevles. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
A Scandal in Paris is a fictionalized 1946biographical film, directed by Douglas Sirk, a Danish born director, recounts the life of Eugène François Vidocq, a French criminal who reformed and became a famous French prefect of police during the Napoleonic era.
George Sanders stars as Vidocq, born in 1775 in a French jail, who spends most of the film as an aimless rogue willing to lie, cheat, and steal for his own comfort, to his appointment as chief of police of Paris. The women who affect Vidocq's life include Loretta, a saucy cabaret entertainer (Carole Landis) for whom Vidocq steals, and a good woman, Therese De Pierremont (Signe Hasso) for whom he straightens himself out.[1]
Zwei Genies (1934) • Das Mädchen vom Moorhof (1935) • Der Eingebildete Kranke (1935) • Dreimal Ehe (1935) • April, April! (1935) • Stützen der Gesellschaft (1935) • La Chanson du souvenir (1936) • t was een april (1936) • Schlußakkord Das Hofkonzert (1936) • Das Hofkonzert (1936) • Zu neuen Ufern (1936) • Zu neuen Ufern (1937) • La Habanera (1937) • Accord final (1938) • Boefje (1939)
1940s
Hitler's Madman (1943) • Summer Storm (1944) • A Scandal in Paris (1946) • Lured (1947) • Sleep, My Love (1948) • Shockproof (1949) • Slightly French (1949)
