"Raffles" has one thing going for it: Olivia De Havilland is beautiful and appealing. This was in the early phase of her career.. She made many movies in which she was saucy and as pretty as anyone else in Hollywood. Then she turned to serious roles. She did well at those also but in certain ways, these early trifles are fun.
Dame May Witty, a versatile character actress, is totally wasted. She plays a standard dithering dowager. Any of at least ten actresses at the time could have done as well.
What "Raffles" needed was the right director. Sam Wood was at the helm of many fine movies. But this is not his genre. Alfred Hitchock could have had fun with it. Imagine this movie with Cary Grant in the title role, directed by Hitchcock. (It might have been like "To Catch a Thief." The full axiom from which that tile is taken is quoted in "Raffles.") But Lubitsch would have been the best for it. He could have turned it into a soufflé' about class, criminals vs heroes. It's not a soufflé, though: It's a blintz.
Dame May Witty, a versatile character actress, is totally wasted. She plays a standard dithering dowager. Any of at least ten actresses at the time could have done as well.
What "Raffles" needed was the right director. Sam Wood was at the helm of many fine movies. But this is not his genre. Alfred Hitchock could have had fun with it. Imagine this movie with Cary Grant in the title role, directed by Hitchcock. (It might have been like "To Catch a Thief." The full axiom from which that tile is taken is quoted in "Raffles.") But Lubitsch would have been the best for it. He could have turned it into a soufflé' about class, criminals vs heroes. It's not a soufflé, though: It's a blintz.