This film is very old style; early days of the talkies. In the beginning of what we now think of as the film industry there was a good deal of holdover from stage work. D. W. Griffith had shown film makers what was possible but it hadn't really taken hold yet. MacArthur, Hecht and Coward were playwrights experimenting with film making. This film was essentially a platform for clever dialog, such as could be expected in one of their stage plays. You can't judge it by modern cinema narrative standards. You can only appreciate it for itself. The emotions are rather raw and the characterizations are somewhat simplistic but that's because it's all just backdrop for the dialog. Speaking of which, at one point Coward's character is speaking to the girl whom he has seduced and abandoned. She is sobbing her heart out and he says, "Tears always make me crueler than I really am." He then goes on to say, "I can't cry for my sins. If I could I would now. I don't particularly like myself." Truly cruel people are forever saying how much they dislike being cruel. Characters in Coward's plays always come off as being flip and shallow but somewhere down deep, they are sincere. I've read that in real life Coward was one of the nicest people you could know. Perhaps he was simply afraid of emotion, afraid of being hurt.
Review of The Scoundrel
