The Scapegoat

John Barratt is English, a teacher, and there is nothing of note in his life. On holiday in France he meets a man who is his exact double: Count Jacques de Gué. They drink together. When Barratt wakes the count has vanished, so have his papers, and the chauffeur is driving him to the château. Waiting there are a bedridden mother, an unstable wife, a mistress, a family business about to go under, and a matter of money nobody will discuss. What the count has left him is not his life but his job. Robert Hamer directs the British film; ninety-two minutes. Alec Guinness plays both men, with Bette Davis as the mother. It is adapted from Daphne du Maurier's 1957 novel, and Hamer wrote the screenplay with Gore Vidal.