User Reviews

At first, I was interested in seeing this film since it was named after a series of prints by Hogarth. In them, a rich young man wastes his life and ultimately ends up in the "looney bin" (or so they called it in 18th century Britain). When I found out that Rex Harrison was the star, I knew I had to give it a watch--as I have often found he can make even routine material fascinating.

The film itself is very much like the prints in that Harrison does play a rather useless rich jerk, though the ending was quite different. Despite all his breeding and money, he manages to squander away all his family's good will by always managing to screw up his rather easy life by drinking, lying, womanizing and using practically everyone around him. He's not all riotous living and selfishness, though, as at times he shows a spark of decency. But despite meaning to reform, he always seemed to find himself playing the rotter--that is until he ultimately joins the military and makes something of his wasted life.

Excellent acting, an involving and interesting script and a nice way to make a wartime propaganda film that isn't obvious or ultra-jingoistic. This is a very lovely old British film worth your time.

We have Rex Harrison as Vivian Kenway, from a well-to-do family, booted out of Oxford, not really caring much that he was, and zipping around, driving as though he were playing a video game, wasting money, drinking too much champagne, stiffing bills when they come due, and lying prodigiously. It's the kind of life everyone wishes he could lead.

Of course we all can't, because we are not all that free of our conscience and the anxiety it causes us when we do damage to others. We're bound by our ugly tendency to think of others, not just ourselves. In psychological terms, Harrison is a Jungian sensation type -- hungry for stimulus, easily bored, living in the unfolding moment. His plans for the future don't extend much beyond tomorrow. Michael Caine in "Alfie" had a similar personality, although the actions were couched in working-class terms.

Harrison is wised up when he drunkenly smashes his car up and manages to kill his father and eliminate his bride. A period of brooding follows. Then he joins the Army and is killed during a heroic act. His devoted but not-too-bright friend stands over the body, smiling, and gives him a thumbs up.

The movie would be something of a bore if it weren't done right, and Rex Harrison does it right. He's off hand, charming in his recklessness, until the results turn from comic to dramatic. His performance saves a film that would otherwise leave us completely alienated from the protagonist. He's unflappable and very quick on his mental feet. Lilli Palmer, with her wide eyes and mellow voice, is so pure that it's a little troublesome to see her undone by Harrison.

In the end, though, he redeems himself in the way that mattered most in Britain in 1945.

"How can I live among this gentle obsolescent breed of heroes, and not weep? Unicorns, almost, for they are fading into two legends in which their stupidity and chivalry are celebrated."

Keith Douglas wrote of his fellow-officers in an armoured car regiment and it might apply to Kenway too. Others have said that his switch from parasite to hero is unnatural, yet in the film the whole of his career and all of his qualities- good and bad- have been shown to be fitted- and only fitted at that time- for war. His good qualities- his sympathy with the lower-class outsiders on the coffee plantation and his generosity and unaimed courage in peacetime- damage him as much as his bad ones. A superfluous man in that peace who can only fulfil himself in that war.

Seen today for the first time, some seventy years after its initial release, this movie is showing its age. Rex Harrison is invariably described as one of the finest light comedians in the business yet here he comes across as stilted and one longs to see Cary Grant in the role. On the other hand Harrison's real life wife at the time, Lili Palmer, is delightful and walks off with every scene she appears in. As written the leading role of Vivian Kenway calls for a total s**t with no redeeming features and ironically this is exactly how the real-life Harrison has been described by everyone who ever met him, being a movie, however, and a movie circa 1945, the leading role must be seen to undergo a complete volte-face thus Kenway sacrifices his life for the greater good. There's a half-decent supporting cast and it has a certain novelty value.

The reviews of 'The Rake's Progress' - the US title of 'Notorious Gentleman' is absurd, and obscures the connection with the Hogarth's famous series - seem to miss the many elements of social satire in this rather political film.

Vivian Kenway, brilliantly played by Rex Harrison as a version of himself, is a risk-taker, and abhors hypocrisy and convention. Apart from the present-day opening, the first scene in the film finds him on Armistice Day 1918, as a boy, having found his way into a crowded pub to celebrate the victory. It is a brilliant beginning; the boy never grows up.

We next see him sent down from Oxford for neglecting his studies and climbing monuments. (He, and especially Guy Middleton, look a little elderly for student hi-jinks, while the fashions and hairdos are resolutely mid-40s throughout the film.) Anyway, he leaves Oxford, and back to his father, who has been re-elected as Conservative MP. This is election day, 1931 - the day the National Government was elected; there is much talk of Tory leader Stanley Baldwin's being in touch with the people. Here we get our first satirical comment - when the film was made in 1945, the National Government was viewed as the weak coalition government that had deepened the 30s recession and failed to deter Hitler's Germany from rearming; Baldwin at that point was seen as one of the most culpable men. It is no coincidence that Vivian's Oxford career ends on that day - at that point, the weak and the conventional take power, and Vivian's brand of devil-may-care risk-taking will only handicap him.

He is sent to South America to learn the coffee trade (sent there by his Aunt, a wonderful battleaxe performance from Marie Lohr, together with Garry Marsh, excellent as her henpecked husband), and here he finds the only enthusiasm in his life. He spurns the easy life of leisure open to him, and throws his energies into working out a system for efficiently growing coffee. The hypocritical company chairman responds by sacking his scientists, complaining about English tea-drinking habits (while drinking tea). Again the satire is just below the surface - coffee wakes you up, just like the tea-drinking English need to be woken up. Vivian is sacked, for drunkenly telling it like it is.

After that, a series of increasingly distasteful adventures. He has a fling with a friend's wife, leading to the divorce courts. The friend, Sandy, has been ignoring her obvious infidelity; again, Vivian feels he is just bringing the obvious truth to the surface.

The inevitable crisis follows a trip to Vienna, when he sees the Nazis in action for the first time, and marries a half-Jewish girl to save her. Now he is in too deep, and tragedy follows; Vivian is a broken man.

His father's former secretary Jennifer offers him a familiar way out; her support as a wife, which she accepts will be a long run of bankruptcies and love affairs. But Vivian has finally grown up. He doesn't subject her to marriage, and instead disappears, reappearing in the present day in a tank regiment where his appetite for risk and excitement are now vital for the defence of his sleepy, hypocritical, but fundamentally decent country. As on Armistice Night 1918, Vivian is back in his element.

A cad and a bounder? Undoubtedly. But hardly the unsympathetic character portrayed in some other reviews here. The script in particular is magnificent, while Harrison's performance is pitch perfect.