Frank Oz is one of the leading American comedians of the last forty years, and if only he had recorded the wonderful, genius black comedy “Death at a Funeral”, his eternity would have been guaranteed. But equally memorable is another great comedy of his translated into us as “Dirty, rotten cheaters” about two swindlers who compete on the French Cote d’Azur to swindle a young and naive American heiress. It is less well known that “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” is actually a remake of the 1964 film “Bedtime Story” in which the French Riviera swindlers were David Niven and Marlon Brando. And Oz did the casting perfectly because both Michael Caine in the role of a polished and refined middle-aged British con man and Steve Martin as a primitive and raw matchmaker from America are sensational.
Lawrence Jamieson (Caine) is an intelligent and suave con artist whose modus operandi is to seduce rich and naive ladies by claiming to be an exiled prince trying to raise money to fight for his country’s freedom. And by some miracle, those naive, usually middle-aged or older women take turns falling for his story and showering him with money, and his only concern is the knowledge that another impostor, whom the media calls the Jackal, has appeared on his turf. By chance, Lawrence will think it is Jackal the petty cheater Freddy Benson (Martin) whom he met on the train and will try to get rid of him, but it will turn out that Freddy is not so harmless and he will blackmail Lawrence to train him and make him a master of fraud similar to himself.
But, of course, there will soon be disagreements because it is obvious that they will not be able to agree on the division of the territory, and when a naive young American Janet Colgate (the equally brilliant Glenne Headly) appears on the Riviera, Lawrence and Freddy will reach an agreement. The one who gets 50 thousand dollars out of it first is the winner, while the other leaves the French Riviera, and their competition will turn into complete hilarity. It’s a brilliant comedy in which both Caine and Martin are in great form in roles that seem to have been written for them, and “Dirty, Crooked Cheaters” at times seems like a parody of serious films about cheaters like the legendary “The Sting”.
One will constantly try to lure the other into traps, and when it seems that one of them has managed to gain some advantage, we will realize that he has actually dug a new hole for himself, because soon the other will outsmart him. The way in which they will try to extract money from the naive Janet is not only completely absurd and it is completely obvious that in reality they would not be able to outwit anyone like that, but the very insistence on this absurdity, the ideas beyond all reason that they are trying to carry out, elevate this comedy and put “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” in the circle of the best and funniest comedies of their time.
From today’s perspective, it may sound incredible that Mick Jagger and David Bowie, who was actually the initiator of the idea and at his persuasion Dale Launer wrote the script based on the film from the sixties, were supposed to star in the original version of Cheater from the Riviera. Both of them soon had to give up due to commitments, and the roles of Freddy were offered to Eddy Murphy and Richard Dreyfuss, and Lawrence to Monty Python actors John Cleese and Michael Palin. In the end, I doubt he could have chosen a better duo to star in this charming, entertaining and hilarious comedy Oz, and it’s one of those rare films that can make you laugh out loud no matter how many times you’ve seen it before.