The Scarf (film)

93 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglish

The Scarf is a 1951 American film noir written and directed by Ewald André Dupont starring John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge, James Barton, and Emlyn Williams.^[1] The screenplay concerns a man who escapes from an insane asylum and tries to convince a crusty hermit, a drifting saloon singer, and himself that he is not a murderer.

John Ireland stars as John Barrington, an escapee from an institution for the criminally insane. Actually, Barrington is not insane, but the victim of a plot orchestrated by a clever murderer. The only person who believes Barrington's story is Ezra Thompson (James Barton) a turkey farmer who hides him from the authorities. Then a singing waitress named Cash-and-Carry Connie (Mercedes McCambridge) unwittingly provides the clue that will prove Barrington's innocence. Emlyn Williams co-stars as a psychiatrist.

Film critic Bosley Crowther panned the film, "For a picture so heavily loaded with lengthy and tedious talk, talk, talk, The Scarf, the new tenant at the Park Avenue, has depressingly little to say. As a matter of fact, it expresses, in several thousand words of dialogue—and in a running-time that amounts to just four minutes short of an hour and a half—perhaps the least measure of intelligence or dramatic continuity that you are likely to find in any picture, current or recent, that takes itself seriously."^[2]

Film critic Manny Farber writing in the May 26, 1951 issue of The Nation characterizes The Scarf as “a disjointed, monstrously affected psycho-mystery freak show.” ^[3] Farber adds:

Producer-directors Ewald André Dupont and Isadore Goldsmith glamorize a singing waitress, a turkey-raising hermit, a jaundiced metaphysical barkeep, and a morose amnesiac fugitive from a desert asylum...Dupont and Goldsmith turn their tinny proletarians into sententious talkers, dubbing them with names like “Level Louie” and “Cash-and-carry Connie" and having them oscillate their eyeballs in a sophisticated version of Griffith’s pantomime. It sounds awful but it’s kind of interesting.^[4]

• Farber, Manny. 2009. Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber. Edited by Robert Polito. Library of America. ISBN 978-1-59853-050-6

• The Scarf at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• The Scarf at IMDb
• The Scarf at AllMovie
• The Scarf at the TCM Movie Database
• The Scarf is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive