The Scapegoat

A British schoolteacher named John Barratt, on holiday in France, meets a French aristocrat who could be his double. The count, Jacques De Gué, persuades John to trade places with him, and John wakes to find himself installed at the family chateau, taken for the count by everyone around him. As he grows acquainted with the household, he becomes drawn into the lives of its members, among them the countess, the count's wife and daughter, while it becomes clear that the substitution serves a purpose he did not agree to.

Robert Hamer directed and wrote the screenplay, and the film was produced by Michael Balcon through Du Maurier-Guinness. It was Hamer's fourth feature as director, following Dead of Night, Kind Hearts and Coronets and Father Brown. Alec Guinness plays both the Englishman and the nobleman, with Bette Davis as the Countess and Nicole Maurey, Irene Worth, Pamela Brown and Annabel Bartlett among the credited cast of twenty-one. The story adapts Daphne du Maurier's novel of the same name.

Released in August 1959, the film runs 92 minutes and is classed as a crime mystery thriller. It holds a rating of 6.8 out of 10 on IMDb, from around 2,700 votes, and the same 6.8 out of 10 on TMDB, from a much smaller base of 41 votes, indicating a modest but steady level of viewer approval across the two.