Scaramouche [VHS]
As first lines go,Scaramouche's is irresistible:  "He was born with a gift of laughter, and a sense that the world was mad."  This exuberant period adventure is pretty irresistible itself--even more thanCaptain BloodandThe Sea Hawk, likewise derived from Rafael Sabatini novels.  Within more or less one day in pre-revolutionary France, devil-may-care Stewart Granger learns he's the bastard offspring of a nobleman, gets orphaned, realizes he's fallen in love with his sister (Janet Leigh), swears to avenge his best friend's murder, becomes a hunted traitor, and breaks into show business. George Sidney directs as if making an MGM musical, only with swashbuckling instead of song-and-dance. The unlikely casting of Granger and Mel Ferrer as overripe nemeses proves delightful, cameraman Charles (Sunrise) Rosher's Technicolor palette alternatescommedia dell'artegarishness and misty, Watteau-like imagery, and the climactic six-and-a-half-minute duel all over a Parisian theater is a tour de force.--Richard T. Jameson