The Rake’s Progress – 1945 | 110 mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Launder and Gilliat’s satirical overview of upperclass decadence is a caustically witty comedy-drama that is undercut by thescript’s mistaken implication that all the charming scoundrel needs is a goodwar to straighten him out. The debonair Rex Harrisson produces a memorableperformance as the quintessential upper class cad, scion of a family whichtraditionally breeds Tories for Westminster. Lilli Palmer, then Harrison’sreal-life wife, is outstanding among the hearts he rakishly, recklessly breaks.

Playboy Vivian Kenway (Rex Harrison) is sent down fromOxford after crowning the Martyrs’ Memorial with a chamber-pot, and he ispacked off by his father to a South American coffee. He soon returns to England,and after a carefree period philandering and holidaying in most of Europe’ssociety hotspots, he is declared bankrupt. Salvation arrives in the shape ofold college friend, Sandy (Griffith Jones), but Vivian repays him by enteringinto an affair with his best friend’s wife, Jill (Jean Kent), which ultimately leadsto a scandalous divorce.

Next, Vivian turns his hand to motor racing, and aftera brief period of glory as a driver he’s left stranded in Vienna as WWII looms.Whilst locked in his Viennese hotel room due to an unpaid bill he is rescued byrich Austrian heiress Rikki Krausner (Lilli Palmer), who claims to have along-standing crush on the loveable rogue. Kenway quickly see’s through herploy, which is to marry an Englishman and flee Jewish oppression by moving toLondon. Vivien agrees to marriage as a ‘business proposition’, but his affairwith his father’s secretary, Jennifer (Margaret Johnston), causes Rikki toattempt suicide. Vivian’s downward spiral and selfish habit of hurting everyonehe comes into touch peaks with the death of his father after a bout of drunkendriving.

For a period the guilt-ridden cad avoids high society,and drifts between jobs selling used cars, a door-to-door salesman and sellinghimself as a professional dancing partner. Eventually Jennifer tracks him andwhisks him away to the country to put him back on his feet. But the urge toseek adventure soon resurfaces within Vivian.