Welcome to "Saturday Night at the Movies".

I'm your host, Glenn Holland.

Tonight's film is the 1988 comedy "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", directed by Frank Oz, released by Orion Pictures.

The screenplay is by Dale Launer, who adapted it from the 1964 comedy "Bedtime Story", written by Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning.

"Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" stars Michael Caine, Steve Martin, and Glenne Headley, with Anton Rodgers, Ian McDiarmid, and Barbara Harris in supporting roles.

Lawrence Jamieson is an urbane, sophisticated British con man playing his trade in Beaumont-Sur-Mer on the French Riviera.

His primary scheme is to pose as the exiled monarch of a small principality, seducing wealthy women, and allowing them to give him generous monetary gifts to support his nation's freedom fighters.

Lawrence is assisted in his nefarious efforts by his valet, Arthur, and Andre, a corrupt local police official.

The only cloud on Jamieson's horizon is reports that an American con artist known as The Jackal has also started working on the Riviera.

While traveling by train, Lawrence encounters Freddy Benson, an American hustler, who brags about how he cons wealthy women into giving him money with stories about his sick grandmother.

Seeking to be rid of this potential rival, Lawrence tries to get Freddy to travel elsewhere.

But despite his efforts, Freddy soon shows up in Beaumont-sur-Mer.

Lawrence has Andre arrest Freddy, jail him, and send him out of town.

But Freddy runs into one of Lawrence's female marks on a plane, and returns to Beaumont-sur-Mer, threatening to expose Lawrence unless he takes him on as a protege, and teaches him the finer points of running cons.

Lawrence reluctantly takes Freddy on as an apprentice, and enlists him in his schemes to play his prince's mentally challenged brother, Ruprecht.

When Lawrence refuses to split the profits with him, Freddy and Lawrence agree to a contest.

Whoever is first to con a mutually chosen mark out of $50,000 will win, and the loser will have to leave town.

Although the teaming of Michael Caine and Steve Martin might seem inspired, in fact, there were many other actors considered for the two leading roles.

The project started when Mick Jagger and David Bowie decided to make a film together.

They approached screenwriter Dale Launer who suggested a remake of "Bedtime Story", a caper comedy from 1964 starring David Niven and Marlon Brando.

Launer secured the rights, but both Jagger and Bowie decided to seek out a different project.

Bowie later said he and Jagger "were a bit tweezed that we lost out on a script that could have been reasonably good."

John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin, all alumni of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" were each offered the part of Jamieson.

Palin later said Cleese declined reluctantly, and Palin felt that he, himself, wasn't really suited for the role.

Others considered for Jamieson were Rowan Atkinson, Dudley Moore, Leslie Nielsen, and Gene Wilder.

Eddie Murphy was reportedly considered for the role of Benson, as was Richard Dreyfuss, but Dreyfuss showed up at the audition prepared to read for Jamieson.

So director Frank Oz recruited Steve Martin to read for Benson opposite Dreyfuss.

Oz liked Martin's take on the character, and decided to cast him, and have Michael Caine play Jamieson opposite him.

One of the factors that led to Michael Caine's decision to star in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", apart from the money, was the chance to stay for three months in a villa on the French Riviera near the villas of two of his oldest friends, one-time James Bond, Roger Moore, and composer, Leslie Bricusse.

Michael Palin speculated in his diary that Caine was probably the nearest Oz will get in an English actor to the effortless charisma of David Niven.

And he was right.

As a critic wrote in a review in "Variety", Michael Caine plays homage to David Niven by sporting a thin mustache, slicked back hair, and a double-breasted blue blazer in a sort of 1930s British yachtsman look.

Steve Martin in his role as Freddy Benson, as you will see, is neither as suave nor as well dressed.

Dale Launer's screenplay for "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" is essentially an update and reworking of Stanley Shapiro's and Paul Henning's script for the 1964 comedy "Bedtime Story".

Most of Launer's screenplay follows Shapiro and Henning's work very closely and both Shapiro and Henning were given writing credits for "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" as a result.

But in re-imagining the story, Launer introduced a new twist into the plot that created a quite different, and arguably much better, film.

In "Bedtime Story", Shirley Jones as Janet is in fact just what she appears to be.

She is not an heiress, as the two men had once thought, but a contest winner who is willing to sell off her winnings to pay Dr. Shauffhausen to cure Freddy's paralysis.

Lawrence discovers this and wants to call off the bet.

When Freddy refuses, it instead becomes a wager over whether Freddy will be able to get Janet into bed or not.

At the end of the film, after Freddy has apparently won the bet, he reveals that he did not, in fact, seduce Janet.

Instead, he had a change of heart when he realized he really was in love with her.

The two marry and return to the States, while Lawrence remains in Beaumont-Sur-Mer, consoling himself by working his cons on wealthy, and attractive, women.

This resolution of the story was in deference to the motion picture production code in effect in Hollywood until 1968, which dictated that criminals could not be seen to enjoy the fruits of their evil deeds at the end of the story.

It was also part of the code that romantic couples had to be properly joined in wedlock before indulging in any activity more erotic than kissing.

Dale Launer was not hindered by such restrictions when he wrote his screenplay for "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" in the late '80s, so he was able to introduce the twist that is much more in keeping with the spirit of the rest of the story.

In "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", Glenne Headly as Janet, instead of a naive young Mark, is in fact The Jackal, the American con artist Lawrence heard about at the beginning of the film and mistakenly assumed was Freddy.

In the end, both con men are thoroughly conned themselves by a con woman.

The happy ending, instead of a marriage, is a three-way criminal collaboration.

It turns out Janet enjoyed her scheme so much that she returns to Beaumont-sur-Mer to join forces with Lawrence and Freddy to pull off bigger and better cons, make a lot of money, and have a lot of fun in the process.

It his review of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", Vincent Canby of the New York Times celebrated what he called the movie's "enchanting featherweight folly", designating it "one of the season's most cheerful, most satisfying new comedies" and "a blithe, seemingly all-new, laugh-out-loud escapade".

It was this lighthearted larceny that led both to the film's popularity with audiences and its adaptation into a musical, also titled "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels".

It opened on Broadway in January 2005 with John Lithgow playing Lawrence Jameson.

The musical ran for 626 performances until September 2006, with other national and international productions following.

What is it that we like so much about a film like "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels"?

Perhaps it appeals to some perverse instinct in its audiences, some covert desire to do what we know we really shouldn't.

The trailer for the movie showed Lawrence and Freddy walking along a Riviera boardwalk, politely greeting people with smiles on their faces, until at the end, Lawrence shoves a boy's face into his cotton candy and Freddy pushes an old woman into the water.

Or perhaps the film's appeal is best conveyed by an exchange at the end of the film, after Freddy and Lawrence have realized Janet has conned them.

Freddy is outraged.

"Of all lousy!

She's disgusting, she is lying, she is deceitful, she is two-faced, she is conniving, and she is dishonest!"

In reply, Lawrence just smiles and says, "yes, isn't she wonderful?"

Please join us again next time for another Saturday Night at the Movies.

I'm Glenn Holland.

Good night.