I haven’t seen this movie in three decades. I only ever saw it the one time. It was during our senior trip which saw members of our class go to Boston for a week, it was pretty cool, and I remember that somehow the choice of movies came down to me, because even then I was the movie guy.

It was between Child’s Play and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I picked Scoundrels, but I think on reflection, and knowing what I know now, we should have gone with Child’s Play, because I think it would have been a much more fun experience for those of us who went.

Not that Scoundrels isn’t fun, it is. It’s frequently laugh-out-loud funny, but a horror movie with a bunch of teenagers, that should have been the choice. Sorry class of ’89.

Re-watching it now for the blog, wow, did I enjoy this one. Pairing Steve Martin and Michael Caine under the direction of Frank Oz, with a fantastic score by Miles Goodman, and a supporting cast that included Glenne Headly and Ian McDiarmid, this is gold.

Caine is Lawrence, a high stakes con-man who knows the ins and outs of everything confidence scheme, and presents an image to the world of a worldly gentleman. Martin is Freddy, an up-and-coming con artist who sees Lawrence’s work and wants to be him, to have his life, to have his excess.

After initially trying to run him off, Lawrence eventually agrees to teach Freddy, and what follows is a number of funny sequences that allow Lawrence to make some serious bank. When Freddy finds out he’s not being cut in on the take, he quits, and the two split ways under less-than-ideal circumstances, becoming rivals in the process.

So Lawrence decides to set up a wager, of $50,000. The target, a rich heiress, Janet Colgate (Headly), let the cons begin. The pair constantly try to one-up each other and break the other’s cover and story. It all keeps escalating until it all goes completely sideways.

Martin is loud and funny, and Caine is his perfect foil, and vice versa. Throw in Headly, and this mix is decidedly decadent and delicious and keeps the fun rolling right until the credits roll.

I don’t think I appreciated it as much at the time as I do now, I’m sure I admitted to enjoying it, but I think, this time around, I got so much more out of it than I did when I was seventeen.