To be with another woman, that is French. To be caught, that is American.

Set in the beautiful, though fictitious, Beaumont Sur Mer in the south of France, 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a comedy classic worth seeing again and again.

Protagonists Lawrence Jamieson (played by Michael Caine) and Freddy Benson (Steve Martin) slug it out to see who can extract $50,000 from the apparently hapless Janet Colgate, heir to the fortunes of the US Soap Company. The movie is an intricate series of twists and turns, and the best is left for last.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is about coming to terms with personal limitations and making the best of our talents. After seeing this movie, perhaps we all need to be more honest with ourselves regarding our abilities and limitations then? ;)

For Lawrence Jamieson it means living in villas overlooking the Mediterranean, travelling and dining on luxury trains, as well as driving prestige cars. Not to mention swindling people out of money. Usually people who have more money than they know what to do with.

Jamieson is one smooth operator as he gracefully fleeces rich and corrupt female victims for his apparently noble causes. In his element he is virtually unflappable, and nothing seems to shake his confident and charming aura. He keeps his cool even when his grand scheme comes dangerously close to being unravelled on several occasions.

Yet Jamieson is not a complete scoundrel. He carefully chooses his targets and never takes money from those who don’t have it. And despite running a lucrative enterprise he only acquires relatively small sums from his donors. $20,000 appeared to be the largest such amount, which would be mere beer money to a multi-millionaire.

All you need it seems, is taste and style and paradise could be yours. I’m wondering if I can rustle up a little…