The Whip scene from the film 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels'

Today I invite you to have a good laugh with a scene from the film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine, two of my favourite comic actors.

It is the story of two con men competing to swindle an American heiress out of $50,000. Caine plays the refined Lawrence Jamieson, who believes in conning corrupt, rich people out of their money so he can spend it on culture and a lavish lifestyle. Martin plays his loud, cocky American rival, Freddy Benson, who believes in conning just about anyone in order to get a free meal. It takes place in Beaumont-sur-Mer in the French Riviera.

Lawrence believes that there is not enough room in Beaumont-sur-Mer for both of them, so a bet is proposed to decide who stays. The first to con $50,000 out of a selected mark will be allowed to stay, while the other must leave town and never return. The two select Janet Colgate, a supposedly naive American heiress, and embark on their separate strategies while at the same time ruthlessly sabotaging each other. Freddy poses as a psychosomatically crippled U.S. Army soldier (unable to walk after seeing his wife cheat on him with Dance U.S.A. host Deney Terrio) who needs to borrow $50,000 for treatment by the celebrated Liechtenstein psychiatrist, Dr. Emil Shaffhausen. But when Lawrence discovers this scheme, he pretends to be Dr. Shaffhausen, insisting Freddy's condition is one he can cure, with the stipulation that Janet pay the $50,000 fee directly to him. I won't tell you the rest of the plot, in case you wish to watch the movie.

The scene I've chosen is known as 'the whip scene', and it never fails to have me in stitches every time I watch it. I'm sure you'll have no trouble understanding it, but just in case, I also give you the Spanish version from Un Par de Seductores:

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