Director Douglas Sirk's reputation rests squarely on '50s films such as Written On The Wind and Imitation Of Life, domestic dramas so self-conscious and prone to emotional and visual extremes that they become almost operatic in their portrayals of Eisenhower-era America. Sirk labored anonymously in studio systems for years before making those signature titles, first in his native Germany and then, after the rise of Hitler, in Britain and America. Much of Sirk's pre-'50s work (and even some from his heyday) has remained unavailable on video until fairly recently, but if what has surfaced is any indication, it shouldn't stay that way. As with last year's video release of the 1947 mystery Lured, the recently unearthed A Scandal In Paris (a.k.a. Thieves' Holiday) from 1946 reveals the director as a distinguished, if not yet distinctive, craftsman and finds in star George Sanders a decadent leading man capable of stealing every scene he's in. Sanders plays François Eugène Vidocq, the famed criminal-turned-detective who befriended Hugo and Balzac in 19th-century France. Scandal, however, concentrates on his early days as an unrepentant rogue and seducer of women. After planning an elaborate heist on the Bank Of Paris, however, he begins to question his thieving lifestyle when confronted with the love of a good woman (Signe Hasso). Sanders titled his memoirs Confessions Of A Professional Cad and, as usual, he brings that persona to this role, turning Vidocq into an amoral bon vivant prone to casually dispensing lines such as, "Only the heartless succeed in crime—as in love." He's the embodiment of the wit Sirk would later sublimate into melodrama, and a knowing accomplice in Sirk's conversion of what might have been a forgettable historical entry into an entertaining bit of lighthearted costumed nonsense.