The Scarlet Coat is a 1955 American historical drama and swashbuckler in Eastmancolor and CinemaScope released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, produced by Nicholas Nayfack, directed by John Sturges.

The film is based upon the events in the American Revolution in which Benedict Arnold offered to surrender the fort at West Point to the British in exchange for money.

It weaves a spy/counterspy tale in which British and American counterparts, played by Michael Wilding as the historical personage Major John André and Cornel Wilde as the fictional Major John Bolton (Bolton being the "code name" used real life Continental Army Intelligence officer Benjamin Tallmadge; for this film it is simply treated as the character's actual name), each unaware that the other is attempting to outsmart him for the sake of their countries, deal with issues of honor, loyalty, and friendship.

[a] André is treated sympathetically in the film while Wilde's fictional Major Bolton is portrayed as more ruthless, particularly in the brutality he employs to accomplish his objectives.

Major John Bolton (Cornel Wilde), a dragoon officer assigned to counterintelligence, intercepts and kills a British spy leaving the Storm King Tavern, and captures a letter found on his body.

He reports to Gen. Robert Howe (John McIntire), that the coded message was from the British spy calling himself "Gustavus" to "James Osborn", in care of Dr. Jonathan Odell[b] of New York, stating that Arnold has taken command at West Point.

Bolton returns to the tavern, where one of his contacts, stable boy Ben Potter (Bobby Driscoll), tells him that the Tory wife of a redcoat, Mrs. Sally Cameron (Anne Francis), is traveling under a flag of truce possibly carrying information to the enemy.

A pass through the lines found hidden in Winfield's boot reveals that the impostor was actually Moody, a spy, who had another coded letter from "Gustavus" to "Osborn" in his possession.

The package, a ream of blank paper, concealed a message from "Osborn" written in invisible ink requesting an urgent meeting to finalize an unknown arrangement.

He invites him to a dinner party that evening, where Bolton suffers an anxious moment when Sally Cameron (unmarried and André's mistress) is present.

Putting duty before personal considerations, André asks Bolton to accompany him to a meeting between "Gustavus" and "Osborn" aboard the sloop Vulture.

As reported in April 1952 in Daily Variety, the genesis of the film was the original story "Betrayal on the Hudson" by Hollister Noble and Sidney Harmon, purchased by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as the basis for the screenplay of The Scarlet Coat.

In January 1953 The Hollywood Reporter listed Stewart Granger in the role of John Bolton and Robert Pirosh as the film's director.

Exteriors filmed on location in Tarrytown, New York and on the Hudson River were shot in the autumn of 1954 to capture fall foliage for depicting the historical September 1780 time frame.