The Scarlet Pimpernel

This aged take on the popular novel of a foppish English hero saving aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution is an absorbing British movie; benefiting in particular from the excellent performance of Leslie Howard (one of England's greatest screen actors, despite his Hungarian ancestry), who gives the character of Percy Blakeney a humour and charm lacking from other actors who have attempted the part.

Merle Oberon also does well as his French expat wife - perhaps her best acting, even surpassing her later work opposite Olivier in 'Wuthering Heights'. Given that Howard and Oberon had a real-life love affair which started during this movie, it is interesting to note there are definite sparks between the pair on screen. Other actors in the cast are good value; Raymond Massey as the arrogant French ambassador who never thinks he can be outwitted; and Nigel Bruce, beloved later in the decade as Dr Watson, as the dullard Prince of Wales.

And those "Frenchies" sought him everywhere.

Leslie Howard probably was the first British stage star who became a genuine Hollywood star as well. We tend to think of Ronald Colman, his elegant contemporary, but Colman never had the great stage career Howard did, and never made films in England - he worked (for Samuel Goldwyn mostly) in Hollywood. Howard conquered English cinema, most notably in PYGMALION (which he co-directed) and this film. His ability to play a romantic figure like Percy Blakeney and a Shavian master character like Henry Higgins shows his amazing talent. By 1935 he had been in several films opposite Frederic March and Norma Shearer (SMILIN' THROUGH), Mary Pickford (SECRETS), Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart (THE PETRIFIED FOREST), Davis and Olivia de Haviland (IT'S LOVE I'M AFTER), and Bogart and Joan Blondell (STAND-BY). He continued in this manner, eventually being in Ingrid Bergman's first American movie (INTERMEZZO), and in GONE WITH THE WIND as Ashley. For an actor who died tragically prematurely in World War II, Howard left an impressive film record.

Sir Percy Blakeney must have become a favorite role to Howard. He was to make it the basis for a final spy comedy-thriller (his last role) PIMPERNELL SMITH, bringing the character up-to-date (taking on the Nazis led by Francis Sullivan as a "Goering" clone). But the original is the better film, as there is a real attempt to capture the spirit of the 1790s, the stirrings of Regency England. The scenery looks a little forced, but it is done consciously to capture the London of 1793.

There are slightly jarring effects (inevitable in any historical movie). Nigel Bruce captures the triviality of the Prince of Wales (the future George IV), although he does strike the proper note in explaining the difficulties of attempting to rescue French political prisoners and aristocrats. But his Scottish burr is noticeable. Merle Oberon does well as the heroine, cruelly twisted into helping the French (via the detestable Chauvin, played by Raymond Massey) into betraying aristocrats to the guilloutine. Her willingness to spy for the Frenchman based on his threatening to execute her brother for treason. Only later does she accidentally realize that her noodle-headed husband is the man she is ultimately forced into betraying.

Massey played mostly villains at this point in his career, except in THINGS TO COME. However, he was to soon make a "favorable" transition, by starring on stage and in the film of ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS. His turn as the psychotic John Brown in SANTE FE TRAIL also changed his movie personae - as he shows that his psychosis is based on a genuine desire to end slavery, as opposed to the opportunistic greed of his betrayer Van Heflin. Here his Chauvin is pompous and deadly. Not a nice character at all. But he has moments to shine: When he hears Blakeney's idiotic verses about the Pimpernell, he is doing a quiet slow burn and says, "I particularly like that use of the term "Frenchies"!". When he hears Oberon bemoaning the deaths her testimony (which he forced her to give) caused in the French courts, he suddenly makes a comment too often forgotten in movies about the French Revolution: "Why is it that everyone is always bemoaning the fate of the poor aristocrats? Don't people ever recall what they did to us?!" Even Chauvin and Robespierre had some points to bring up.

Howard's gleeful performance is the anchor for it all. As clever and watchful a spy as one imagines, instantly dropping the seriousness to play the fool. Look at how he keeps bringing up the proper tying of cravats, or his miscalling the apoplectic Colonel Winterbottom "Ramsbottom". Wonderful stuff Sir Percy. Wonderful movie still.

There are some including previous reviewers here who would argue that The Scarlet Pimpernel afforded Leslie Howard his finest screen role. I wouldn't argue the point.

This Pimpernel guy, a sort of English Zorro/Lone Ranger is one tricky fellow. He's declared his own private war on the French Revolution and while not prancing about Regency society, he's over in France rescuing as many aristocrats as he can from Madame Guillotine.

Like Zorro in order to throw off suspicion, Sir Percy Blakeney affects the guise of a fop so that no one will think him capable of anything bold. Unlike Don Diego De La Vega, Blakeney's a married man, married to a French woman played by Merle Oberon who has her own dirty little secrets she's keeping.

Come to think of Don Diego and Sir Percy were operating in roughly the same period.

There's a guy named Chauvelin who's got a mission from the head guy at the Revolution, Robespierre himself. Bring back the Scarlet Pimpernel to face Revolutionary justice or you will. That's one great incentive.

Raymond Massey is a ruthless hunter as Chauvelin. And he believes in his mission. As another reviewer quite plainly put it Massey well remembers all the excesses that the aristocrats indulged in for centuries. He's pretty good too, but Leslie Howard is a tad better.

Leslie Howard is one of those players you can listen to and never be bored. He had that marvelous ability to make some of the most trite dialog sound like Shakespeare. As did his fellow British players Ronald Colman and Robert Donat. No one ever played the jaded world weary soul quite the way Howard did, whether it was Alan Squire, Ashley Wilkes or Percy Blakeney.

The Scarlet Pimpernel after over 70 years holds up well as classic entertainment. No one, but a jaded regency fop could not like this film.

"They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere..." He's the cunning English spy code-named Pimpernel: master of disguises, savior to guillotine-bound aristocrats during the French Revolution, and most likely to be found in London making as big an ass of himself as credulity will allow. No one (not even his wife) would ever suspect the idiotic Sir Percy Blakeney of being the leader of an underground network of anti-Republic rebels, and it's still a joy to watch Leslie Howard, in the title role, successfully negotiating the ruse under the disdainful noses of his enemies. Without the unexpected element of farce the whole thing would be just another dated exercise in derring-do and low adventure, but the Pimpernel's foppish alter ego makes him one of the more unique (and hilarious) heroes ever to grace the silver screen. The poetry is, by the way, Sir Percy's own: "Is he in heaven, or is he in hell, that damned elusive Pimpernel?" ("It has a certain something..." he tells a giggling audience of landed gentry, "which gives it a certain...something.")

Baroness Orczy was what one would now term 'a right-wing reactionary'. It is probably best to draw a discreet veil over her involvement with 'The Women of England's Active Service League'. When reading her 'Scarlet Pimpernel' it is glaringly obvious that she does not exactly sympathise with the Republicans! That aside, she has created a character that is of timeless and universal appeal, with his dual existence, his disguises and his distinctive calling card.

Physically Leslie Howard is a far cry from the 'tall, broad-shouldered, massively built' Sir Percy Blakeney of Orczy's imagining but his superlative portrayal sets the template by which all actors in the role must be judged. His performance is one of immense grace and subtlety.

In this screenplay, unlike the novel, the Lady Blakeney of Merle Oberon is introduced to us whilst posing for renowned portrait painter George Romney. Whatever Miss Oberon's limitations as an actress she is loved by the camera and oozes class. As Blakeney's most dangerous enemy Citizen Chauvelin, the marvellous Raymond Massey is villainy incarnate. This actor's notoriously wicked sense of humour is evident here.

Granted, the film is somewhat creaky at times as are the performances from some of the supporting actors but it is streets ahead of Powell and Pressburger's catastrophic version of 1950. The less said about Clive Donner's execrable version of 1982 the better.

Baroness Orczy was an avowed Anglophile and happily married to an Englishman so the final scene of this film would I'm sure have appealed to her immensely.

Towards the end of the film Blakeney recites a few lines of 'the sceptered isle' speech from Shakespeare's 'Richard II'. There are two lines in that speech that are not quoted. Although they were not relevant in 1792 or indeed in 1934 they are chillingly relevant now: "That England, that was wont to conquer others, hath made a shameful conquest of itself."