The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)

Director:

Harold Young

Writers:

Baroness Emmuska Orczy (by)
Lajos Biró (scenario, continuity & dialogue) ...

Release Date:

7 February 1935 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy

Tagline:

The Scarlet Pimpernel. Who Was He... What Was His Strange Power?

Plot:

Leslie Howard plays Sir Percy Blakeney, an 18th century English aristocrat who leads a double life. He appears to be merely the effete aristocrat...

Plot Keywords:

Aristocrat | Scarlet Pimpernel | Disguise | Fop | Guillotine

Cast

Leslie Howard	...	Sir Percy Blakeney / The Scarlet Pimpernel
Merle Oberon	...	Lady Blakeney
Raymond Massey	...	Chauvelin
Nigel Bruce	...	The Prince of Wales
Bramwell Fletcher	...	The Priest
Anthony Bushell	...	Sir Andrew Ffoulkes
Joan Gardner	...	Suzanne de Tournay
Walter Rilla	...	Armand St. Just
Mabel Terry-Lewis	...	Countess de Tournay
O.B. Clarence	...	Count de Tournay
Ernest Milton	...	Robespierre
Edmund Breon	...	Colonel Winterbottom
Melville Cooper	...	Romney (The Great Artist)
Gibb McLaughlin	...	The Barber
Morland Graham	...	Treadle (the tailor) (as Moreland Graham)

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Wide Range Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

Australia:G | UK:A (original rating) | UK:U (video rating) | USA:Approved (PCA #578)

Filming Locations:

Denham Studios, Denham, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

London Film Productions

Trivia:

The original play opened in London on 5 January 1905, three years before it was novelized.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Blakeney and the Prince of Wales are seen at a boxing match in which the combatants are in a structure similar to a modern 'square' ring. This form of the ring was not used until around 1838.

Quotes:

Lady Marguerite Blakeney: Oh but Percy, through me, a good, a generous man my lose his life. Oh Percy, what can I do? How can I warn him?
Percy Blakeney: Warn him? Against what?
Lady Marguerite Blakeney: Against the danger if he goes back to France.
Percy Blakeney: Well, if he's the kind of lunatic I take him to be, your warning's not going to stop him.
Lady Marguerite Blakeney: But he might be going to his death.
Percy Blakeney: That's all the fellow lives for. Besides, he doesn't know you're in love with him.
Lady Marguerite Blakeney: I'm not in love with him! I admire his head of wisdom, but I'm not in love with him.
Percy Blakeney: Oh, but you are. It's a dangerous game, my dear. Falling in love with a phantom. For all you know, he might be a married man who is deeply in love with his wife.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Zorro, the Gay Blade (1981)

Soundtrack:

La Marseillaise

"Those Frenchies Seek Him Everywhere."

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.