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Touches You

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The first must-see film of the year.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Baroness Emma Orczy was still writing sequels when this first film was made of "The Scarlet Pimpernel." The British novelist, playwright and short story writer was born Sept. 23, 1865 in Hungary and died Nov. 12, 1947 in England. She first wrote "Pimpernel" as a short story and then as a play in 1903. Once it became popular, Orczy wrote a dozen sequel stories either as novels or as plays. I have enjoyed all three of her stories that have made it to the silver screen. "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is her best known work, and has the most renditions on film "The Emperor's Candlesticks" in 1937 and "Pimpernel Smith" in 1941 are very good films as well. Orczy preferred to write historical fiction, which I especially like. She puts her fictitious characters in an actual time, event or place of history, and makes them a part of that history. Besides the romance, drama, comedy or other entertainment we get from the fictional story, we also get a look at history. Of course, this is as the film industry (aka Hollywood) makes it, but most such productions try to be accurate on the historical details. Viewers can watch for errors and post corrections on IMDb. "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is a story with a lot of variety. It's an action drama in a historical setting. It has intrigue and mystery. It has deceit and deception. It has somber moments that look at a dark period in French history, and the barbarism of humanity gone mad. It is a sure- fire romance, and it has wonderful humor. I can think of very few films with stories that combine so much and come off so successfully. This first film version is hard to beat. The only later rendition that comes close is the 1982 TV movie with Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour. But, this 1934 London Film movie is the masterpiece. The cast is outstanding, and all roles are played superbly. Leslie Howard as Sir Percy Blakeney, Merle Oberon as Marguerite (Lady Blakeney) and Raymond Massey as Citizen Chauvelin shine in their roles. The set, scenery, props and costumes all look real for the time and circumstances. The scenes of public executions with the guillotine are a good look at how mob rule can lead to barbarism and treachery. An opening scene shows a newspaper with a close up of an item dated June 5, 1792. It reads, "On Wednesday last no fewer than fifty-three persons, including young girls, were guillotined by the order of Citizen Robespierre, the self-styled Dictator of France. An eye-witness described the scene as heart-rending." We also see the mob cheering and applauding each execution. It is a necessary look at history more than 200 years ago that we should not forget. Tens of thousands were executed by mob rule during the historic Reign of Terror. Unfortunately, the film quality is not very good on the DVD I have. This is a classic film that should be digitally remastered for posterity – and future sales. Movie buffs often quote the clever and funny poem that Sir Percy has written and recites in the film. It's an easy one to remember. I like some of the other witty exchanges Percy has at times with others. At the Blacks Club, Percy is going to recite it to some gentlemen sitting in high-backed chairs. Percy, "Would you believe me? I've just written a masterpiece?" Col. Winterbottom, "Who sir? You sir?" Percy, "Me, sir." The colonel, "No, sir." Percy, "Yes, sir. All about this mysterious pimpernel fellow." Later, at a party they are giving, Percy says to Marguerite, "Forgive me, my dear. Take our friend around and tell him who everybody is. If anybody is anybody."While this is a very entertaining film, it's also one that shines a light on the dark side of the French Revolution. Westerners are quick to celebrate the birth of democracy in late 18th century France, and at the same time turn a blind eye to the different tyranny it brought and the greater upheaval it fostered. The film has a poignant scene and line that puts the time in perspective. Nigel Bruce is playing the Prince of Wales. At a grand ball in England, a French woman who had been rescued from the guillotine approaches the prince. "Your highness, I have accepted the … invitation belatedly to implore your highness to do something to save my husband." The Prince of Wales replies, "Madame. The government does everything in its power to save those who are threatened by death in the prisons of the French Republic. But if a country goes mad, it has the right to commit every horror within its own walls."

"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.")

Leslie Howard is the movie. His take on the role is one of a kind. And to be honest I laughed the entire movie. His role as Percy is hysterical. Line after line is memorable. "Go and introduce him to everybody, if everybody is anybody." And his ability to change character instantaneously is done with remarkable precision. Watch as he approaches his wife, the stern man that stands for life, then changes to the laughable Percy only an inch from her face. He is fun to watch in this one. You must appreciate the energy that he must have put into this role. He should have won an academy award. This must be the best acting of his career if not for his role in "Gone with the Wind". The entire story line is perfect and there aren't many dead scenes. It's great entertainment from start to finish, with a classic ending on top of it all.

Sink me, a dammed good movie about the Reign of Terror and the dangerous efforts of an Englishman known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, aka Sir Percy Blakeney, aka Leslie Howard, and his small band of colleagues to rescue at least a few aristocrats from the French guillotine.The film has three themes going on at the same time: (1) Howard's constant trips to France to smuggle out the aristos; (2) the measures taken by the French ambassador to England (Raymond Massey, the one with the ineradicable sneer) to discover the hidden identity of the Pimpernel; and (3) the fact that Howard's wife is being blackmailed to pass that secret identity over to the French so they can capture him and lop off his head.It's an unpleasant situation altogether. The French aristocrats and their neglectful king were bad enough -- though we hear only one guilty reference to some "mistakes" they made. But the Reign of Terror -- covered also in Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" -- was worse, if possible. They lopped off the heads of everyone associated with the French nobility, including men, their families, their children, some of the servants, any rebellious anti-rebels, and -- well, just about anybody they wanted. One proud revolutionary, Condorcet, had to write a tract in support of the movement while hiding out himself from his fellow citizens under suspicion of harboring anti-revolutionary thoughts. At the head of the French citizens was the dictator manqué Robespierre. I think his head wound up under the guillotine as well. So may that of M. Guillotine, the proponent of the device. Actually, Guillotine's neck remained intact but he must have worried about it when he was imprisoned. And what did the French revolution wind up with? Napoleon. Sometimes revolutions, or any social movements, can go too far. Read my forthcoming study of the subject: "Why All Revolutions Should Take Place Inside the Head." The direction and photography are grand. Huge ballrooms crowded with fine ladies and gentlemen listening to Mozart. The score is by Arthur Benjamin, who also wrote "The Storm Cloud Sonata" for Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much." A scene in which Leslie Howard, posing as a fop, appears to be sprawled asleep on a library chair while Raymond Massey (always dressed in dark garb as befits a villain) paces around waiting for the Pimpernel to stumble in. A scene in which Massey finally captures Howard in France and orders the firing squad to execute him, only to find out the squad belongs to Howard. And here you can tell the novel was written by a woman. The firing squad don't kill Massey either. Under Howard's orders they just dump him into a wet hole in the floor and cover it with a heavy barrel while they escape. If the writer had been a man, he would have concocted a magnificent duel using swords and furniture, with the two men exchanging insults, and Massey fighting dirty. A final dramatic shot of Howard and his lovely wife, Merle Oberon, as they reach England and the key light fades from their smiling faces and they become silhouettes against a romantically fuzzy, yet still slightly ominous, backlight.There's more intrigue than action in the story, and it doesn't carry with it Dickens' genuine concern for realism, but it pumps up the tension and we are always rooting for the hero who must play the humiliating part of the fool in the interests of justice. How the Scarlet Pimpernel must have wanted to tear off that lace and fling away that monocle-on-a-stick and declare himself for what he was. We may call this "the Clark Kent Problem." Speaking of Howard's being an English Baron and pretending to be a clothes-conscious fop -- one step removed from fairyhood -- I can't bring myself to believe that the writers of "The Mark of Zorro" weren't familiar with this tale.