Historical drama from the production of Alexander Korda's.
A mysterious Englishman rescues noblemen from the rages of the maniacs of the French Revolution - namely from the guillotine - and brings them to safety in England. He operates under the pseudonym of "Scarlet Pimpernel" and has a whole squad of assistants and spies working for him. Nobody suspects that he is hiding behind the deliberately silly facade of aristocratic Sir Percy Blakeney (Leslie Howard) - not even Blakeney's wife (Merle Oberon), who is blackmailed by the French ambassador (Raymond Massey) to find out the true identity of the mysterious avenger.
The film begins on a promising note, highly atmospheric and exciting - the legendary studio buildings by Vincent Korda create a gorgeous and picturesque Paris. The French Revolution serves only as a pretext for the narrative and is not discussed in more detail. The good/evil split is clearly defined: English aristocrats are good, French revolutionaries evil.
For about half of its runtime, the film is interesting, a feast for the eyes and, above all, very funny. But then its narrative suddenly starts to stumble; unimportant sequences are dragged out excessively, more and more dialogue takes over the narration and the locations look increasingly poor. Finally, the showdown feels cheap and rushed.
To me, "The Scarlet Pimpernel" loses quite a portion of the good impression it made in the first half.
A mysterious Englishman rescues noblemen from the rages of the maniacs of the French Revolution - namely from the guillotine - and brings them to safety in England. He operates under the pseudonym of "Scarlet Pimpernel" and has a whole squad of assistants and spies working for him. Nobody suspects that he is hiding behind the deliberately silly facade of aristocratic Sir Percy Blakeney (Leslie Howard) - not even Blakeney's wife (Merle Oberon), who is blackmailed by the French ambassador (Raymond Massey) to find out the true identity of the mysterious avenger.
The film begins on a promising note, highly atmospheric and exciting - the legendary studio buildings by Vincent Korda create a gorgeous and picturesque Paris. The French Revolution serves only as a pretext for the narrative and is not discussed in more detail. The good/evil split is clearly defined: English aristocrats are good, French revolutionaries evil.
For about half of its runtime, the film is interesting, a feast for the eyes and, above all, very funny. But then its narrative suddenly starts to stumble; unimportant sequences are dragged out excessively, more and more dialogue takes over the narration and the locations look increasingly poor. Finally, the showdown feels cheap and rushed.
To me, "The Scarlet Pimpernel" loses quite a portion of the good impression it made in the first half.