The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935)

Why so much hype?

Expected more

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I have loved this film for years. Tales about heroes who right injustices while disguised have always appealed to me. The fact that the Scarlet Pimpernel is hiding in plain sight makes the story even more enjoyable. Leslie Howard is so enjoyable in the title role.Other standout performances include Merle Oberon as Lady Blakeney, his wife, for her portrayal of the wife who struggles to hang on to her love for her husband despite every indication that he is no longer the man she married; Nigel Bruce as the irrelevant Prince of Wales; and Raymond Massey as the villainous Chauvin.Set against the French Revolution, the story views the conflict with a fresh eye that recognizes the excesses and atrocities on both sides--the aristocracy and the revolutionaries.I would give this film a "10", but I must admit the beginning is slow. Once the drama starts to develop though, it is riveting.

Most Americans know Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind, but he was an accomplished actor long before that. A stage actor, and a British film actor, before coming to America.Here he plays a foppish dandy, much like Zorro, as he tries to spirit away French Aristocrats before they are guillotined.While he is doing that, he has trouble at home with his wife, the lovely Merle Oberon, who testified and sent a family to that same guillotine.You won't find a great amount of action here, unlike the familiar Zorro films with a similar theme. It is a play more than anything, and an excellently written one at that. We can thank Oscar winner Robert E. Sherwood (The Best Years of Our Lives, Rebecca) for that.Seeing Raymond Massey (Dr. Leonard Gillespie in "Dr. Kildare"), and Nigel Bruce (Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone), only added to the pleasure.Excellent film.

I just finished watching it on TV, it was shown minus the commercials too, so that was excellent.The film is so incredibly real. Although it is black and white, this is the closest thing you are going to get to that period of time. More so than most modern period pieces, I feel. Most modern period pieces are so full of special effects, unbelievable characters and situations that push the boundaries of suspension of belief too far, and most importantly, often overlong running times, that you do not find yourself engrossed in the film as much as you should.This is not the case here. Oh, by golly no! When you see this film, you not only behold spectacles of rich and of splendour, of dense halls, candlelit niches of magic in all it's purest...foggy waters, great barges, and damp cabins that force you to breath in the salty winds of the sea. Oh no, you go back in time. You go on a highly pleasant outing back in time to dwell for a little while--in the realm of dreams.

Sir Percy Blakeney is leading a secret double life. Pretending to everyone in the public eye, including his own wife, that he is a silly British fop, he is in reality the dashing Scarlet Pimpernel, a man devoted, despite the threat to his own head, to helping free the innocence condemned to the guillotine during the French Terror! Overall this is very well done and features a very capable cast particularly lead Leslie Howard in the challenging dual role and Raymond Massey, who has a great turn as lead villain/spy for the French Republic Citizen Chauvelin for which he seems perfectly cast. Merle Oberon too does quite well and looks quite fetching as Blakeney's befuddled wife.The problem with this is it feels a bit too static, a bit too talky as was often the case with many early sound pictures. There's just a bit more exposition at times than really seems necessary. This slows the action down a bit to the point things actually get a little dull on occasion. That said, there's enough fun to be found in this one that makes it well worth watching especially those scenes featuring Howard's Blakeney, particularly when he uses some means of disguise or another to fool those pursuing him or uses his foppish charm to throw Chauvelin off his trail.