The Scarlet Pimpernel is a 1934 British adventure film directed by Harold Young and produced by Alexander Korda. The film stars Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, and Raymond Massey. The Scarlet Pimpernel was based on the 1903 stage play and 1905 novel of the same name by Baroness Elma Orczy.
Director: Harold Young
Production Company: London Films
Distributor: United Artists
Cast: Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey, Joan Gardner, Mabel Terry-Lewis
US Box Office: Unknown
Film Format: Black & White
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Release Date: December 23, 1934 (UK); February 7, 1935 (US)
Plot Summary: In 1792, English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney (Leslie Howard) is secretly the Scarlet Pimpernel, a hero who rescues French nobles from Robespierre’s Reign of Terror. Percy pretends to be a useless idiot so no one, even his wife Lady Marguerite (Merle Oberon), suspects that he is the Pimpernel. Robespierre’s government sends Chauvelin (Raymond Massey) to discover the Pimpernel’s identity. Chauvelin blackmails Marguerite into helping him because she once helped the revolutionaries in the past (and now regrets it) and Chauvelin knows that her brother Armand (Walter Rilla) works for the Pimpernel.
Production: In the early 1930s, British-Hungarian film producer and director Alexander Korda gained the rights to create a film adaptation of Baroness Elma Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel. Orczy originally wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel as a stage play, where it was first performed at Nottingham in 1903, and later performed at London’s West End in 1905 where it quickly became a massive success. Orczy adapted her play into a novel, which spanned a book series. The story involved a British aristocrat who secretly rescued the victims of the French Revolution using the alias “the Scarlet Pimpernel.” The film script for The Scarlet Pimpernel was written by several different screenwriters including Lajos Biro, Robert E. Sherwood, and Arthur Wimperis. Biro had previously co-written scripts for several of Korda’s films including The Golden Archer (1932), The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and the The Private Life of Don Juan (1934).
Alexander Korda originally cast Charles Laughton in the role of Sir Percy Blakeney, the main character. Korda had previously directed Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII. However, the press announcement that Laughton had been cast in the role was met with a negative reaction from fans of The Scarlet Pimpernel book series who didn’t want to see the debonair and suave Sir Percy played by the overweight Laughton. In response to the negative reaction, Korda instead cast Leslie Howard in the role. Howard had been a popular stage actor in the 1920s, and had leading roles in several American films including Berkeley Square (1933) where he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. British actress Merle Oberon was cast as Lady Marguerite Blakeney. She had previously played Anne Boleyn in Korda’s The Private Life of Henry VIII.
The Scarlet Pimpernel began filming in September of 1934, and it was primarily shot on sets in Buckinghamshire and London. Alexander Korda originally hired Rowland Brown to direct The Scarlet Pimpernel, but Brown was fired early on during filming because he had major disagreements with Korda about the direction of the project. Korda quickly replaced Brown with Harold Young. Korda (who frequently directed the films he produced) may have co-directed The Scarlet Pimpernel with Young, but only Young was credited.
Fun Facts and Trivia: The man who paints a portrait of Lady Blakeney is named Romney (Melville Cooper). This is a reference to George Romney, a real-life painter who was one of the most popular English portrait artists of the eighteenth century. Romney was active from the early 1760s to the late 1790s, so it makes sense that he would be a character in The Scarlet Pimpernel. The name of actor Morland Graham (Treadle) was incorrectly spelled as “Moreland Graham” in the film’s credits. The Scarlet Pimpernel was an early film role for English actor Robert Rietti, who served as an extra and was about eleven years old at the time. Rietti later became known for dubbing over the dialogue of foreign actors in English-language films, he notably voiced the character Largo in the James Bond film Thunderball (1965).
Reception: The Scarlet Pimpernel was released on December 23, 1934 in the United Kingdom; and in the United States on February 7. The film was very successful in the UK, where it was the sixth highest grossing film at the British box office in 1935. The Scarlet Pimpernel was quite popular with general audiences in Britain at the time. In 1936 subscribers of the British magazine Picturegoer voted to give the magazine’s “Gold Medal” award for Best Actor to Howard for his performance in The Scarlet Pimpernel.
The Scarlet Pimpernel received several follow-ups. Alexander Korda produced a sequel to the film titled The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1937), though none of the actors from the original film reprised their roles. Korda’s production company London Films later released a second adaptation of the novel titled The Elusive Pimpernel (1950), which starred David Niven as Sir Percy. Leslie Howard later starred in, directed, and produced “Pimpernel” Smith (1941), another adaptation of Orczy’s novel. “Pimpernel” Smith updated the novel’s setting to modern day Europe and focused on a seemingly timid English professor who secretly rescues the victims of Nazi persecution in Germany.
The Scarlet Pimpernel received positive reviews at the time of its release. Andre Sennwald of The New York Times praised Leslie Hamilton’s performance, as well as the film’s cinematography and script. Forsyth Hardy of the Scottish Cinema Quarterly also strongly praised Howard’s performance in the film. Ann Ross of the Canadian Maclean’s Magazine considered The Scarlet Pimpernel to be a highly impressive example of recent British cinema. Though somewhat forgotten today, The Scarlet Pimpernel continues to receive generally positive reviews from critics. Dennis Schwartz thought that the film’s action-adventure and romance elements worked well together. Carol Cling of the Las Vegas Review-Journal gave the film a perfect 5/5 star rating.
Why You Should See It: The Scarlet Pimpernel is a mostly good adventure film. Director Harold Young and cinematographer Harold Rosson did a great job with the lighting and cinematography. Several scenes in the film are visually striking, including the early scenes in Paris and the finale at the tavern. The twists and turns of The Scarlet Pimpernel‘s story make the film highly engrossing (especially to someone who hasn’t read the novel). All the main actors give good performances, including Leslie Howard who received considerable praise from critics. I personally thought that Raymond Massey gave a standout performance as the main antagonist Chauvelin. Massey’s gaunt/grim appearance, shifty eyes, and mannerisms combined with Chauvelin’s nasty disposition from the script make the character a perfect villain.