Mister V

I'm so pleased that this film has inspired so many people to write so effusively of it. I first saw it in my teens (a long time ago now, alas!) and was totally captivated. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd suggest you just get hold of a copy and enjoy it before you browse the other comments.

If you do look at other comments, a few points: This film is *funny* too! It was not Leslie Howard's last film - 49th Parallel was made later the same year, and First of the Few in 1942, then he subsequently directed 'The Gentle Sex' and 'The Lamp still Burns' in 1943.

Howard was certainly on the Nazi's blacklist, but his death may have been an accident. He was returning from a 'lecture tour' (which was certainly propaganda and may well have had intelligence connotations) via Portugal, and the civilian plane he was on was shot down over the bay of Biscay. It's still not clear if this was an accident or a deliberate target, but if the latter, it's as likely that Howard's accountant, who bore a strong resemblance to Churchill, may have been the target.

Also, look out Violette Cunningham, the assistant in the cosmetic shop. She was Howard's last love - despite still being married to Ruth, he fell for Violette (who also appears in the German dinner scene in 'The First of the Few'). It broke his heart when she died, of cerebral meningitis, in 1942.

Returning to England before the war, Leslie Howard was a towering figure in the British government's anti-Nazi propaganda policy, making patriotic radio broadcasts and movies that lifted the spirits of the British people in the dark days of the war. One such film was Pimpernel Smith in which Howard plays Archeology Professor Horatio Smith who doubles as a British spy, undertaking to help refugees escape from the Gestapo. Based on the novel The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy and modeled after the 1934 film of the same name, Pimpernel Smith is said to have influenced Raoul Wallenberg, known for his heroism in rescuing Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust.

In the film, Professor Smith takes six students with him on an archaeological dig in Germany, presumably to find out whether or not there was an early Aryan civilization in Germany. Smith tries to convince Gestapo leader General Von Graum (Francis L. Sullivan) that he is just a learned professor, reading from The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll and telling him his theory that William Shakespeare was really the Earl of Oxford. Imagine that! The Professor's wit and wisdom are no match for the humorless Nazis and they seem to fall for each of the professor's tricks. Unfortunately, the Nazis are depicted not as mass murderers but only as bumbling clowns who speak English as well as Winston Churchill.

When Smith is wounded, the students catch on to what he is up to and agree to help him in his attempts to secure the release of pianist Sidimir Koslowski (Peter Gawthorne). In his clandestine cat and mouse game, he meets Koslowski's daughter Ludmilla (Mary Morris) who is working for the Nazis in order to save her father and the two form a bond. Howard's role as Professor Smith is one of his most acclaimed in a career that included roles as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind and Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel. He had a great sense of style and screen presence and his death in 1943 on what was most likely an intelligence gathering mission for the British left the film industry bereft of one of its brightest stars.

Concerning this film, I can't decide if my soft spot is for the always superb Leslie Howard, or for one of the old heroes of literature, resurrected to fight the nazi menace. This is a clever update of the Scarlet Pimpernel story. I found this re-incarnation of the classic much more enjoyable than the original. It was even more fun than another personal favorite, Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, who came back in the 1940's to do his bit for king and country against the Third Reich.

Albeit, very light fair, films like this were more to entertain and keep spirits high in not so certain times. The horrors of war can be looked back upon, but to push onward, the propaganda of the day was to show the enemy as almost comical foes, outwitted by the ever sensible Englishman. Leslie Howard plays this role beautifully and it remains one of my favorite performances by him...

Leslie Howard plays absent minded professor in updated version of the scarlet pimpernel spiriting away enemies of Nazi Germany.Set almost at the outbreak of world war II the film is clearly anti Nazi propaganda with classic quips such as "that is to stop the oppressed Swiss from escaping into free Germany".The Germans are typically portrayed as bungling half wits afraid of their masters with the exception of Francis Sullivan's character Graum who is portrayed as a parody of Herman Goering. I love this film despite its limitations and deficiencies it reminds me of a happier bygone England, it is full of humour,a hint of romance and plenty of adventure. Great.

In England we hold a special place in our hearts for the great Leslie Howard. He was a learned man and gave to all his roles on either side of the Atlantic, a suave sophistication that appealed both here and in the states.

But what we loved about him most was his unswerving patriotism. His love of this country, more evident during the war years, was something he lived by and eventually was something he gave his life for and we all herald him a hero in our midst. A truly great Englishman and one we can all be proud of. To us he was the sort of Englishman we all wanted to be and to Americans he was the Englishmen on whom all others would be judged from that day forward.

In Pimpernel Smith he all but reprises his roll as The Scarlett Pimpernel from the 1934 film of the same name. This time the action takes place in 1939 and our modern day Sir Percy is an architect on an expedition in Germany where our hero has the chance to rescue innocent political prisoners incarcerated by the Nazis.

There is very little gun play or physical violence at all, but we get plenty of entertainment by the casual and almost comedic performance by Howard as the foppish Smith, who whilst convincing the Germans he is a scatter brained professor, constantly out-smarts and out-wits them as he steals the 'enemies of the Reich' from under their very noses.

Ultra patriotic and echoing Howard's own anti-Nazi views, Pimpernel Smith is an espionage great with a powerful message to deliver.

I love the speech he makes at the end about how the Germans will never find a horizon and as how one day they will be lost and they will be doomed. Also the line, "I'll be back, we'll all be back" gives an almost spine chilling prediction of D-day. Three years before D-day and four years before the final victory, it is amazing just how accurate Howard's words were, words made more powerful with our knowledge that Howard himself would not live to see either event.

One of the best British propaganda films of the war years ,it has enough elements here to have your British hearts souring with pride re: the Rupert Brooke quote and enough to keep you on the edge of whatever you may be sitting on at the time.

Look out also for a young David 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks' Tomlinson as one of Smith's students.