Le chevalier de Londres

LESLIE HOWARD and MERLE OBERON both shine in this thoroughly entertaining film classic about the man who was an effete British gentleman by day (Sir Percy) and a noble avenger who saved many of his countrymen from the guillotine. As the dandy, Leslie is an unmitigated delight, delivering some ripely amusing lines with great flair. And Merle Oberon is a vision of loveliness as his wife who almost gives his identity away before she realizes who he actually is.

It's photographed in crisp B&W splendor with elegant costumes and settings and given a rich supporting cast of players including RAYMOND MASSEY as the Frenchman anxious to trap The Scarlet Pimpernell, NIGEL BRUCE, MELVILLE COOPER and many others.

The brilliant script has many memorable lines, most of them given to Leslie Howard's character when he's playing the dandy seemingly oblivious to the hunt for the disguised Pimpernell. Especially riveting are the opening scenes depicting the ugly public executions during the French Revolution and the crowds that delighted in them.

There's never a dull moment. Well worth watching and should give fans a new impression of just how great an actor LESLIE HOWARD actually was.

Overall, this is an entertaining and satisfying screen adaptation of the classic story of "The Scarlet Pimpernel". It is well-written, well-acted, and also contains a good balance of action sequences and verbal sparring. Yet it is Leslie Howard's performance that stands out most of all, in a dual role that allows him to use his talent and his distinctive persona to their best advantage.

The story adaptation is nicely done, with some very good dialogue and a good pace as it builds up the tension and gradually reveals all that is going on. It makes it easy for the fine cast to bring their characters to life, and it gives most of the main characters some good opportunities.

Besides Howard, Raymond Massey does very well with a villainous character well-suited to him, Nigel Bruce is entertaining as the prince, and Merle Oberon does well enough in handling her character's dilemmas. Howard himself captures the main character's personality well, and he also helps to pull everything else together. Although he might be better remembered for some of his roles in movies that are even more well-known, this might be his own best performance.

The story itself is one of the well-remembered classics for its very interesting setting as well as the combination of exciting action and memorable characters. This movie version and its cast do well in capturing some of the best material from the novel.

"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.")

And those "Frenchies" sought him everywhere.

Leslie Howard probably was the first British stage star who became a genuine Hollywood star as well. We tend to think of Ronald Colman, his elegant contemporary, but Colman never had the great stage career Howard did, and never made films in England - he worked (for Samuel Goldwyn mostly) in Hollywood. Howard conquered English cinema, most notably in PYGMALION (which he co-directed) and this film. His ability to play a romantic figure like Percy Blakeney and a Shavian master character like Henry Higgins shows his amazing talent. By 1935 he had been in several films opposite Frederic March and Norma Shearer (SMILIN' THROUGH), Mary Pickford (SECRETS), Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart (THE PETRIFIED FOREST), Davis and Olivia de Haviland (IT'S LOVE I'M AFTER), and Bogart and Joan Blondell (STAND-BY). He continued in this manner, eventually being in Ingrid Bergman's first American movie (INTERMEZZO), and in GONE WITH THE WIND as Ashley. For an actor who died tragically prematurely in World War II, Howard left an impressive film record.

Sir Percy Blakeney must have become a favorite role to Howard. He was to make it the basis for a final spy comedy-thriller (his last role) PIMPERNELL SMITH, bringing the character up-to-date (taking on the Nazis led by Francis Sullivan as a "Goering" clone). But the original is the better film, as there is a real attempt to capture the spirit of the 1790s, the stirrings of Regency England. The scenery looks a little forced, but it is done consciously to capture the London of 1793.

There are slightly jarring effects (inevitable in any historical movie). Nigel Bruce captures the triviality of the Prince of Wales (the future George IV), although he does strike the proper note in explaining the difficulties of attempting to rescue French political prisoners and aristocrats. But his Scottish burr is noticeable. Merle Oberon does well as the heroine, cruelly twisted into helping the French (via the detestable Chauvin, played by Raymond Massey) into betraying aristocrats to the guilloutine. Her willingness to spy for the Frenchman based on his threatening to execute her brother for treason. Only later does she accidentally realize that her noodle-headed husband is the man she is ultimately forced into betraying.

Massey played mostly villains at this point in his career, except in THINGS TO COME. However, he was to soon make a "favorable" transition, by starring on stage and in the film of ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS. His turn as the psychotic John Brown in SANTE FE TRAIL also changed his movie personae - as he shows that his psychosis is based on a genuine desire to end slavery, as opposed to the opportunistic greed of his betrayer Van Heflin. Here his Chauvin is pompous and deadly. Not a nice character at all. But he has moments to shine: When he hears Blakeney's idiotic verses about the Pimpernell, he is doing a quiet slow burn and says, "I particularly like that use of the term "Frenchies"!". When he hears Oberon bemoaning the deaths her testimony (which he forced her to give) caused in the French courts, he suddenly makes a comment too often forgotten in movies about the French Revolution: "Why is it that everyone is always bemoaning the fate of the poor aristocrats? Don't people ever recall what they did to us?!" Even Chauvin and Robespierre had some points to bring up.

Howard's gleeful performance is the anchor for it all. As clever and watchful a spy as one imagines, instantly dropping the seriousness to play the fool. Look at how he keeps bringing up the proper tying of cravats, or his miscalling the apoplectic Colonel Winterbottom "Ramsbottom". Wonderful stuff Sir Percy. Wonderful movie still.

This aged take on the popular novel of a foppish English hero saving aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution is an absorbing British movie; benefiting in particular from the excellent performance of Leslie Howard (one of England's greatest screen actors, despite his Hungarian ancestry), who gives the character of Percy Blakeney a humour and charm lacking from other actors who have attempted the part.

Merle Oberon also does well as his French expat wife - perhaps her best acting, even surpassing her later work opposite Olivier in 'Wuthering Heights'. Given that Howard and Oberon had a real-life love affair which started during this movie, it is interesting to note there are definite sparks between the pair on screen. Other actors in the cast are good value; Raymond Massey as the arrogant French ambassador who never thinks he can be outwitted; and Nigel Bruce, beloved later in the decade as Dr Watson, as the dullard Prince of Wales.