There are four movies/serials with this exact title. The present movie (according to Wikipedia also available as a 4-part serial) is the result of an aborted attempt to create an updated Pauline-type series. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that it is the incarnation with the lowest rating on IMDB. But that doesn't mean it's worse than the others. It's just more divisive, with the most common user rating actually being 10 stars (and the second most common 5 stars).
So what's going on? It seems that the 10 star ratings are primarily from those who still fondly remember this movie as one of the most impressive of their childhood. (This also explains the comments about this movie being 'clean' or 'wholesome'.) Whereas the 5 star (and lower) reviews are primarily from those who are a little too adult for their own good. One would expect the same effect for
Batman (1966), which strongly inspired the style of this film, and in fact it has the same kind of split. Only in that case there are more people affected by the nostalgia because Batman never stopped being shown.
Personally, I grew up neither with this movie nor with the old Batman series (not shown on German TV in my youth), but despite being middle-aged I love both now that I have found them, and I think that each has certain advantages over the other. Too bad the Pauline series was aborted.
Plotwise, it's all about our heroes Pauline and George, two lovers who were clearly made for each other, but keep being separated by a never-ending series of bizarre accidents. As a result, Pauline and George, but mainly Pauline, are thrown into the most outlandish and extreme adventures. Which they stoically endure, driven onwards by their love. Since this movie was cut together from pilot episodes for a planned series, the pacing isn't optimal. I found it best in the beginning and at the end. In the middle, at some point I almost stopped caring about the protagonists.
Everything starts when George, still a little boy under the care of Mrs. Carruther, finds an abandoned but happy baby girl near the door of his home, the Baskerville Foundling Home. The baby comes with a message saying "Protect me. My name is Pauline". To which George replies: "Yes, Pauline, always. Nobody will get you away from me!" George works hard to prevent Pauline from being adopted, but at some point this goes horribly wrong.
Just like the 1960s Batman series, this movie doesn't take itself seriously. At all. In many ways this feels like the attempt to re-create a silent movie, only better, by making full use of color and sound. This becomes really obvious each time a nostalgic intertitle is shown or a slapstick scene is comically overdone or even sped up. The intentional retro-flair also explains the old-fashioned exoticism, which was dated already in 1967, and is nowadays considered racist by some: It is not just billionaires and male white English soldiers, but also marginal groups such as Arabic heir apparents and white pygmies who are stereotyped in negative ways required for the plot.
If you like the silliness of Monty Python or
Y a-t-il un pilote dans l'avion ? (1980) even in films you haven't seen before and aren't nostalgic for, then this film is well worth trying out.
