THE SCREEN; Leslie Howard as the Scarlet Pimpernel in a Fine British Screen Version of the Famous Novel.
The gorgeously colored adventure film which Alexander Korda has carved from the pages of the Baroness Orczy's novel permits the English to recover some of their recent losses in cinema prestige and the Radio City Music Hall to resume its reputation for showing superior motion pictures. "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is stirring to the pulse and beautiful to the eye, and it weaves the richly textured background of those tingling months of the French Revolution into an enormously satisfying photoplay. Once more the Scarlet Pimpernel defies the bloody tribunals of the Revolution and snatches the doomed aristocrats from Dame Guillotine. The tumbrils clatter over the cobblestones and the populace cries for heads. In England Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., minces so expertly, plays the fool so well, that not even Chauvelin, the deadliest of the Pimpernel's foes, suspects this simpering dandy to be the bravest and shrewdest gentleman in all the world. 'Sblood! a toothsome picture.
It is a temptation to say that Leslie Howard's newest performance is also his best. This time the need is overbearing. For Mr. Howard is the Pimpernel himself, gallant and resourceful on his perilous missions across the Channel, downright superb when he is playing the simpering poseur in the English drawing rooms. He is an infinite delight even in a cast which is correct down to the smallest rôles and includes Raymond Massey and Merle Oberon among its principals. Robert Sherwood and Arthur Wimperis have struck off a witty, romantic and adventurous screen play, which has been costumed, photographed and set aflowing with the best possible taste. Did the narrative seem a trifle leisurely in places? No matter. It was a leisurely age and here is a succulent and captivating entertainment.
Since a comparatively small number of millions are familiar with the book, perhaps it is time to explain that the mysterious Pimpernel borrowed the wayside flower for his mark, and with it signed his tanta lizing messages. He was an aristocrat in an age when only the wellborn were esteemed to possess an immortal soul, and he hated the ugly slaughter of the French nobility. So he organized a secret band of vigilantes and directed its operations so successfully that he proved a great nuisance to the busy Paris tribunals. Robespierre demanded his head and the great Chauvelin was assigned to unmask him. The Pimpernel led the French ferret a merry chase. The Pimpernel's wife, who never suspected her nitwit husband to be the gallant adventurer who was the toast of England, even joined the search herself when Chauvelin threatened to execute her imprisoned brother unless she helped him. It is a dashing, romantic adventure, and it leads finally to a dingy French inn, where the Pimpernel and his relentless foe confront each other at last.
Somehow, Mr. Korda succeeds as miraculously as he did in "The Private Life of Henry VIII" in evoking not only charm and humor and beauty out of what might have been a rather stuffy costume piece, but also an air of reality and conviction. Perhaps we should reserve some of the applause for Harold Young, who is credited with the direction. It is a splendid cast, headed by the slant-eyed and quite breathlessly lovely Miss Oberon as the Pimpernel's wife, Raymond Massey as the prowling French Ambassador, and Nigel Bruce as the slightly halfwit Prince Regent. 'Struth, "The Scarlet Pimpernel" provides a rare and satisfying experience in the cinema. . . . "The Last Minute," a Leon Leonidoff extravaganza, is the feature of the stage program at the Music Hall.
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