The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
Directed By: Harold Young
Starring: Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey
Length: 94 min.
Genre: Adventure Drama
Based On: The 1908 Novel written by Baroness Orczy
At the height of the Terror during the French Revolution, a British aristocrat starts sneaking the French aristocracy out of the nation.
The movie starts off with the Scarlett Pimpernel getting the family of a French lord out of the country. It's a very Robin Hood like sequence, at least that's what it sorta reminded me off as I watch this in 2020.
And then we get like an hour of court gossip and politics. Everyone is asking who the Scarlett Pimpernel could be. We know who it is, but no one suspects him because he's flamboyant and portrays himself to be a pampered troublemaker. He's supposed to be charming and witty, but he's mostly just annoying.
A man named Chauvelin is appointed the new ambassador and Robespierre tells him to find out who the Scarlett Pimpernel is. And he is the worst 'detective' I've ever seen on screen. Entirely witless and the only way he finds out any information is by blackmailing people to help him. And then he entirely screws up with the information he's given.
So the movie starts off with an action sequence, we get a bunch of court gossip, a half hour of a cat and mouse game with a cat we know is way too stupid to catch the mouse, and then a sequence with SPOILERS the Scarlett Pimpernel winning.
It started decently, ended predictably but it was done okay, and the middle 80% was incredibly boring and the humor fell completely flat for me.
My Rating: 4/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.4/10 (3k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 88% Critics (7-1), 74% of Audience (3k votes)