An Excellent WWII Update Of The Scarlet Pimpernel Story, With Leslie Howard
Note that elements of the plot are discussed. It's summer, 1939, in Germany. On a Nazi work farm, elderly prisoners are using primitive hoes and shovels to dig up a field. Strutting around them is a guard carrying a rifle and a whip. Nearby a scarecrow with a burlap face and straw sticking out of its gloves is tied to a post. "Stop talking," the guard snarls. He raises his rifle and points it at one of the prisoners, a man who had been a famous pianist. The prisoners cower and the guard laughs as he slowly aims the rifle at different prisoners. Finally he turns, aims the rifle at the scarecrow and fires. The prisoners begin digging again as the guard turns away. We see a thin line of blood begin to drip from the scarecrow's hand to the ground.

The next day on a train leaving a German city, a small group of English college students are reading a newspaper. The students are led by their archeology professor, Horatio Smith, a forgetful, eccentric, life-long bachelor who abhors violence and finds Nazis impossible to take seriously. The students read that a political prisoner, a famous pianist, had been taken from a work camp. The Gestapo believe he was aided by a man disguised as a scarecrow who was wounded. One of the students turns to Professor Smith, who is quietly reading, and starts to ask the Professor what he thinks...but he stops in mid-question. He motions to the others to look at Professor Smith's wrist. Barely visible is a bloodied bandage.

Pimpernel Smith is one of the great British WWII films designed to strengthen the morale of the British people, and while doing so, to ridicule the Nazis and emphasize their ruthlessness. Thanks to a timeless story and the skills of Leslie Howard as an actor and director, Pimpernel Smith also is a great romantic adventure.

Professor Smith (Howard) was responsible for a number of abductions. He believes the Nazis stand for all which is primitive and bestial. He became determined to save as many as he could of those who stood for the best of civilization. After his students discover what he has been doing while disappearing at times from their archeological dig, he plans to send them home. They insist on staying and helping him. They rescue several more prisoners, including a Polish newspaper publisher whose daughter, Ludmilla Koslowski (Mary Morris), has been tricked by Gestapo General von Graum (Francis L. Sullivan) into helping him capture this phantom. And Professor Smith, the bachelor whose ideal of woman is an ancient Greek statue, begins to realize Miss Koslowski is a treasure he never thought he'd meet.

While his students escort two Gestapo victims to freedom across the border, Professor Smith returns to Berlin alone to rescue Miss Koslowski. The climax of the movie is a deadly cat and mouse game between Smith and von Graum, who has become obsessed with this Englishman. He captures Smith right after Smith has seen to Ludmilla's safety at a border crossing. It's late at night and he has Smith stand under an outdoor light in front of the border gate. He holds a pistol in his hand. He intends to shoot Smith while Smith is "escaping." But a small disturbance, a wisp of smoke, a trace of fog and Smith is gone. All von Graum can hear is a whisper in the night from Smith that he will be back, sooner or later he will be back, and there will be tens of thousands with him.

This movie has clever action, smart dialogue and an understated romance. The themes of patriotism, steadfastness and valor are all there, but so is an expertly made adventure story. The movie works because Leslie Howard, in translating the Scarlet Pimpernel story in which he starred in 1935 to 1939, has created a believable character who at first seems eccentric and ineffectual, and then shows himself to be brave, witty, resourceful and even romantic. Howard does a grand job of it.

The movie is not out on DVD, but there is a VHS tape which is still supposed to be available. My copy is old; the picture and sound leave much to be desired.

Excellent WWII-Era Retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel
A&E used to show this old movie every so often; the print was in awful condition and yet, despite its technical difficulties, Pimpernel Smith was a compelling film. It was Leslie Howard's final film, his own personal project, an anti-Nazi propaganda piece designed to shore up his battered country's courage and offer hope to his beloved nation. That it no doubt did, and yet Pimpernel Smith succeeds as a stand-alone movie and is in some ways superior to Howard's earlier turn as The Scarlet Pimpernel.

The film opens with a scientist doing important medical research being arrested and hauled away by the Nazis. Rescue comes in the form of a mysterious man who whisks the researcher away from under his captors' noses. The scene switches to an English college campus, where resides the eccentric Professor Horatio Smith, an archaeologist who fusses over his prized statue of Venus, is absent-minded, and dislikes social engagements. His students think he's a few bricks light of a load and his superior is confused by him, and the only female he adores is his aforementioned statue. In short, he's so harmless he's virtually a laughingstock.

However, Smith is in reality a man who uses his position as an archaelogy researcher to travel throughout Europe, and beneath the absent-minded veneer is someone with quiet nerves of steel. Nobody realizes this, of course, not his unsuspecting students when he invites them to accompany him on a jaunt to search for traces of Aryan civilization, nor the Nazis, who view him with contempt as an annoying little English pest. Only one person believes Smith to be the elusive rescuer of potential Nazi prisoners: the beautiful yet dangerous Ludmilla Koslowski. She has entered into a deal with the devil, for the Nazis are holding her outspoken journalist father prisoner, and promise to treat him well only if she spies for them, so they can catch the stranger who is saving so many from their clutches. The sole glitch in this scheme is Ludmilla finds what her intended prey is doing to thwart the Nazis heroic and admirable, and she realizes upon meeting Horatio Smith that he must be the man she's after. The Nazi general and his staff sneer at her choice, refusing to believe her, then finally come around and try to force her to entrap the professor. How it all concludes is a tribute to Smith's ingenuity and almost suicidal courage as he faces down the enemies of the free world.

Pimpernel Smith is a close copy of its older cousin The Scarlet Pimprnel, but with a few important differences. First, the setting of World War II and the Nazis as the main antangonists were near and dear to Leslie Howard's heart. This movie is evidently a labor of his love; he is writer, director, producer and star, and no doubt hand-picked his cast. Second, this is a simpler film, not lavishly produced like The Scarlet Pimpernel, and so has a less dated flavor. And third, Smith's enemies are not so much people as an ideology, the twisted and contemptible ideology that destroyed so many lives and brought so much terror to Europe during Hitler's reign of madness. Finally, the acting shines with almost startling brilliance. Mary Morris as the lovely Ludmilla sizzles onscreen, and though she and Howard exchange only a brief kiss, their passion is almost tangible. All of the other actors do an excellent job on their roles, whether serious, villainous or humorous. As a piece of propaganda used for good, Pimpernel Smith is an invaluable contribution to cinema. Try to see it, poor print quality and all, and it will treat the viewer to a glimpse into a dark past when brave people tried to keep the flame of liberty from being quenched by tyranny.

Leslie Howard, Auteur
We're used to thinking of "personal films" as something modern; this one is sixty years old, and it's very personal. In 1939, fresh from Gone with the Wind, LH could have done anything he wanted -- but Hitler was bombing his country, and he went home to fight the war. It's safe to say he had the final word on the screenplay: an update of one of his most famous characters, the Scarlet Pimpernel. He is now smuggling intellectuals out of Germany, under cover of being an archeology professor too absent-minded to be taken seriously. Except, of course by Francis Sullivan of the Gestapo, and Mary Morris (daughter of a freedom-fighting publisher). Howard the Director keeps the tone light, the pace swift and the dialogue delightful. You may not even notice the absence of violence...but you will remember his final speech. It's almost the last film he made. Howard went into acting in the first place because he was shell-shocked in the first world war, and acting was therapy. By the time this film was made, acting was a cover; because he was also gathering intelligence for England when his plane was shot down. This film was made in 1940, before a great deal was known about how virulent the nazis were. It was a fusillade from a man who hated war...This gentle Englishman, with a great gift for comedy, knew what was important. In the place of the trademark pimpernel, there is a quote: "The mind of man is bounded only by the universe." See it.

Leslie Howard's Tribute to English Values
Sink me! This is a deucedly entertaining play on the 1934 original. A heroic archeologist battling Nazis? Sounds vaguely familiar - I can't help but wonder whether George Lucas may have seen this film as a child. This is a wonderful, heartfelt wartime propaganda film.

Howard strikes just the right light note as the English academic whose true calling is the rescue of politically oppressed individuals. Howard, that most English of actors, was (believe it or not) Hungarian by birth, and he delivers a stirring tribute to the values of his adopted homeland, Britain. Francis L. Sullivan (best known as Lawyer Jaggers in both the 1934 and 1945 versions of GREAT EXPECTATIONS) obviously had a great time playing this update's counterpart to the original's Chauvelin. Look for early appearances by Michael Rennie (Klaatu in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL) and David Tomlinson (Mr. Banks in MARY POPPINS).

Short of a major digital restoration, this is probably the best quality copy you will find of this film, which is a nearly sixty-year-old independent production. The master material is old, but it has been carefully cleaned and duplicated. I do wish that the soundtrack had been duplicated in Hi-Fi, but that is a minor quibble.

profoundly moving film
This very simple film is profoundly moving. The Nazis are almost too stupid and banal, but the portrayal of the Resistance of ordinary people is outstanding. The scene with the scarecrow, where you see his eyes move,,,then the blood slowly soaking the sleeve..incredible..anyone who loves films about the fight for right and justice will love this one...