What a stunningly good film! Hot on the heels of the OTHER Leslie Howard version of the Pimpernel story (from 1934, which I reviewed HERE), this one from 1941 takes the theme into new and appropriately dangerous territory. The 1934 version was a wonderful vision of the original stories by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: a daring nobleman and his pals act the fop, while all the while saving the French nobility from citizen Robespierre's Lady Guillotine. This one, though similar in spirit, lifts the structure of the thing and drops it squarely into the worst part of WWII...the Nazis replace the murdering revolutionaries, the intellectuals replace the French nobility, and, as Cambridge Archaeologist Horatio Smith, Howard is a very interesting form of the elusive Pimpernel...
It's WWII, as I mentioned, and the odd-yet-charming professor Smith is up to something. Between lecturing students and chatting with fellow academics, he's concocting secret and very subtle plans. One day, while teaching a class, he asks for volunteers for a class trip, for the purpose (ostensibly) to search for pre-modern Aryan civilisation in Germany; the only catch is that they'll have to come into close contact with the Nazis. Of course he gets his group together, spunky young chaps with a taste for adventure, and they're off to the Fatherland for a bit of sport.
It's WWII, as I mentioned, and the odd-yet-charming professor Smith is up to something. Between lecturing students and chatting with fellow academics, he's concocting secret and very subtle plans. One day, while teaching a class, he asks for volunteers for a class trip, for the purpose (ostensibly) to search for pre-modern Aryan civilisation in Germany; the only catch is that they'll have to come into close contact with the Nazis. Of course he gets his group together, spunky young chaps with a taste for adventure, and they're off to the Fatherland for a bit of sport.
While there, Smith encounters the humourously evil Nazi General von Graum, played brilliantly by Francis Sullivan (who was also wonderful in the 1948 version of Oliver Twist with Alec Guiness). Von Graum has been given the thankless task of catching the mysterious character that has been freeing these prisoners from captivity. The good professor immediately gets on von Graum's radar, and the verbal battles begin...with great wit and subtle ferocity:
Professor Smith: Why, I know it's Shakespeare. I thought Shakespeare was English.
General von Graum: No, no, no. Shakespeare is a German. Professor Schuessbacher has proved it once and for all.
Professor Smith: Dear, how very upsetting. Still, you must admit that the English translations are most remarkable.
General von Graum: Good night.
Professor Smith: Good night. Good night. "Parting is such sweet sorrow."
General von Graum: What is that?
Professor Smith: That's one of the most famous lines in German literature.
To say much more would really spoil much of the considerable fun; suffice it to say that there is a lady involved, and our intrepid students learn about our daring Pimpernel and get into the fun.
I thought it was a charming idea to cross-pollinate the two universes together; it was a time when suchlike characters were badly needed, and to make a movie like this at that time was just the sort of thing to inspire that kind of action. Apparently this film was part inspiration for the brave acts of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who helped free thousands of Jews from Nazi atrocities, apparently telling a relative after watching it that this was the kind of thing he would like to do. What better testament, wot? I myself was very inspired by the general atmosphere of the thing, as I, like most of us, grew up with the deadly gravitas of the second world war echoing about from every corner of world culture.
All in all it's a great classic film, made somehow greater by the freshness of it's relative obscurity. I wonder why more people haven't mentioned it; it has everything that classic films are made of, with in-jokes for the fans of the Pimpernel tales, and snappy dialogue in spades. I hope that someday it'll get more of it's due...it really deserves the attention.
I generally try not to post this many screenshots, but it's a good looking picture!
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