Word: pimpernel
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CAPITALIZING on the new wave of interest in The Scarlet Pimpernel evoked by a Hollywood adaptation of Baroness Orczy's novel, Mr. Blakeney presents what is supposed to be the accurate story of his life and exploits. Mr. Blakeney's Scarlet Pimpernel is so much like the novelized personage that the book is hardly worth the trouble he took in filling in missing gaps and adding all sorts of anecdotes. It is not stated that the author is a descendant of the illustrious Blakeney's; indeed, his extreme adulation of them all would prove a bit nauseating if one knew...
...pedigree of "that demmed elusive Pimpernel" is traced back five generations to the "Laughing Cavalier" whom Franz Hals painted, a Dutch vagabond and swaggerer, son of the merchant John Blake of Blakeney and a young Haarlem girl, Philippina. Percy's early life is described, and later the important part which he played in heckling the French Revolutionists. The first indication that the author's Percy Blakeney is going to turn out to be just what movie-goers of today think him, comes in the narrative during Percy's first day at Harrow, in his twelfth year...
...guillotine takes its deadly toll as The Terror rules Paris. But Citizen Robespierre is annoyed. Victim after victim slips through his fingers and crosses the channel to England, all through the infernal machinations of that "Damned elusive Pimpernel." Into the background of eighteenth century France and England Leslie Howard fits like a package of cigarettes in cleophane. As the uncannily clever schemer disguised as an old hag, as the suave nobleman who courts, death to save his friends, the nobles of the French court, as the fastidious fop who advises the Prince of Wales on the proper jabeau, Howard...
...Scarlet Pimpernel" is a film which has already received too much praise to be spoiled by trite phrases here. The Playgoer recommends it strongly, even to those romantic souls who must have their Hollywood endings. Need we say, yes, we might as well, Merle Oberon is a young lady who makes Hollywood endings a real pleasure, indeed, a delight...
...Keith's: "The Searlet Pimpernel...