The Scarlet Pimpernel *** (1982, Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, Ian McKellen) – Classic Movie Review 3376

‘They seek him here. They seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him here everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel.’

Director Clive Donner’s 1982 Eighties British TV movie version of Baroness Orczy’s novel is exuberantly handled and highly entertaining.

Anthony Andrews is well cast in the double role of Sir Percy Blakeney, as the lorgnette-waving English fop who is also The Scarlet Pimpernel, the brave scourge of the French Revolution, making repeated daring trips to France to save aristocrats from the guillotine.

Ian McKellen enjoys himself as a lip-smacking villain, the secret police chief Citizen Chauvelin. Jane Seymour is ideal as Lady Blakeney, who is French as the former Marguerite St Just, and finds that her brother Armand (Malcolm Jamieson) has been arrested by the Republic and discovers that her husband is The Pimpernel.

Also in the cast are James Villiers, Eleanor David, Denis Lill, Anne Firbank, Richard Morant (as Robespierre), Julian Fellowes (as The Prince Regent), Timothy Carlton, Geoffrey Toone, Martyn Wyldeck, Preston Lockwood, David Gant (as Fouquet) and Mark Dewey.

It follows director Harold Young’s 1935 classic The Scarlet Pimpernel from producer Alexander Korda, with Leslie Howard in the double role Sir Percy Blakeney and the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Timothy Carlton (born 4 October 1939) is the father of Benedict Cumberbatch.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3376

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