Pimpernel Smith - 1941- A Film produced by and starring Leslie Howard set In England and Nazi Germany just before the start of World War Two- running time 132 minutes
The movie can be viewed for free on YouTube
https://youtu.be/jvtVrQb5DTY
In this delightful take on The Scarlet Pimpernel,English archaeologist Horatio Smith (Leslie Howard) takes his students to Germany before the start of World War II to study the existence of early Aryans. He is actually there, however, to free concentration camp inmates.
As the film opens Professor Smith has forgotten he has a lecture to give. The Dean of the college presents to Professor Smith a colleague who escaped from captivity in Germany, through the help of a mysterious rescuer. Once in class Smith drives the three female students out by saying he finds their presence "disgusting". Later we will discover why he wants them out of his class.He worships a statue of APHRODITE he discovered. There is a very funny scene when a group of Girl Scouts are contemplating the statue.
The plot is fun and exciting. Professor Smith is very quick witted. Once he arrives in Nazi run Germany we learn his real reasons for taking a group of students with him.
The Nazis, as you might imagine in an English film made in 1941, are cruel monsters bent on world domination. The Gestapo General who has captured Smith, the Pimpernel, is no match for Professor Smith.
"May a dead man say a few words to you, general, for your enlightenment? You will never rule the world... because you are doomed. All of you who demoralized and corrupted a nation are doomed. Tonight you will take the first step along a dark road from which there is no turning back. You will have to go on and on, from one madness to another, leaving behind you a wilderness of misery and hatred. And still, you will have to go on... because you will find no horizon... see no dawn... until at last you are lost and destroyed. You are doomed, captain of murderers. And one day, sooner or later, you will remember my words..." Professor Smith
I loved the ending.
The next movie I will post upon is Dinner at the Ritz from 1937
Mel Ulm
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