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

 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  

Madame Pimpernel- also titled as Paris Undercover is a 1945 Film Set in Paris during the German Occupation

Production

company

Constance Bennett Productions

Distributed byUnited Artists

Release date

• October 19, 1945

The film stars Constance Bennett and Gracie Fields as an American and an Englishwoman trapped in Paris when Nazi Germany invades in 1940, who rescue British airmen shot down in France and help them escape across the English Channel. This was also Bennett's only producing credit.

American Kitty de Mornay quarrels with her French husband Andre over her lack of concern over the imminent fall of Paris to the Germans. She is so ignorant of the danger she is in, she flees with her English friend Emmeline "Emmy" Quayle too late. They end up at the country inn of Pappa Renard. After serving them a meal, he reveals that a shot-down English flyer, Flight Lieutenant William Gray, is hiding out there. Since Renard is unwilling to continue sheltering Gray, the women decide to take him back to Paris with them. When their car has a flat, German Captain Kurt von Weber happens by and has one of his men change the tire. Since he is going to Paris too, von Weber personally drives them back, past all the German patrols and checkpoints. When he leaves, he gives Kitty his card, revealing that he is assigned to the military department of the Gestapo. They sneak Gray past Madame Martin, Emmy's concierge, and into her apartment.

A week later, Gray decides he has to leave, as anyone caught sheltering an enemy soldier will be executed. Before he can, the Germans surround and search the building. The timely arrival of von Weber, with a bouquet of flowers, ensures that the search is cut short. Kitty suggests going out to a nightclub to get the German out of the apartment. At the club, they encounter Andre. While dancing, Kitty apprises Andre of her situation and asks for his help in getting Gray out.

Following Andre's instructions, they contact Tissier, a baker. By bad luck, a German patrol happens by, and Emmy is taken in for questioning. After seeing Gray off, Kitty goes back to see what she can do for her friend. To her surprise, she find Emmy at Tessier's place.

Kitty is persuaded to help others escape with them. Emmy reluctantly decides to get involved too, just to keep Kitty out of trouble. They contact Father Dominique. Expecting to sneak one man into unoccupied France, they are surprised to find the priest hiding about a dozen in his crypt. The women take two with them, but when they reach Tissier's bakery, they learn that he has been shot. When they discover that the local cemetery is across the border, Kitty decides to use a funeral to get the men. The undertaker, however, informs them that the Germans are on guard against such attempts. However, he expects the aged Marquise de Montigny to pass away soon; when she does, the undertaker is glad to be able to give the worthy, yet poverty-stricken woman a lavish funeral procession, with the soldiers disguised as mourners. At the last moment, Kitty and Emmy decide to go back to continue smuggling.

By 1942, the occupying Germans are frustrated that so many Allied soldiers are eluding them. Von Weber comes up with a plan to destroy the smuggling network. He arranges for a fake Allied pilot to be "shot down". The man is brought to Emmy's antique shop hidden inside a chest. She is warned, but he becomes suspicious and pulls a gun and calls the Gestapo. She is able to strike him on the head (fatally) with a candlestick when he is distracted. However, too much is overheard over the phone, and the Germans, led by von Weber, come for them; Andre is there as well, back from England on a mission for the Free French. Emmy is captured, but the others evade the first sweep, hiding in the basement. When they overhear that von Weber will not stop searching, utterly convinced Kitty is still in the building, she knocks Andre out and gives herself up to save him.

They survive to be liberated by the Allies, though Emmy is so unhinged by her ordeal that she at first does not even recognize her friend.

The ending is very exciting and gratifying. The Germans are all cruel, bullies, glorious over taking Paris 

Madame Pimpernel is an excellent retake on the Pimpernel saga,

I will take post on Pimpernel Smith, staring Leslie Howard.

Mel Ulm 

The Elusive Pimpernel- 1950- A Film Directed, Produced and Written by William Powell and Emeric Pressburger- Set in Paris and London Following The French Revolution

 

This is in participation in Paris in July, 2023- hosted by Words and Peace 

The Elusive Pimpernel- 1950- A Film Directed, Produced and Written by William Powell and Emeric Pressburger- Set in Paris in London Following The French Revolution 

On YouTube 

The Elusive Pimpernel is loosely based on a 1909 novel, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emma Orczy, about an English aristocrat who saved French nobility from the guillotine during the reign of terror following the Revolution. An exciting and enjoyable movie.

(Baroness Emma Orczy - September 23, 1865 Tarnadors, Hungary- November 12, 1947 Henley-on-Thames, England)

The Elusive Pimpernel is very different in several ways from The Red Shoes, also by William Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Both make powerful use of color, focus on close camera work and marvelous conversations. David Nivens plays the Scarlet Pimpernel and Margaret Leighton his wife..

During the French Revolution, the Scarlet Pimpernel, who is really Sir Percy Blakeney in disguise, risks his life to rescue French aristocrats from the guillotine and take them across the English Channel to safety. As cover, Sir Percy poses as a fop at Court, and curries favour with the Prince of Wales by providing advice about fashion, but secretly he leads The League, a group of noblemen with similar views.

Chauvelin, the French ambassador to England, wants to find out who the Pimpernel is, so he can be brought to French justice. He blackmails Blakeney's French wife Marguerite into helping him by threatening to have her brother Armand (an associate of the Pimpernel) arrested and tortured. She intercepts a letter intended for the Pimpernel and gives it to Chauvelin, unaware that she has betrayed her husband. When she discovers the truth, she sets out to warn him of his great peril.

The scenes of the French mobs sacking palaces and cheering on executions are masterful. The common French people are ugly and debased. The doomed aristocrats are beautiful, courageous and dignified. A scene where a mob invaded Versiles was perfect. The directors know how to show people running (Victoria Page running down the stairs at the close of The Red Shoes came to my mind.)

The opening of the movie is hilarious. The ending is gratifying. The movie, right after World War Two might have been a shot at France. The portrayal of "the old guard" in the steam bath scene is not real flattering either. There is romance, beautiful women (and some really ugly ones in the mob scenes in Paris). The French Revolution leaders like Jean-Paul Marat are treacherous, they also full of hate.

I will next post upon Madame Pimpernel, 1940, set in Paris during World War Two. It was released in America as Paris Undercover.

The Red Shoes- 1948- A Movie Produced, Directed and Written by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger - with a Paris Setting

 The Red Shoes- 1948- A Movie Produced, Directed and Written by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger - with a Paris Setting

Part of my Participation in Paris in July 2023 

https://wordsandpeace.com/2023/06/30/paris-in-july-2023/

Martin Scorese on The Red Shoes 

https://youtu.be/qVeoOTahOvI

To me The Red Shoes is cinema as High Art. It may be seen for free on YouTube. I have watched it ten times since I was first made aware of it by Martin Scorese. To me, I have no formal training in the cinema, it is a flawless masterpiece.

The film follows Victoria Page (Moira Shearer), a ballerina who joins the world-renowned Ballet Lermontov, owned and operated by Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), who tests her dedication to the ballet by making her choose between her career and her marriage and romance with composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring). It is based on a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.

From the movie:

"Boris Lermontov  -The Ballet of the Red Shoes is from a fairytale by Hans Andersen. It is the story of a young girl who is devoured with an ambition to attend a dance in a pair of red shoes. She gets the shoes and goes to the dance. For a time, all goes well and she is very happy. At the end of the evening, she is tired and wants to go home, but the red shoes are not tired. In fact, the red shoes are never tired. They dance her out into the street, they dance her over the mountains and valleys, through fields and forests, through night and day. Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the red shoes go on.

Julian Craster: What happens in the end?

Boris Lermontov: Oh, in the end she dies"

The majority of the cast were professional dancers. Filming of The Red Shoes took place in mid-1946, primarily in France and England.

Upon release, The Red Shoes received critical acclaim, especially in the United States, where it received a total of five Academy Award nominations, including a win for Best Original Score and Best Art Direction. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and was named one of the Top 10 Films of the year.

Retrospectively, The Red Shoes is regarded as one of the best films of Powell and Pressburger's partnership and one of the greatest films of all time. It was voted the 9th greatest British film of all time by the British Film Institute in 1999. 

Having recently read Jennifer Homans brilliant biography of George Balanchine and her history of Ballet my appreciation of The Red Shoes was amplified. Boris Lermontov, like Balanchine did not like his dancers to have boyfriends and was adamantly opposed to ballerinas marrying.

"Boris Lermontov: You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never." 

 His Manor was imperious, The

 Lermontov Ballet was the apex of the art. Victoria Page, from an aristocratic wealthy family, sought not monetary rewards but to reach her highest level of artistic achievement and Lermontov could bring her there.

We follow the company from Paris to Monte Carlo. The settings of street scenes in Paris and the seashore in Monte Carlo are wonderful. Scenes in hotels and Lermontov's home show a Baroque era splendour. The support characters are perfectly realized. The music is preformed by The Royal Philomonic Orchestra. The people are beautiful, I laughed in agreement when Victoria Page's aunt described Lermontov as "An Attractive Brute". Trains play a very important role. Scorese praises the use of color. There is a 15 minute ballet sequence.

I suggest you watch the movie then watch the Scorese presentation then watch the movie again. The sheer beauty of this film is amazing.  

I will soon post on another film by Powell and Pressburger, the 1949 Elusive Pimpernel, set in France and England after the French Revolution.  

Mel Ulm

The Red Garden: A Novel by Alice Hoffman- 2011- 290 Pages

The Red Garden: A Novel by Alice Hoffman- 2011- 290 Pages

Alice Hoffman works I have read

The Marriage of Opposites- 2015

"Everything My Mother Taught Me" - 2016

"The Book Store Sisters" -2022

The Foretelling - 2006

"Conjure" - 2014

Aquamarine- 2001

The Ice Queen - 2006

Property Of -1977

Magic Lessons- 2020

Skylight- 2007

"Everything in her life had already happened to her, the wondrous and terrible both. Her whole world was over; all the rest would only be marking time." From The Red Garden - since the passing of my wife this expresses how I often feel 

With the exception of Property Of, the more of Alice Hoffman I read the greater my appreciation becomes. 

I have begun to notice recurring items in Hoffman, Women with red hair, strong bonds between women and animals, young girls retreating from the world in books,and journeys into the wild. Love is dangerous. Bassett Hounds, men are often drunks.

From the author of Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick The Rules of Magic comes a transfixing glimpse into a small American town where a mysterious, magical garden holds the truth behind three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption.

The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts, capturing the unexpected turns in its history and in our own lives. From the town's founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City with only his dog for company, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a passionate neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives.

"At the center of everyone’s life is a mysterious garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look.Beautifully crafted and shimmering with magic, The Red Garden is as unforgettable as it is moving". From the publisher 

The Red Garden is a truly wonderful book. It conveys the unending pain caused by deaths of those we, of being surrounded by those way below us in understanding, of being seen as someone "odd". I was enthralled by how succeeding chapter linked family connections.

Oh yes, Johnny Applebeed makes a lasting mark on the town.

My next of Hoffman's novels will be The Drowning Season.

Mel Ulm
 

Paris in July -2023 - My Plans

 Paris in July - My Plans for the Event 

Website for Paris in July - Hosted by Words and Peace

https://wordsandpeace.com/

This will be my 13th year participating in Paris in July. Participants share their experiences with French cuisine, literature, movies, and their trips to Paris.

This year I hope to do posts on set at least partially in Paris movies by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger as well as two by Alexander Korda, from the 1930s set during the French Revolution. All the films can be watched for free on YouTube.

I a few months ago acquired a book perfect for Paris in July,PARIS WAS OURS THIRTY-TWO WRITERS REFLECT ON THE CITY OF LIGHT- Edited by Penelope Rowlands- 2011- 280 Pages. I plan to feature a number of the essays.

If I can work it out I will post on some of the great writers of Paris.

Mel Ulm

The Reading Life Review- June 2023- Future Plans- - We Begin a New Project: The Cinema of Michael Pollard and Eric Pressburger

June Authors 

Row One

1. Sylvia Earle- USA- authority on the impact of global warming on the oceans- first appearance on RL

2. Anton Chekhov- Russia 

3.Donald Ostrowski-USA coauthor FAMILIES OF RUS Clan, Family and Kingdom Christian -first appearance 

Column Two 

1. Euripides-Greece

2. Jesmyn Ward -USA- multi award winning author- first appearance- I hope to read more of her work 

3. Alice Hoffman- USA- I love her work so much

Column Three

1. Christopher De Hemel- UK-expert on illuminated medieval manuscripts -first appearance 

2. Esi Edugyan- Canada-award winning multi genre writer

3. Jacob Glatstein-Poland- Yiddish writer- first appearance 

Fourth Column

1. Jeremy Harte-UK- historian- author of Travellers Through Time- A Gypsy History-first appearance 

2. Christopher Raffensperger- UK-coauthor FAMILIES OF RUS Clan, Family and Kingdom Christian -first appearance 

3. Adam Tooze- UK- historian-author of The Economy of Nazi Germany- first appearance 

Home Countries of June Authors 

1. USA-5

2. UK- 3

3. Greece-1

4. Canada- 1

5. Russia - 1

6. Poland- 1

Four of the 12 June Authors are women, 7 are featured for the first time, and 3 are deceased.

Five works of narrative non-fiction were posted upon, two play, three novels, and two short stories.

Blog Stats 

As of July 2 The Reading Life posts have been viewed 7,118,486 times.

There are 4,224 posts online.

The post viewed posts were on short stories by Katherine Mansfield, short stories by authors from the Indian subcontinent and pre-

world war two stories from the Philippines.

Home Countries of June visitors

1. Singapore - first time as highest 

2. USA 

3. France

4. The Philippines 

5. India

6. Isreal 

7. Canada

8. Germany

9. UK

10. Russia 

11. Vietnam 

12. Hong Kong

13. Belgium 

14. Indonesia 

15. Japan

Future Reading Hopes

I have eight titles by Alice Hoffman on my E-Reader. I hope to read more Yiddish Literature, quality non-fiction, and short stories.

I will be starting a new project soon on the cinema of the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in July. I will do an introductory post on this featuring The Red Shoes, from 1948, soon. 

Mel Ulm