"THE PIMPERNEL."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 134, 8 June 1929, Page 5 (Supplement)

"THE PIMPERNEL."

FILM OF BARONESS ORCZY'S

NOVEL

MATHESON LANG HEADS CAST

BRITISH EMPIRE TO BE FILMED,

(By KATHLEEN USSHER.)

LONDON, March 20.

No theme in history presents so many dramatic possibilities as the French Revolution, and in depicting the stirring adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy's famous character of fiction, full advantage has been taken of the chameleon-like quality of this gentleman of fortune, flirting with the coldhearted "Madame la Guillotine," to display the amazing versatility of that distinguished actor Mr. Matheson Lang. "The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel," as the new film version has been called, is one of the best-dressed shows I have seen on either the English or American screens, the picturesque costumes of the period forming an ideal setting for the dark, flashing beauty of Juliette Compton (the tool of Robespierre), the "agent provocateuse" who lures the Pimpernel's wife into the plotter's trap and then repents.

A surging mob scene forms the "highlight" of the spectacle, and the "barnstorming" technique resorted to by the American director, T. Hayes Hunter (who also produced "One of the Best/' with the Australian actress Eve Gray), is fully justified in view of the highly melodramatic nature of the theme.

I had the thrilling experience of watching Mr. Hunter directing the mob sequences at the Cricklewood studio, where, indeed, all the scenes—even the exteriors —were "shot." His explosive, dynamic personality has an extraordinarily stimulating effect upon his players. "Gimme light—gimme shade—gimme drammer!" he shouted at the top of his sonorous voice, waving his megaphone like a field-marshal's baton. "Ready— camera—shoot!" Tallien stood before the seething throng of "sansculottes" in the Chamber of the National Assembly and denounced the aristocrats in violent but faultless French. Hβ flung Mβ arms about in Gallic fashion —his eyes rolled with a fervid passion—his voice alternately thundered and cooed with all the rhetorical fireworks of the French tongue. Four hundred "extras," in the rags and tatters of eighteenth century Paris, packed the galleries. Each was more hideous than the other. The National Assembly was reproduced to exact dimensions in cardboard and plaster. The brilliant colours of the ragged costumes of the crowd —a touch that will be lost on the screen—the rising din of their wrath—their evil glances—the hoarse cry of the Public Prosecutor heard above the babble—created the perfect spectacle.

And then came the climax. The mob broke loose. Down the galleries they streamed in hundreds, an irresistible human avalanche of rage. They swarmed over the tables, they hurled out the jury, the Public Prosecutor fled for his life, the aristocrats were freed. Stumbling, shrieking, the crowd streamed out of the Chamber, searching for their victim, Robespierre.

As "the sea-green incorruptible," who goads the half-crazed mob to excesses and meets his fate at the hands of those whom he has fed with slaughter, Mr. Nelson Keys gives an unforgettable performance. He is pompous, yet shrewdly cruel, a coxcomb inflamed' by a sense of his own power. Possessing an unusual skill with, grease-paint and mascara, and a highly-developed sense of the grotesque, Mr. Keys may perhaps be pardoned for having caricatured ever so slightly this odious historical figure.

The exquisite finesse of hie acting, however, no less than that of Mr. Matheson Lang and the vivid beauty of Mise Juliette Compton, make the "Pimpernel" one of the outstanding offerings of the season. Mr. Lang, as Rateau, the coalheaver, presents a particularly fine piece of characterisation. As Sir Percy Blakeney —handsome,- debonair, immaculately groomed—he is the Matheson Lang of the cost.ume-play with whom we are all familiar. Matheeon Lang is diffident to a degree, but by dint of gentle prodding I contrived to make him speak of his earlier days.

"I toured with various companies," he told me, "playing in dramas, farcical comedies, modern plays, costume-plays, and all sorts of nondescript plays. Frequently I went without my dinner and my supper. In a way, my privations were unnecessary, because I could always have wired home for funds, but I had assured my father that I would earn my own living on the stage and never appeal to him for, money or help, and somehow I managed to stick to my determination and worry through." Among the works scheduled for production by the company that is responsible for the "Pimpernel" is an Elizabethan picture entitled "Drake."

"Drake" will be produced by Mr. Herbert Wilcox (the director of the much-discussed film "Dawn"), and it will, he tells me, deal accurately with the story of Britain's struggle for maritime supremacy.

"We want the film to be British, not only as far as its players, production and capital are concerned," declared Mr. Wilcox, "but in its atmosphere, its characters and its story. Drake's famous d,rum will be used in this film of the Spanish Main.

"Moreover, we propose to film life in every part of the British Empire. Each financial year will see the production of an epic story of a British Dominion. Companies will be sent out to Canada, South Africa, India and Australasia, so that not only Britain, but each Dominion, will be able to see spectacular films dealing with its history.

"Stories by famous authors are> now in course of production at our studio, he continued/ "The** include 'The Woman in White/ byWilkie Collme; When Knights WereW and 'The Bondman' by Sir Hall Caine, with the beautiful Isle of Man as the background. A number of Fleet Street's best men have recently joined the forces of film production, and others are W»lyto follow, because the qualities that make for success in journalism are largely those needed in the producing end of the cinema industry, which in Britain is now making a definite bid to wrest supremacy from Hollywood.