FINE ENGLISH FILM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 122, 25 May 1935, Page 5 (Supplement)

FINE ENGLISH FILM.

it THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL."

KORDA AND LESLIE HOWARD

Praise of English critics for Alexander Korda's latest English film, "The Scarlet Pimpernel," which has been given its trade screenings—a practice which the law demands in England—has been universally lavish. Metropolitan and provincial critics alike dilate on its dual success as a polished production and as a mass entertainment. A comprehensive review by "E.M.H." in the Birmingham "Weekly"Post," runs as follows: Alexander Korda, as every student of current lilm history is aware, achieved international success with his unconventional version of the. private life of Henry the Eighth. Previously Korda had worked in Hollywood, where the luck of the filmmaking game had been against him, and where "his methods did not create an outstanding impression. Then came '•Henry," and Korda was hailed as a man who was destined to put British films on the map. "Henry" was followed by "Catherine the Great," which was almost, if not quite as successful. This was succeeded by "The Private Life of Don Juan, about which the less said the better. Compared with its predecessors the reception by the Press and public was only lukewarm; London Films, under whose aegis Korda works, quickly began to prepare "The Scarlet Pimpernel." The result is the best British lilm that has been made to date and one of the finest pictures of the year. It is indeed hard to criticise this cleverly directed and beautifully photographed version of Baroness Orczy's famous novel. The film has wit, romance, horror and high adventure, and all four ingredients are blended with unusual skill and imagination.

Fred Terry's Worthy Successor. Those, to whom the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel was inevitably associated with the late Fred Terry .were perhaps a little diffident about seeing a new personality in the role. Fred Terry's impersonation became an institution in the

days before the theatre was usurped by the cinema. At that time the great treat of the school holidays was to see a performance either by Fred Terry or Sir John Martin-Harvey. The present generation, of course, goes to sec Eddie Cantor or Marleno Dietrich . . .

But those who were fearful of having another memory shattered need not have been afraid. Leslie Howard's performunco in the title role is the moet delightful piece of acting the screen has given us in twelve months, ire is superb, whether as an old crone with wispy hair in the shadow of the guillotine or as the fop and dandy Sir Percy Blakeney. The part has many pitfalls. It would be easy —and fatal—for instance, to over-act. But Howard never spoils a scene by overemphasis. Fred Terry has a worthy successor. , . The cast is long and distinguished. Ernest Milton gives a brief but memorable, portrait of Robespierre; Melville

Cooper appears as Romncy, and Raymond Massey is properly sinister as Chauvelin. This, if I am not mistaken, is his first long lilm part, and he acquits himself well. The Hags of the Guillotine. A tribute should be paid to Hal Rosson, one of Hollywood's foremost cameramen, who came over from America specially to photogryh the picture. The photography is, wituout exception, the finest yet seen in a British production, and is "combined with settings of extraordinary realism. In this respect the film captures much that was denied to the play. Grim scenes round the guillotine, where the old women, the dregs of Paris, ply their knitting, cackling with unholy joy each time a fresh head falls into the basket; the flight of escaping aristocrats to the coast in a rocking coach, fearful that the Terror would yet reach them;

a fashionable bare-knuckle fight at which the Prince of Wales is surrounded by the young bloods of the day. The lilni makes the most of its opportunities, shiftinp: tlic scene from Paris to London, and from London to Boulogne with ease and smoothtness.

Sheer melodrama of this kind needs masterly handling to make us forget the fact that it is melodrama. It is a tribute to everyone concerned with the production that not for a moment does interest in the characters flag, nor appreciation of acting, settings and photography waver.