STIRRING TIMES LIVE.

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 157, 31 December 1940, Page 9

STIRRING TIMES LIVE.

"Pimpernel" for the Paramount.

Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon play splendidly in the leading roles of the London Pilm Productions version of Baroness Orczy's ever-popular story, "The Scarlet Pimpernel," which has renewed its youth in the happenings all over Europe in the troubled sea of international affairs and suffering of all classes of people during the past few years. Leslie Howard is delightful. He has perfectly grasped the psychology of Sir Percy Biakeney, Merle Oberon is well cast as Lady Biakeney, and the constantly frustrated Chauyelin is in more than capable hands in Raymond Massey, who seems to have every attribute of the perfect screen villain. Screening of the film commences tomorrow at the Paramount Theatre. The producer, Alexander Korda, admires and employs American production technique. He was the first man in England to apply Hollywood's "star grooming" system. He seems to have the knack of extracting the utmost from Leslie Howard. The "Pimpernel" story was originally written in 1903 as a newspaper serial when relations be-tween-England and Russia were somewhat strained. It went two instalments and was then withdrawn. Baroness Orczy then adapted it to the French Revolution period, and many people are probably more familiar with the event's of that time through this story than any other medium. The film makes the story alive and throughout is a faithful and satisfying presentation of it ...