REGENT THEATRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 186, 10 August 1935, Page 11

REGENT THEATRE

“THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL.’’ “Is he in heaven? Is he in hell?” Even the.audience who will witness the opening screenings of “The Scarlet Pimpernel” at the Regent Theatre today and to-night will wonder from what unexpected direction and in what grotesque and often ludicrous guise the Pimpernel will next appear. Readers of Baroness Orczy’s book will remember a talc of intiigue, adventure and suspense, a tale which, in spite of its romance, might have been a page in history. Those who see the film need fear no disappointment; rather the contrary. The spirit of the book is there. Indeed the atmosphere of revolutionary I’rance under Robespierre is rend di ed far more faithfully by scenes of the jeering crowds who jest and sneer as the tumbrils rattle aloug with their doomed burdens and Madame Guillotine docs her fatal work, than mere words, however vivid, could have described it. Scenes from the English life of the Regency period form a background of pleasant relief to the horrors that were being perpetrated in France. In these scenes, Lislie Howard is mostly Sir Percy Blakeney the fop, which part he plays with a suavity and inanity that is calculated to dect% • even the most astute observers. At times when he is alone, he lets the mask drop off and then he is seen as the intrepid and ingenious leader of a band of Englishmen pledged to save French aristocrats from the guillotine and staking their very lives for this end. This performance, the finest Leslie Howard has rendered on the Admirably contrasted with the Scarlet Pimpernel is the diplomatic, cunning Chauvelin, sent over to England with Robespierre’s express command to track down this arch-enemy of France. In physique, in mentality and in character, the two men are direct opposites. Raymond Massey, who has “villian” written in every line of his face, plays this grim sardonic part with a restrained energy and sufficient astuteness to keep the audience in acute suspense right to the end. In the last scene, at the Lion d ’Or, takes place a battle of wits between these two men which it would be hard to find equalled in any film; each in turn is triumphant, each in turn has his hopes utterly dashed. It is Lady Blakeney herself who causes the hitch through her impatience to see her husband, whose identity with the Scarlet Pimpernel she has only just discovered, and to save him from the clutches of Chauvelin. Thg fact that he saves her, instead, is 'only to be expected. Merle Oberon’s part, as Lady Blakeney, is a difficult one, yet she carries it through to perfection. The film was produced by Alexander Korda, who made such a phenomenal success of “The Private Life of Henry VIII” and “Cath< irine the Great,” and it has already received unstinted acclamation from the public in England, Europe and America. The supporting programme includes “The Goddess of Spring,” a Walt, Disney Silly Symphony, which, apart, from its delightful ingenuity of idea and expression, contains some remarkably line colour effects.