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fictionturnedherbrain · 2 years

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I hardly post anything original on this blog but I found my first review of The Scarlet Pimpernel (BBC 1998) and my outrage amuses me so here goes! (I had ... issues ... with this adaptation, let's just say. Now I feel like I have to go back and rewatch, many many years later!) Apologies to fans of the actors involved!

Putting the whole thing under the cut because long.

Scarlet Pimpernel (1999)

Starring Richard E. Grant, Elizabeth McGovern, Martin Shaw

Style

Characters/Actors

Dialogue

Original Content

There are two main things wrong with this production of the Baroness Orczy’s novel: the actors and the phrase ‘modern interpretation’. Richard E. Grant is superficially a negative copy of Sir Percy, in every sense of the word. He’s too dark, too slight, too short, and puts forward smug and sneering where I presume he intends foppish and cunning. In style, the director may have believed that Grant can ‘act differently’ enough to portray the ‘foppish persona’ of Sir Percy and the ‘dashing persona’ of the Scarlet Pimpernel but he doesn’t convince me. His dandy routine is either bawdy or malicious, and as the mysterious hero, he’s just plain violent. Elizabeth McGovern is not an ugly actress, but her Marguerite looks frumpy, common, but above all, ordinary, and she is outshone by Beth Goddard as Suzanne de Tournay and Emilia Fox as Minette. Martin Shaw’s Chauvelin is around the right age, but the writer has tried to ‘sex up’ the role, which doesn’t work. Which leads onto the 1990’s interpretation.

What’s wrong with romance, and merely implying what follows? Why is a high body count necessary to update an historical drama? In the ‘making of’ extra, shivers ran down my spine when I heard what was planned for the adaptation of the ‘classic film of the thirties’ (no mention of the 1982 version): to make a ‘family/action series’, using characters and a story that ‘still hold good’, but making it ‘exciting’, with a ‘slightly sexy feel’. Above all, the Scarlet Pimpernel would be modernised to make it appeal to ‘today’s audience’. Though there are still kernels of Orczy’s writing in the 1999 series – drawing on Eldorado and The Elusive Pimpernel, as well as the main novel – the characters are lost beneath smutty dialogue, violence and special effects, losing the romance of the original story.

Style

What’s Good

The credits are initially very stylish, with red transparencies of objects which symbolise the story, including a pistol and a red eye mask. That is of course until clips from the film are included. Richard E. Grant’s smug face should be regarded as a warning to ‘abandon hope all ye who enter here’.

The setting is perhaps the best out of the (now) three main Scarlet Pimpernel films (1934, 1982, and this attempt): the production was filmed in Prague, for its semblance to eighteenth century Paris (although I’m not sure all the tricolour flags, rosettes, ribbons and bunting were necessary to identify the intended setting). But surely this advance is to be expected of the latest adaptation, with considerably more money available, and more time spent filming (£5.5 million budget, and 18 weeks on location) Sir Percy’s mansion, now termed ‘Blakeney Hall’, is actually Wrotham Park, Barnet, outside London, and includes many lavish interior scenes filmed on location. The stunts and effects are more professional because experts were on hand to work with (and often replace) the actors for tricky scenes. And yet Richard E. Grant still looks uncomfortable on horseback, or even driving a carriage, as opposed to Anthony Andrews in the 1982 film. And the duel scene between Sir Percy and Chauvelin, introduced into the story in the Andrews version, is edited to pieces, and finishes as a fistfight.

What’s Not So Good

The modernisation. The deaths of Marguerite’s parents at the hands of St. Cyr replace the previous explanation of St. Cyr having had Armand beaten for falling in love with his daughter, because this makes Marguerite’s actions more palatable. This ‘eye for an eye’ philosophy is presented in the rather theatrical opening flashback scene, with a heavily powdered St. Cyr exclaiming ‘Learn from this!’ and Marguerite’s mother echoing, ‘Marquis de St Cyr, my children will remember!’ The following representation of Paris, 1793, is just as affected, with children dancing, faces lit by flame, and rebel rousing in the streets (filmed at night for heavy-handed symbolism). With the Prague scenery, it brings to mind the animated film A Nightmare Before Christmas rather than mid-Revolutionary Paris.

Unnecessary characters. The dwarf that leads the League members to where Danby is being tortured. Mazarini, the Scottish-Italian portrait forger and his orgy. The female Republican soldier. And Minette, the distortion of Jeanne Lange from Eldorado. The name change is one thing – Jeanne became Louise in the 1982 version – but the exaggeration of Marguerite’s understudy and Armand’s lover into a double agent between the Scarlet Pimpernel and Chauvelin is quite another! Was it to introduce a bit of female sex appeal into the film, or to give Emilia Fox something to work with?

Confusion! The plot manages to twist in and out of three Pimpernel stories, without successfully identifying the strongest drama in any of them: Marguerite’s betrayal of Percy in the main novel is lost to Minette; Armand is captured in a cross between the events of the main novel and Eldorado, and yet he completely disappears from the action until the end (as Sir Percy says, “Very good to see you again, Armand”!); and even after the Chauvelin/Marguerite confrontation of Elusive is followed by the prison reunion of Eldorado, Grant and McGovern still can’t convey the romance between the Blakeneys! Grant loves his witty fop persona too much to let go, and McGovern is uniformly tepid throughout.

Characters/ Actors

What’s Good

Very little. Chauvelin. I mention Martin Shaw’s character first because I object to him the least. Though not as wizened as Orczy’s character – perhaps Richard E. Grant is in the wrong role – Shaw is in the right age bracket (or looks to be) and is well-spoken enough to portray the diplomatic ex-Ambassador. That the screenwriter then includes a post-coital bed scene with the Minette character that is totally wrong for Chauvelin (who has morphed into a hybrid of Amadeus and the Marquis de Sade) is not his fault. In fact, screenwriter Richard Carpenter completely misunderstands Chauvelin’s motives. The dialogue tries to make the French agent (again called Paul and not Armand) sound ruthless – “Glad to see you haven’t lost your tongue along with your toenails” – but then Shaw states in the making of commentary that what attracts about the character is that he’s ‘not an obvious bad guy’ and is ‘capable of love’. Chauvelin’s love, however, is for his country and the Republic, not Marguerite. If there must exist some previous romantic entanglement between Chauvelin and Marguerite – another creation of the 1982 version – then it should at least be shown that Chauvelin only uses Marguerite to trap the Scarlet Pimpernel. He doesn’t get all human and protective of her at the last minute, trying to save her from death! The speech that Shaw gives before Robespierre at Marguerite’s trial is completely ridiculous in its uncharacteristic presentation of Orczy’s dedicated republican agent: “The Committee bases its judgements on facts. We are accustomed to anonymous denunciations, and I find many of them to be false, motivated by revenge or greed –” Not only does Chauvelin suddenly condemn the government he has been actively supporting in a fit of hypocrisy, but Robespierre lets him live after he’s said it! And Ronan Vibert is actually very good as the sober, calculating, well-dressed dictator, impressing the few scenes he features in with the importance of his character.

What’s Bad

Richard E. Grant. Not to say he’s a bad actor, he’s just very miscast in this role. To start with, he doesn’t look anything like how Orczy described her hero. Notwithstanding trivialities like hair – fair, not dark, and certainly not receding – the Scarlet Pimpernel is 6’3” tall, with broad shoulders and a well-built physique. He’s the traditional romantic hero – strong, masculine, protective, and commanding authority. The imagery just doesn’t work with Grant in the main role, who would have made a better Chauvelin than Shaw! Once again, the actor playing Sir Andrew Ffoulkes – Anthony Green – should have been Sir Percy, and the chosen lead, as with Leslie Howard back in 1934. Physical drawbacks aside, Grant just can’t pull off the dual character role. He has two personalities to aim for, and misses the mark with both:

The Fop. Howard and Andrews may have been slightly irritating as the drawling, inane Sir Percy, obsessed with the cut of a coat and the tying of cravats, but that is the point. That’s Sir Percy’s disguise, and his disguise is used against everyone, including Marguerite. By trying to make the story and the character more ‘modern’, Grant seems to tone down this side of Sir Percy. Some of his lines are funny – the ‘carriage wit’ comment – but he’s too dramatic, replacing the character’s affected tones with a lot of mincing and arm flailing. Sir Percy wouldn’t expend the energy. Nor would Orczy’s character be so cruel and sarcastic, as during the ballroom scene with Angèle St. Cyr (apparently the only St. Cyr family member to apparently escape execution): “Take the lady away, Sir, take the lady away!” Grant’s Sir Percy is also much too saucy, with the “kiss where we please” toast and the “wooden leg” joke, especially whilst in the company of ladies. This is still supposed to be eighteenth century aristocratic England, and Sir Percy is nothing if not courteous and polite. Grant takes it all too far, making Percy hurtful instead of playful. When Percy tries to push Marguerite into singing for everybody’s entertainment, his guests look embarrassed to be witnessing such mental cruelty, and Sir Andrew tries to excuse himself and leave (or perhaps it is the irony of Percy’s line, “We all know how truly your voice mirrors your beauty”, which makes them cringe!)

The Scarlet Pimpernel. An earnest, dedicated, determined leader of nineteen loyal men. A calculating, unflappable, master tactician, risking his life to save others. How does Grant put this across? He scowls and gets to run people through with a sword. The Baroness’ Sir Percy occasionally had to cosh people over the head, in order to assume their identity, but he didn’t kill anybody, because then, really, that would have brought him down to their level. Here, during the Pimpernel’s escape from prison (apparently during the September massacre of 1792, despite an earlier caption claiming it’s the year later), he breaks one guard’s neck, stabs another in the back, and kills three people just to get up a flight of stairs! There’s also very little difference between Richard E. Grant’s Sir Percy and his Scarlet Pimpernel, aside from the ridiculous masks that the League now don, replacing the disguises that took Sir Percy and his men into the heart of the mob, allowing them to blend in. Fearing that rather obvious latex appendages and dressing up as an old hag would get them laughed at, Carpenter obviously decided that he would abandon the central concept of the story, and have the League just wear masks, large hats and cloaks. Or rather, abandon the central concept of Orczy’s story, and take up The Mark of Zorro instead. The ingenuity of Orczy’s character is replaced by violence, and – pathetically – early Bond-style gadgets. Sir Percy becomes a well-prepared Houdini after Chauvelin locks him up in a cell, producing a pick from his quizzing glass, skeleton keys from his collar, and a blade from his boot (wasn’t he searched?)

Elizabeth McGovern. As an American, McGovern carries an English accent quite well (apart from when she says ‘Percy’ as ‘Passy’, rolls the ‘r’ in ‘Carlton’, and declares that “over a thousand people have been ‘mardered’”). Unfortunately, her earthy pronunciation only adds to her overall image, and creates the most ungraceful, ordinary Marguerite St. Just on film to date. Merle Oberon of the 1934 film, Jane Seymour of the 1982 version, and Elizabeth McGovern have all broken away from the Marguerite of Orczy’s stories: not one is blonde (or auburn, depending on which chapter of which book is referred to), and I think only Elizabeth McGovern has blue eyes. But then, Marguerite is supposed to be a French woman, of Gallic extraction, and therefore Orczy’s ‘childlike’ angel-haired, Anglicized hero was perhaps stretching the romantic licence of the book a little too far. However, McGovern doesn’t even carry herself well as the character. Oberon was delicate with a stunning beauty; Seymour is classically beautiful and elegant. The bad wig and heavy make-up do absolutely nothing for Elizabeth McGovern, who seems to shed about ten years after her forced haircut towards the end of the film. For most of the time, she appears bloated and her face rubbery, and as neither she nor Grant are very good at showing the suppressed love that is supposed to exist between the Blakeneys, the audience is left thinking that not even physical attraction could have brought them together. As Chauvelin says, “It’s too good to be true – like the performance you’re giving now.” And instead of Marguerite’s inner fire and strength, the modern version looks as though she could just wrestle you to the ground and sit on you. Character-wise, Marguerite is as confused as the plot: the young, inexperienced wife, once an actress of the Comédie Française, becomes a tired, matronly ex-singer of the Theatre des Arts, who slept with Chauvelin even though she didn’t love him (“You were always out of reach, even when you were lying in my arms”). Marguerite’s whole status is lowered: from bourgeois Parisian to provincial farmer’s daughter; King’s Player at the Comédie to bawdy chanteuse at the Théatre; naïve maiden to cynical tramp (“And sometimes you were willing – very willing”). Trying to present Marguerite as a strong woman by modern standards only succeeds in making her common and unappealing as Percy’s wife, and the monotone delivery of McGovern, who was obviously focusing on her pronunciation, means that even her lines lack the necessary emotion. Marguerite is supposed to be an intelligent, impulsive young woman of twenty-five, who has left behind the excitement of the Paris stage for life as an English gentlewoman, hoping to find romance and an escape from the Revolution. McGovern’s Marguerite is technically still twenty-five (her parents were killed when she was twelve, in 1780) – but her first scene makes her look more like a disillusioned middle-aged wife, stumping around a ballroom and smiling pathetically at her equally life-weary husband. When Marguerite turns to demand of Chauvelin, “What do you mean?” (after he cryptically enquires about her brother), she sounds like a gruff fish-wife! Kindly comments I’ve read about McGovern’s performance – ‘grown-up’, ‘stoic’ and ‘serene’ – obviously translate as ‘old’, ‘wooden’ and ‘expressionless’. True, she portrays Marguerite’s confusion well, but forgets to slip out of her depressed state of grudging acceptance, even when she and Percy are reunited.

Dialogue

The humour is the main attraction of this adaptation of the Scarlet Pimpernel. It mostly consists of innuendo – an infusion of ‘sexiness’ at Carry On level – and a bit of slapstick (the wheels of Chauvelin’s carriage being pulled off) but is still quite funny and well delivered. There’s a dig at one speech-impaired League member by Chauvelin (“I would ssso like to meet him”), and a couple of mocking notes from the Scarlet Pimpernel (“There are some excellent wines in the cellar.”) Most of the laughs are in the snappy banter between the lead characters – apart from the forced, clichéd retorts that are fired between Percy and Marguerite, which sound like those lines written in books but never actually spoken (“What is a wife but inexplicability in petticoats?”) – and the droll delivery of the odd one-liner: “But it don’t rhyme, Shuffle-on, and it ain’t a proper poem if it don’t rhyme.” Richard E. Grant is certainly very good at throwaway snide remarks, and at curling his lip whilst he’s speaking. There are a couple of clever asides from Sir Percy whilst paying a visit to the undercover tailor: when asked if Dewhurst, recently ‘deflowered’ at Mazarini’s orgy, got any sleep the previous night, Percy replies, “I don’t think they let him”, and he quips over a mannequin bearing Robespierre’s new coat, “No head, Citizen? I trust that’s not an omen.” However, Percy’s speeches about cravats and cricket are too long, too luvvie, and not in character enough for him to score against his enemy in a verbal duel, in the tradition of Howard and Andrews – Chauvelin’s withering contempt, and the boredom of the extras in the background, is soon felt by the viewer. Lady Blakeney’s ‘witty ripostes’, meant to score points off her husband, are delivered as though McGovern is memorising lines from Shakespeare – just getting them in the right place is obviously enough (“The time when an Englishman most resembles a lover ..”) But then, as she later confirms, “I am not the oh so witty Lady Blakeney”.

Original Material

Evidence that somebody at least glanced at Orczy’s books, and didn’t just memorise details from the 1934 film, comes with the occasional character or detail from the original source. Angèle St. Cyr, miraculous escape from her family’s fate aside, is actually a character name taken from the first novel. The challenge to a duel that follows is also in the book, although it is the Vicomte de Tournay who challenges Percy on behalf of his mother. There is also a mechanical device portraying the guillotine and playing ‘Ca Ira’, similar to the carnival attraction used by Desirèe Candeille in Orczy’s The Elusive Pimpernel, plus a mirror image of the scene from the same book where Marguerite is given an ultimatum by Chauvelin in the Boulogne prison. Marguerite is told that Sir Percy will have to choose between “his honour or his wife”, but unfortunately for Chauvelin’s bargain, there is no evidence that Sir Percy would care one way or another about Marguerite going to the guillotine!

Painfully, the infamous Richmond ‘garden scene’ is also skirted around, but the mask of pride, the sexual tension, the repressed love, and the near breaking of Sir Percy’s iron will, are all sadly lacking. Marguerite doesn’t try to appeal to Percy with reminiscences, she just mumbles “I thought you loved me”. Instead, it’s the odd quote from the book (“I swore to you my life was yours”), and questions answered with questions. Later, Marguerite tries to explain why she denounced the Marquis St. Cyr and comes close to Orczy’s story with method (“I heard, almost by chance, that the Marquis was plotting with Austria”), but not, of course, with why she did it. If avenging the murder of her parents is more noble than payback for her brother, why has Marguerite hidden the truth for a year? And when Percy, rather harshly, refuses to use his court influence to help Armand, Marguerite screams like a harpy at her husband, but her fear for her brother’s life is unconvincing – perhaps because Armand has been completely forgotten about by this point (“We write to each other awften”, Marguerite tells Suzanne, but an emotional bond between brother and sister is not conveyed). Similarly absent is Percy’s torment over not being able to trust Marguerite enough to comfort her in her distress – far from kissing the ground she walks on, Grant doesn’t even turn in his chair to watch her flee the room in tears.

One fact the film gets wrong is Marguerite’s discovery of her husband’s alias. Following the book is not the issue, it’s how the new twist isn’t very well thought out. Chauvelin tells Marguerite that he “shot and wounded” the Scarlet Pimpernel during their last encounter, which he tells her might prove useful on her forced quest to ‘unmask’ (unfortunately now literally) the mysterious hero. This sets the cogs whirring, and Marguerite instantly demands that Percy’s valet open his master’s study. We are supposed to presume that Marguerite has seen Percy’s wound, but how, when they supposedly estranged? Eighteenth century aristocratic married couples would have had separate bed chambers anyway, so why would Percy and Marguerite intentionally flout that distance when they obviously can’t stand each other? There is also the earlier mention of Percy “disturbing [Marguerite’s] slumbers” on leaving early for France. Why would they be sleeping together? Marguerite’s sudden powers of deduction aside, her confirmation is the discovery of a secret drawer in Percy’s desk – not locked, marked with a Pimpernel flower handle, and containing maps of France (and presumably a bundle of forged papers, allowing Marguerite to journey into France after Percy). Not exactly subtle.

Another mistake is allowing League members to be sacrificed for modern bloodlust. The story is set during the Revolution, but what sort of romantic hero would Sir Percy be if he allowed any of his nineteen followers to die? Danby opens the action by being tortured, and later dying of his wounds (Gasping “Don’t trust her” on his deathbed – trust who?) He is, incredibly, followed into martyrdom by Lord Tony! A main League member! Not only is one of Sir Percy’s best friends shot whilst struggling with Fumier, but he is then kicked whilst down, and shot again – in the head, by Chauvelin, out of sheer frustration. Nor does the deeply layered Sir Percy of Richard E. Grant’s creation seem to care very much: “He knew the risks” becomes Tony’s epitaph, making the whole incident futile with regards to the plot, as there is no emotional consequence.

Although the ‘making of’ extra reports that this remake is based on the 1934 film, there are more instances of scenes ‘inspired’ by the later 1982 television movie with Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour. Two of these ‘references’ typically involve bedroom action (or are twisted to include suggestive dialogue): Armand is once again seen enjoying the company of Louise Lange, AKA Minette; and Marguerite and Chauvelin again spar over their past relationship (“You rise early” – “You have a short memory”). The tradition that now closes three films – the boat scene, with Sir Percy and Marguerite reunited and sailing home to England aboard the Day Dream – becomes a bed scene, with the final kiss replaced by a roll around under the covers. The main scene in the prison cell, where originally Chauvelin allows Marguerite to visit Sir Percy, in order to try and emotionally blackmail the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ into telling him what he has done with the Dauphin. This film is typically contrary and has Percy visiting Marguerite. But the dialogue is familiar, with Marguerite’s cry of “Percy!” and the demand that they be left alone. However, the manipulation of the storyline leaves Grant and McGovern slightly confused – here is where husband and wife break down their barriers and admit their love for each other. Marguerite begs his forgiveness for betraying him, and Percy hers, for not trusting her. But Marguerite’s betrayal isn’t as active as Orczy penned: instead of telling Chauvelin of the meeting in the library at one o’ clock, Marguerite merely pacifies him with a snippet of information about a house (seemingly the only house) used by the League in Paris. Chauvelin actually seems to learn the Scarlet Pimpernel’s identity through Minette, the double agent. So suddenly both characters have to realise a love that hasn’t even been subtly hinted at throughout, and spout lines like “I can’t live without you!” (or, as it’s McGovern’s line, ‘yeeou’). Marguerite tells Percy that she betrayed him (although I’m not sure how), and then adds, “Why didn’t you tell me, Percy? Why didn’t you tell me from the beginning?” Chauvelin actually gave her the answer to this earlier – “He never trusted you – his French republican wife” – but it’s quite possible she wasn’t alert enough to remember. Lips are unromantically mashed together, after Grant rather unconvincingly tells her that “You’re my life and nothing can come between us”, and then Chauvelin takes him away and locks him up. The words are there, the contact is there, but there’s no passion, and no sense that Grant as Percy cares one way or another – his smug expression doesn’t change, his delivery doesn’t soften, and he doesn’t look at all concerned that the wife he has just confessed his love for is in prison because of him. And as Marguerite says, “We’re alone, there’s no-one to play to”! It’s as if Percy’s marriage is an awkward detail that the screenwriter just didn’t dare completely erase, instead of being the main thread of what is essentially a romance. Grant certainly acts as though he’s racing through his scenes with McGovern to get to more violent action as the Pimpernel.

#the scarlet pimpernel #the scarlet pimpernel 1998 #richard e grant #elizabeth mcgovern #martin shaw #sir percy blakeney #marguerite blakeney #chauvelin #patrick lau #retro reviews!

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