The first sound version of the classic adventure story is peerless. The production values rival those of the historical films of 1930s Hollywood, with big sets, handsome interiors, rich and detailed costuming and swarms of extras, all tucked away into a tidy and exciting 90 minutes.
Leslie Howard is superb as both the popinjay Sir Percy Blakeney and his dashing masquerade, The Scarlet Pimpernel, sought by the French revolutionaries for saving aristocrats from the guillotine. Raymond Massey is a natural as his saturnine adversary. Merle Oberon is beautiful, but a little too impassive as Lady Blakeney.
The elusive Pimpernel is a prototype superhero, a figure of destiny who hides behind a passive alter-ego. So this story has been (sort of) ripped off endlessly. But in this case, thanks to the star, it is the domestic facade, the effete, idle toff who is far more entertaining. The script is certainly mannered, but that suits the splendid theatricality of the film.
This is far from realism, and part of suspending disbelief means imagining ourselves on the side of the French aristocracy. And the film is relentlessly patriotic towards the English nobility. But, propaganda aside, it is among the best action adventures of the '30s. Leslie Howard reprised his role in 1941 as Pimpernel Smith, this time fighting the Nazis.