It’s the French revolution, and innocent aristocrats are taken to the guillotine, often due to the actions of Citizen Chauvelin (Ian McKellen). Luckily, there is the secretive Scarlet Pimpernel, who plucks the condemned from prison and whisks them off to England and safety. Chauvelin will do anything to catch the Pimpernel, but he is unable to see that is enemy is foppish Sir Percy Blakeney (Anthony Andrews) in disguise. Blackeney wins the heart of actress Marguerite St. Just (Jane Seymour), a woman that Chauvelin wanted for himself. But a series of misunderstandings and blackmails leaves Blakeney doubting his wife and Chauvelin using her to get to the Pimpernel.
The Scarlet Pimpernel is the least Swashbuckling of the major Swashbuckling stories. It’s really a leisurely-paced costume melodrama. Its sharper elements are not swords, but words, with plenty of verbal jousting. Well, in theory anyway. This 1982 TV version is too lethargic for anything close to jousting. There’s little wit, and what’s there is so diffuse as to fade into the endless glances and poses. More often, the dialog is nothing but variations on Chauvelin saying “I’ll get him” and “For France,” Marguerite repeating “I love him” and “he’s not the man I married,” and Percy adding “What a poorly tied cravat” and “We must rescue them.” Not exactly poetry.
As for action, we get one (just one!) swordfight, a few musket volleys (with the resulting wound ignored in subsequent scenes), several chases, and a couple beheadings (if those count as action). It’s not enough to keep anyone’s interest, so it’s the story that’s got to carry the weight. But there’s not enough of that, nor is it sufficiently inventive, for a 142 minute film. Tighten the editing a bit (A bit!? Try chopping 60 minutes out and we’ll talk) and The Scarlet Pimpernel would be fitting for a lazy Sunday evening.
Anthony Andrews does what he can, but we see far too much of his fop act, and it isn’t’ funny. It reminds me of a Monty Python upper class twit routine, but without the humor. Jane Seymour is beautiful. She doesn’t manage to express the intelligence that Marguerite is supposed to possess, but beauty is enough.
If there is a reason to watch, it is for Ian McKellen, who is one of the best actors of the last forty years, and gives Chauvelin depth and complexity missing in other versions (and the books). Best known now as the man who made getting older cool with his performances as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and Magneto in the three X-Men films, McKellen’s Shakespearian training (his Richard III is the finest interpretation of the character I’ve seen on stage or screen) puts him in a class above everyone else connected to the project. Too bad he didn’t have more to work with.