Pimpernel Smith

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Movie
Original title Pimpernel Smith
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1941
length 118 minutes
Rod
Director Leslie Howard
script Anatole de Grunwald
Ian Dalrymple (anonymous)
production Leslie Howard
music John Greenwood
camera Mutz Greenbaum
cut Sidney Cole
Douglas Myers
occupation

Pimpernel Smith is a 1941 British drama directed by and starring Leslie Howard . The story is based on a novel by Paul de Sainte Colombe and is a further development or update (on British enmity with Hitler's Germany and the WWII situation in 1939/40) of Leslie Howard's great pre-war audience success The Scarlet Flower (1934).

action

Spring 1939, on the eve of World War II. Always a little absent-minded, Professor Horatio Smith teaches archeology at the University of Cambridge. When he was planning an excavation trip to Germany - Smith lured the rulers in Berlin with the fact that he wanted to prove that Germans belonged to the "Aryan race" with his excavations - he invited several of his students from England and the USA to join him to accompany. Once there, they spend the night in a youth hostel on the German-Swiss border. A gunshot is heard and a man goes to the inn, where a whistle tells him the presence of a second man to help him in. Soldiers appear, but the man they are looking for has been swallowed up by the ground. The persecuted man has now safely escaped across the border into the Swiss Confederation. Once again “The Shadow” has struck, a constant nuisance of the Third Reich - a phantom whose name is unknown and which helps people oppressed by the Nazi regime to escape to freedom.

Gestapo General von Graum has been chosen by the regime to track down and capture the “shadow”. The officer interrogates Sidimir Koslowski, the editor of a liberal Polish newspaper. He was on the run of the stranger who turned out to be the anti-Nazi scientist Dr. Benckendorf turns out to be present, but pretends not to know anything about the mysterious "shadow". Meanwhile, Professor Smith receives an invitation to a ball at the British Embassy in Berlin. He makes an appointment with his students for the next day at the train station in order to travel on together. The Englishman leaves in the dark what he is up to in the meantime.

Karl Meyer, an important German pianist, is currently in a concentration camp and has to do forced labor with other prisoners. The concentration camp guards treat the prisoners badly and threaten them with brutal measures to make them even harder. To emphasize his demand, a guard shoots a scarecrow. Unnoticed by everyone, some blood then trickles down the scarecrow sleeve. The next day, on the train, the students discuss the latest daring action by “The Shadow”, which led to Karl Meyer's rescue. When they read in the newspaper that the “shadow” disguised as a scarecrow was shot while trying to escape, they suddenly notice that Professor Smith's wrist is bandaged. He admits that he is “The Shadow”, who deals with the systematic rescue of those persecuted by the Nazis. He believes that these refugees with their intellect and knowledge will be of vital importance as light for the freedom of the peoples in the future. Smith's students are enthusiastic about the heroism of their professor, praise him as their role model and promise Smith to help him in his work from now on.

While pursuing the "shadow", General von Graum discovers a torn corner of Smith's embassy invitation in the scarecrow's discarded coat and realizes that the "shadow" will be present at the ball. Smith meets a beautiful woman at the company who is obviously in the service of Graums. Smith talks to the stranger, who turns out to be Ludmilla Koslowski, the daughter of the Polish editor Sidimir, who was silent about the Germans during the interrogation. Ludmilla suspects Smith and tells von Graum of her distrust of the Englishman. That night, she enters Smith's room and tells him that her father was in a concentration camp because of his persistent silence. General von Graum threatened to have him killed if she did not help him to capture the "shadow". Smith decides that the shadow's next task must be to free her father and four German newspaper colleagues Koslowskis.

Ludmilla Graum then explains that she would no longer suspect Smith. But the beefy German officer realizes that she is lying. The next day, Smith and his students, disguised as journalists loyal to the line and let into the concentration camp, overwhelmed the camp guards and smuggled the detainees out. Gestapo soldiers then search Smith's accommodation at the excavation site, but fail to find those who had fled the camp, carefully hidden on site. Smith's students return home to England and take several trunk with them, which they very obviously watch over with Argus owls. This is of course not hidden from the Germans, and German officials waiting at the border with Poland open the suitcases in the hope of discovering those who have been freed from the camp. But they have long since mingled with the passengers and make their way across the border unnoticed, where they are finally free.

Smith returns to Ludmilla. Both flee to the border together, where von Graum is already waiting for them. The general is ready to let the woman go if “Pimpernel” Smith, the lifesaver and “shadow” surrenders instead. The archeology professor agrees, and a memorable verbal argument ensues between the two adversaries. Smith explains to him his conviction that the Nazis may appear invincible at the moment, but not despite their lack of compassion and their urge to want to conquer others, but precisely because of these characteristics one day fail. Von Graum accompanies Smith to the border in the hope that he tries to escape and that he can then shoot him from behind. But Smith can use a trick to escape gray space in a different way and disappears unnoticed. When the general shoots wildly around him in the foggy darkness, you can hear the whispering voice of the "shadow" announcing his return - and this time he will not come alone.

Production notes

The film, made in 1940, premiered on July 26th or 28th 1941, depending on the source. In Germany, Pimpernel Smith not shown.

Harold Huth took over the production management. George Pollock was an assistant director. Wolfgang Wilhelm was involved in creating the story. Jack Hildyard and Guy Green served as head cameraman Mutz Greenbaum , who had also taken over the technical management here, as a simple cameraman.

Like all of his other films in which Howard had worked as an actor or as a director or as a producer during the Second World War, Pimpernel Smith also conveyed clearly patriotic and propaganda messages.

Reviews

The British Film Institute judged: “Perhaps more surprising than its effectiveness as propaganda is the excellence of film as narrative cinema. (...) Howard's direction combines interesting ideas (our first brief look at Germany is a tourist sign with the inscription "Come To Romantic Germany", on which the camera remains fixed while the sounds of a rampaging Hitler, marching boots and machine gun fire can be heard) with excellent film noir-like light effects. "

The Movie & Video Guide wrote: “A spicy update from The Scarlet Pimpernel ”.

Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: " The Scarlet Pimpernel modestly and quite effectively updated, with notable scenes after a slow start".

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Criticism on BFI Screenonline
  2. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1016
  3. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 799

Web links