The Scarlet Pimpernel - 1934

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a 1934 British adventure film starring Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, and Raymond Massey. It was directed by Harold Young and produced by Alexander Korda. Based on the 1905 play by Baroness Orczy and Montagu Barstow and the 1905 adventure novel by Orczy, the film is about an eighteenth-century English aristocrat (Howard) who leads a double life, passing himself off as an effete aristocrat while engaged in a secret effort to rescue French nobles from Robespierre's Reign of Terror. Howard's portrayal of the title character is often considered the definitive portrayal of the role. In 1941, he played a similar role in "Pimpernel" Smith but this time set in pre-WWII Germany.