(no subject)

[skygiants]

After reading Musketeer Space I got really nostalgic for nineteenth-century prose, but didn't want to actually reread the original Three Musketeers and start hating all the characters again.

Then I remembered there were like thirty Scarlet Pimpernel books I had never read, and then I remembered I hadn't actually read The Scarlet Pimpernel in many years, and decided I might as well start there. (Yes, I know the Scarlet Pimpernel is technically not nineteenth-century, it's close enough, leave me alone.)

I'd remembered a lot of the important things about the novel -- how much the book is Marguerite's story, mostly thanks to innerbrat's excellent lesbian AU, and of course the awkward chunk of anti-Semitism towards the end -- but I was somewhat surprised to discover how many scenes had osmosed themselves into my mental canon because they appear in every film and musical version, to the point where I'd forgotten they don't actually happen in the book.

Most prominently, perhaps: the swordfight. Every Scarlet Pimpernel adaptation I've ever seen ends in a climactic swordfight. Percy Blakeney does not swing a sword, or even a punch, in the entire dang novel. Not a single swash was buckled that day. At one point a whole bunch of people swing punches at him, and he placidly rolls over and lets them do it because it's in character at the time. Honestly, I love this. Why should Percy be any good at fighting? He's good at cunning plans and a great actor and that's plenty to go on, there's no reason at all that he needs to be good at anything else. I finished the book and thought, "I hope Percy never picks up a sword ever in the next thirteen volumes."

(Of course then the next Pimpernel book I read centered on a climactic swordfight, but that's for next post.)

The other big scene I'd edited into the book in my head is the one where Marguerite warns the Scarlet Pimpernel in the garden during the party when Chauvelin demands she betrays him -- I can't remember if this is in every other version, but it's definitely in the 1982 film as well as the Wildhorn musical. Also, I'm pretty sure an equivalent of this scene appears in practically every Scarlet Pimpernel-inspired Secret Identity romance plot; what is the point, after all, of My Love Loves The Mask And Not Me if the disguised hero never actually gets to interact with their love interest? But then of course The Scarlet Pimpernel, unlike most of its successors, does not actually center the disguised hero, and the book gets much more angsty mileage out of having Marguerite interact with Percy, not knowing he's the Pimpernel, than interact with the Pimpernel not knowing he's Percy.

(I wonder if the Pimpernel's identity ever was a surprise to the first readers of the book, or if everyone was able to figure it out based on the fact that there really aren't any other characters introduced that it could be? Most adaptations don't even bother trying to throw the audience off the scent; almost invariably they introduce Percy-as-Pimpernel and then play on his angst about Marguerite rather than reversewise.)

Anyway, the other thing of course about reading The Scarlet Pimpernel in this specific historical moment is that I started thinking about how enduring the story is, and about Pimpernel Smith, the 1940s British propaganda film which is a for-the-time-contemporary AU in which the Scarlet Pimpernel rescues people from the Nazis, and how it inspired real-life Raoul Wallenberg to save thousands of people from concentration camps, because there's something about the story of a heroic trickster snatching persecuted people out of the jaws of danger that apparently appeals directly to the id.

A for-the-present-contemporary Pimpernel story about rescuing people from ICE seems like pretty low-hanging fruit here, is what I'm saying. Choose your propaganda tools wisely.

Comments

[sovay]

Every Scarlet Pimpernel adaptation I've ever seen ends in a climactic swordfight.

The one starring Leslie Howard does not! It ends with a clever trick. Also it replaces the awkward chunk of anti-Semitism with a cameo from Daniel Mendoza. I don't know whether that particular upgrade came from Korda or Howard or both, but the clear message seems to be that British-Hungarian Jews do not let that nonsense stand.

A for-the-present-contemporary Pimpernel story about rescuing people from ICE seems like pretty low-hanging fruit here, is what I'm saying.

I'm for it.

[landofnowhere]

My mother read /The Scarlet Pimpernel/ aloud to me and my sister when I was 14(?) and I'm pretty sure that I learned the Pimpernel's identity by reading the back cover of the book a few chapters in. But I was not very plot-savvy at the time.

[twistedchick]

Thank you for saying that the Scarlet Pimpernel has a 19th Century sensibility, because I've always seen it that way and felt as if I were the only one who did.

[skygiants]

I could have sworn Leslie Howard got a swordfight, but in fact I appear to be mentally editing that in from a combo of the Anthony Andrews version and Howard's Romeo and Juliet. I guess it just goes to show! (I do remember the Mendoza cameo. :D)

[skygiants]

I think my first Pimpernel was actually the Anthony Andrews film, which begins with Pimperneling and goes on from there. But Orczy does do a pretty good job of disguising it prose-wise, I think!

[sovay]

I could have sworn Leslie Howard got a swordfight, but in fact I appear to be mentally editing that in from a combo of the Anthony Andrews version and Howard's Romeo and Juliet.

He does quote a lot of Shakespeare at Chauvelin.

[skygiants]

I mean, 1905 is just barely twentieth century anyways and Baroness Orczy was definitely ... prone to nostalgia? I don't think it's that much of a stretch. >.>

[pedanther]

If you're going to be doing sequels as well, I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about Eldorado -- I've never managed to get hold of a copy myself, but apparently it's the one the 1982 version took the back half of its plot from after they decided there wasn't enough action in the climax of the original novel.

[rmc28]

I'm pretty sure that the first time I read The Scarlet Pimpernel I didn't yet know who the Pimpernel was, and I was surprised. Hurrah for finding it in the library before seeing any adaptations!

My older child has been Sorted placed in Wallenberg House for the secondary school he begins in September. The other three Houses are Turing, Parks, and Keller, and they have big posters in prominent places about each of them; it wasn't a deciding factor in choosing this school, but it didn't hurt.

[skygiants]

I intend to! We'll see how far I get. So far I've only read The Elusive Pimpernel and I've got I Will Repay in the lineup.

[skygiants]

I sort of wish I'd had that experience, although I don't mind the formative bits I got from the 1982 film exactly; it would have been interesting to see what stuck in the mental canon if I'd gone at it reversewise.

Man, what an excellent set of sorting options. No way to lose!

[ranalore]

I want to say this movie was where I first heard at least part of the St. Crispin's Day speech. It was a version of Pimpernel, anyway, from the right era, with the most amazing, clever, ridiculous, sublime, awkwardly beautiful Percy. That certainly strikes me as perfectly Howard. It had a perfectly prickly Marguerite, too, I want to say played by Merle Oberon?

::checks IMDB::

Yep, that's the one.

[sovay]

We'll see how far I get.

This is my usual vote for Sir Percy Hits Back (1927), which is ludicrously idfic even for Orczy. The fact that this series ran up to 1940 still occasionally blows my mind. They should have gotten her to do the novelization of Pimpernel Smith.

[sovay]

with the most amazing, clever, ridiculous, sublime, awkwardly beautiful Percy. That certainly strikes me as perfectly Howard. It had a perfectly prickly Marguerite, too, I want to say played by Merle Oberon?

I consider them both basically definitive. I am also very fond of Raymond Massey's Chauvelin.

[ranalore]

I admit, I don't remember him well, other than he wasn't one-dimensional and he wasn't a buffoon. It probably says something that these are noteworthy qualities, though whether about me or about film adversaries, I'm not sure.

[sovay]

It probably says something that these are noteworthy qualities, though whether about me or about film adversaries, I'm not sure.

Well, I think it means you have good taste in nemeses.

[sovay]

Wallenberg House for the secondary school he begins in September. The other three Houses are Turing, Parks, and Keller

That's wonderful.

[musesfool]

That was mine too, and between it and his version of Ivanhoe, tween me had quite the crush on Anthony Andrews.