They seek him here! They seek him there! Those Frenchies seek him everywhere! So goes the titular poem written by our hero, Sir Percy Blakeney, who has to play the idiot fop
to keep his true identity a secret, and does so with great aplomb. Leslie Howard is his excellent best, and does steely resolve and Bertie Wooster/The Prince Regent in Black Adder buffoonery equally adeptly. Meanwhile Merle Oberon as his French wife that he spends most of the film despising
out of a mistaken belief that she sent a family to the guillotine, swans around sighing a lot and giving penetrating stares. There's less all-out action than you might expect (the only scene of The Pimpernel helping French aristos escape is at the start, where we see Howard dressed up as an old woman with a ridiculous fake nose, but there's lots of intrigue, and wonderful supporting players like Nigel Bruce as the kindly English prince, and Raymond Massey as the evil right-hand-man of Robespierre,
(whom Blakeney takes great pleasure in tormenting),
along with great sets and fantastic costumes (did they really wear such silly hats and ridiculous collars?) And the love of man and wife is restored in a rather over-the-top patriotic finale. Great stuff, and obviously where Ray Davies got the opening line of Dedicated Follower of Fashion. You can see why Oberon was whisked off to Hollywood shortly thereafter, though:
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