DVD Release Date: April 30, 2013
Price: DVD $29.99
Studio: Acorn Media
The 1982 British romantic adventure TV miniseries The Scarlet Pimpernel is based on the novel of the same name and Eldorado by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, set during the French Revolution.
In 1792 during the Reign of Terror, “The Scarlet Pimpernel” (Anthony Andrews, TV’s Brideshead Revisited) rescues French aristocrats while posing as the wealthy but foppish and seemingly empty-headed Sir Percival Blakeney. Percy marries the beautiful French actress Marguerite St. Just (Jane Seymour, Wedding Crashers), but her previous relationship with the evil Robespierre’s (Richard Morant) agent Paul Chauvelin (Ian McKellen, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) may endanger the Pimpernel’s plans to save the young Dauphin (Richard Charles), eldest son of the former King of France.
Directed by Clive Donner, this version of The Scarlet Pimpernel was a fan favorite that premiered on CBS in ’83. It went on to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Costume Design and was nominated for Outstanding Drama Special and Art Direction.
Buy or Rent The Scarlet Pimpernel
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“They seek him here…they seek him there….where is that daring, dashing Scarlet Pimpernel?”
Leslie Howard in the 1935 original, and also in “The Elusive Pimpernel”(1950) where David Niven
took the British fop and added music numbers, were not shown to U.S. audiences until the latter
was released as “The Fighting Pimpernel” in 1954. This was the McCarthy era, and we didn’t want
queer spies, who might be communist, running around Washington or Paris! Anthony Andrews and
Jane Seymour are plagued by the evil secret agent Ian McKellen who is at his sinister/comic best.
Perhaps Edward Snowden could rescue Pussy Riot Nadya from the evil tyrant Putin in Russia!