The Scarlet Pimpernel ~ Lost in Adaptation
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- Опубликовано: 25 мар 2021
- SINK ME! How loyally does the 1982 film adaptation of The Scarlet Pimpernel adhere to the original plot devised by Baroness Orczy? (That's a rhetorical question, it's what this video is about).
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It’s weird seeing Ian McKellen looking not old. In my mind he’s one of those people who just appeared on this earth at age 65 and then continued to age from there.
Like seeing a young Morgan Freeman
@@ameldell5180 I've seen that and it was unnerving
You should see young Maggie Smith.
He's iconic like that.
I feel this way about Patrick Stewart, even though I've seen him young many times in media
That posh "fuck off" had me rolling.
S A M E why don't characters do that???
OMFG same, I litterally spat coffee over that line delivery
@@PharaohOfTheDamned - There was such a moment in Plunkett & MacLeane - "I don't mean to be rude but would you mind, awfully, fucking off?!"
Likewise!
@@RictusHolloweye reminds me of a line i heard "now would you kindly get the fuck out of my mansion"
but for the life of me i cant remember WHERE i heard it
I’m glad you addressed the antisemitism immediately. When I read this in ninth grade I, a Jewish girl, tried to bring it up for discussion, but I made a comment about how uncomfortable the chapter was and my teacher just nodded and continued on with her pre-planned lesson as of the book hadn’t slapped me in my proverbial face.
Good Lord, I was just gonna sympathy-like & pass by this comment, but I cannot allow that asshole to be the only one who responds to you. Prejudice like this usually hurts the people its meant to hurt any time they come across it. There's nothing juvenile about being offended by things designed to offend you so others can laugh. Anti-semites are alive & well, but even if they weren't, your feelings are absolutely valid. I sincerely hope you know that.
I'm sad to hear about your teacher and that one idiot commenter above. I actually had the exact opposite experience where the teacher was trying to bring up the blatantly problematic things in the book and the 90% white male class kept arguing with her that it wasn't important. It was surreal and jarring.
@@chunkmcbeefnob717 lmao I thought people needed a brain to live, ahh the miracles of modern medicine, keep trying guy 😂
I’m really sorry your teacher couldn’t bear to stop and have a legitimate discussion about the problematic nature of parts of the book, unfortunate that teachers will suspend you at the drop of a hat but when it comes to talking about REAL issues all they wanna do is move on with the lesson :/
Yeah that scene was....rough. as far as I know that who part has been cut from every version.
About Marguerite's reasons for marrying Percy, I personally think there are a number of hints throughout the book that "She just wanted an idiot love-slave" is the twist she put on it once their marriage started going badly, and not necessarily how she felt at the time. Like there's a moment where she's reflecting on their estrangement (and this is *before* she finds out he's the Pimpernel, mind you), and her thoughts are this:
"She loved him still. And now that she looked back upon the last few months of misunderstandings and of loneliness, she realised that she had never ceased to love him; that deep down in her heart she had always vaguely felt that his foolish inanities, his empty laugh, his lazy nonchalance were nothing but a mask; that the real man, strong, passionate, wilful, was there still-the man she had loved, whose intensity had fascinated her, whose personality attracted her, since she always felt that behind his apparently slow wits there was a certain something, which he kept hidden from all the world, and most especially from her."
I think the implication is supposed to be that when she felt rejected by Percy, she went full-scale into pretending she'd never really loved him or seen him as anything but the idiot he pretends to be, because it hurt less than admitting she really did love him and he pushed her away. But in the moments where she's more honest with herself, we see that it isn't true.
there's a song about this in the musical version called "when i look at you"!
@ilexdiapason yeah that song is just *chefs kiss*
while those costumes in the film were amazing lets not ignore how amazing Doms costumes are
And now I want to see Dom in a 18th century frock coat.
I was wondering if he suddenly got access to period costumes.
I have to assume that Dom has an entire room full of epic costumes and wigs in his home that come out for... Special occasions... :-D
Believe it or not, these costumes are SO cheap. They're like $20 Spirit Halloween level crap. I've just gotten good at making things look good on camera ^^
@@Dominic-Noble Now I love the costumes even more. Resourcefulness has its own charm!
Me as a young adult "Wow this is kind of cool book." Me as a jaded adult "Feed madam guioteen."
I in no way condone the execution of children for the crime of being born into generational wealth...but I find it interesting that the french revolution is perceived as inherently more violent and than thousands of people dying from starvation due to ruthless class inequality.
@@tinymxnticore Ah. You have come across the difference between intentional directed killing and arranging and enforcing a system where the end result is death but in a statisical and indirect manner.
For example if I pour poison into a drinking well I'm a poisoner, but if I as a politician deregulate the rules around water purification and allow the dumping of toxic waste near by than that's merely an unintended consequence of maximising shareholder value of the company that contributes heavily to my re-election campaign.
same
In one of Terry Pratchett's books, he has Vimes refer to the Discworld equivalent to Debrett's Peerage as "the guide to the criminal class".
@@fabrisseterbrugghe8567 Pratchett was a genius who is sorely missed by us all. I can only imagine the book he would have written about Brexit. XD
“A Pimpernel is never late Frodo MacBaggins, he arrives precisely when he means to” - Lord Gandalf of Scarlet.
And now I'm thinking that we should have had Anthony Andrews as Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit trilogy.
In fairness, there's a reason the early French Republic was called "The Terror." One doesn't have to overly sympathize with the bourgeois to agree that Robespierre & Co went way way too far. They were slaughtering anyone even tangentially connected with the former ruling class. (Killing the great scientist Lavoisier for moonlighting as a tax-collector was particularly unfortunate; they set chemistry back by decades.)
Nah, fuck ‘em all.
Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
@@Robocopnik Yeah, but in this case, the Terror ultimately helped make an omelet named Emperor Napoleon. Which is pretty much the opposite of the omelet they were trying to make.
Yeah, I'm completely in favor of putting the fear of the working class into the 1%, but "summary executions for citizens who fail to look sufficiently patriotic" is a dictatorship even without the Napoleon-is-a-literal-god stuff a generation later
That whole revolution set humanity back. Unlike the American indeoendence revolution which truly yerned freedom on a constrained scale, the French just ended up creating a power vacuum for another ruler (Napoleon)
Him saying "beautiful watchers" is just never gonna get old, I love it.
Agreed! Makes a viewer feel special, it does
My sister and I were obsessed with these books in our teens, played it, wrote fan fiction, even made ourselves costumes to better be sir Percy and chauvelin. My favorite memory though, is sister found clips from the movie online, back in the days of dialup internet. We both excitedly waited for four hours waiting for each two minute clip to load, while trying to explain to our parents why we needed to tie up the phone line for so long. Ah good times!
That's wholesome!
I was so obsessed with it that I used it as "my favorite book" for a college interview. Since it wasn't Romeo and Juliet, the director was pretty pleased to hear it was a book I actually read.
That garden scene where they are cold to each other, and then he kisses the steps where she walked is just so vivid.
My favorite scene:
www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/scarp-XVI.html
And my favorite quote from it:
Had she but turned back then, and looked out once more on to the rose-lit garden, she would have seen that which would have made her own sufferings seem but light and easy to bear--a strong man, overwhelmed with his own passion and his own despair. Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love, and as soon as her light footsteps had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade there, where her tiny hand had rested last.
Such a sweet thing ❤❤❤
'Not the one from Les Mis, the French kinda had a lot of revolutions, the one mentioned in Hamilton...'
Me, a history nerd and musical lover: hehehehehehehe
I'm pretty sure more people think the Les Miz revolution is this one, than vice versa.
The only thing I think of when Les Mis is mentioned is the mother getting duped into selling her teeth and it makes me want to go full Doom Slayer on some fools. I regret reading the book lol.
1984(translated from french): am I a joke to you?
"Assumed it was for *fiscal* reasons."
"Assumed it was for *physical* reasons."
I can't decide.
Both is good
Fiscal. My hearing, albeit not very good, says definitely fiscal.
*fis-ical*
@@GenericProtagonist118 LOL, yeah, that's what it sounds like. The question is, however, what he meant?
@@g.strobl4458chovalin is like a pro revolution javert. Both are obsessive wackos with a lot of issues who think that they are in the right.
Petition to have Tom Hiddleston play The Scarlet Pimpernel
Take my money!!! ❤️👍❤️
I was thinking all through the movie clips that Anthony Andrews and Tom Hiddleston look quite alike, even down to some of the expressive emoting!
You are a genius!
Excellent idea!
Omg yes. Or Benedict Cumberbatch.
I'm in the camp of "Never read the story, but do recognize him from Black Adder."
That episode if black adder was funny
I'm in the camp of "I only know him as an inspiration for Zorro and a Daffy Duck parody".
And I hail from the camp of "I watched the Carry On film".
Ah, yes! The Scarlet Pimple and the Cunning Plan!
@@Asexual_Individual same here
The baroness's hair game is on top at all times in this movie
I love when period films remember that woman didn't have beach waves for 99% of history.
And her feathers and the cut of her gowns! Gorgeous!
"a scarlet SIMPernel" having read the book, this is the most accurate thing, i laughed so hard
At one point, the man literally kissed the ground his wife walked on. It was both kinda touching and weirdly funny.
Am I the only one who thinks Dom's hair just gets better and better?
Don't get me wrong, I like the neat and tidy Dom, but there is just something indearing about "constantly trying out new stuff because he can't get a haircut" Dom.
The side shave and pony tail or as I like to call it the Hipster Mullet is among the stupidest haircuts ever but Dom does pull it off well
@@alankohn6709 Good thing your opinion doesn't matter to anyone but yourself.
You aren't the only one.
Nope, dashing bastard gets more and more handsome with each video...
@@lokhiwilder Glad I'm not the only one who thinks that. He is, by his own admission, "a gorgeous Englishman."
I thought he flubbed the line when he first said pumpernickel, then I was like, "duh. It's dom. Did you think he'd pass up the opportunity to break a pun world record?."
When I was a kid, I thought the correct title *was* 'The Scarlet Pumpernickel'. As an American, I'd never heard of a flower called a pimpernal.
I'm surprised he didn't make more references to Blackadder while he was at it, beyond "a cunning plan."
Can we appreciate that Dom would rather declare himself out of puns than go for the questionable yet obvious one?
Me: (In other room, listening to the review)
The Dom: (Mentions the setting of The Scarlet Pimpernel)
Me: (Tearing around corner into the room) Is this set during the transition period of fashion from the robe a la francaise to the regency?!?!
My fiance: The WHAT?!
Me: Transition period. Show me the hedgehog curls and the pigeon breast!
Fiance: . . ...?!????! .......😐😑😐
Me: (Sees Marguerite) Yes! TRANSITION GOOOOOOWN!!!!! (Runs back into other room to continue making my lunch)
My Fiance: The hell......
This moment of domestic hilarity brought to you by The Dom, and transition fashion! ❤
Omg, you beautiful nerd. This comment gave me joy
This is the sort of conversations me and my fiancé have in all fairness 😄
This was me the first time I watched Love & Friendship 😂
I clicked on this video just for the fashion in the thumbnail, so I feel you on that one, lol. It's such a fun period, I love it!
Just here to say that the guillotine existed before the revolution, it just got suuuuper popular during it.
Now, I'm imagining guillotine hipsters looking at the revolution "We were guillotining people before it was cool"
And it was invented to make executions more humane. Manually chopping people's heads off can often go awkwardly wrong. And there aren't many relatively quick and painless methods of execution.
@@quaesitrix881 what’s interesting is that its inventor was actually anti-death penalty, but he thought the guillotine would be a better alternative if we’re going to keep killing people.
@@afish1659 Very good point, I forgot to mention that ! It is sadly ironic that Guillotin's name, and his machine guillotine's name, is now forever tied to the extreme use that was made of it during the Terror. Rather than Guillotin's actual goals and hopes.
The guillotine is associated with huge piles of severed heads. It is seen as a step in the mechanization of mass executions, the ability to kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible, and for as little effort as possible (so the same process that would later develop gas chambers).
However, without it, the executions would still have happened, they just would have been more messy, more painful, and slower.
The guillotine might "feel" more "barbaric" than lethal injections, for example, and yet... if you have researched the subject, you will know that lethal injections are far from the most painless way of execution... It just is the most humane looking method to spectators. The most comfortable method for spectators to watch without any tingling of conscience : no blood or guts, no cries. No outward mess.
The person being executed might be in horrible pain, but he can't move or speak to express it, so spectators won't have their conscience too much ruffled.
@@quaesitrix881 Yeah, I read a while ago that lethal injections were not as peaceful as they promised. With death row inmates walking up or been conscious screaming inside their head. I'll take the guillotine any day over that horror show or just bullet to the head.
Fun fact: The actor who plays the father of the family the League rescues at the beginning of the movie is Timothy Carlton, Benedict Cumberbatch's father.
🤯😲
This makes so much sense somehow
Mind. BLOWN.
For what it’s worth, Marguerite IS an actress in the books. It’s mentioned quite a bit. This is a line of dialogue from chapter four of the first book:
““Yes! replied the Comtesse, surely you know her. She was a leading actress of the Comédie Française, and she married an Englishman lately. You must know her”
I just love the Leslie Howard film. “Is he is heaven, is he in ... (points downward) ah ha ha ha” (the ladies giggle) “ That damned elusive pimpernel”
All I know about Scarlet Pimpernel is that it was one of the inspirations for Darkwing Duck.
I’m sorry WHAT
@@ASMRBookclub Yeah, the creator of Darkwing Duck was inspired by Batman, James Bond, and Scarlet Pimpernel among others.
Really?! God I loved that show. And now I have the song in my head...
@@victoriashevlin8587 I loved that show, too! Daring duck of mystery, champion of right...
@@TheSonOfTheDragon Also very much by The Shadow. Who himself is very similar to Pimpernel
"Scarlet Simpernel" Damn you that made me laugh!
All doms little name alterations make me laugh, hes a really good creator
"messing with Magneto's head for a few seconds"
I choked
And I suddenly realized that Zorro the Gay Blade is not only an affectionate spoof to Zorro, but to the Scarlet Pimpernel (who somewhat inspired the Zorro character) through Bunny Wigglesworth. This should have been blatantly obvious, I realize: sink me!
The pimpernel story actually borrowed from the real stories and myths that grew out of the man who was the fox. Or el zorro.
He was an irish catholic at a time when england was executing or deporting hard-line papists so he moved to spain. The spanish court, sensing a PR coup, took him on as a royal advisor. Several years of trust building exercises later and he was dispatched to mexico to investigate reports of rampant abuse of the native peoples. This had been strictly outlawed and would be several more times afterwards but it never stuck.
When he arrived he was sidelined to try and conceal how bad things had gotten. He resisted such treatment and snuck out of basically house arrest to meet with the people of mexico city. They told him the reports were true, even showing him the mutilations they had endured. The man went to the governor with his orders from the king in hand and was jailed.
That night he escaped. The common people spoke of nothing else for days. He came back down to try again and was caught several more times due to his honest nature and the governor setting traps.
But he kept escaping and soon his name was unimportant. He was the fox, something no man could catch, that could escape any trap.
Finally, i think, he was caught and executed but it was far too late. History has mostly forgotten the name of that irishman, but no one has forgotten that he became zorro.
Look it up, i dont do the story justice at all.
@@pudgeboyardee32 Ah! -- I had heard about the Murietta brothers (who got integrated into the Mask of Zorro), but not about this proto-source! And now that I know, I can consequently see now, that the amazing spaghetti-western version of Zorro from the early 70s, set in 1800s Venezuela, draws on this source a little!
1.) "the fox" is already a popular legend among the people from some time previously; and 2.) De Vega is a truly pious Catholic agent of the king who moves to the colony with his family to investigate abuse of the native people and take over as the new governor (if I recall correctly). But he's assassinated en route upon landing at the port city, and his former best friend -- a dashing rogue adventurer, who met him for dinner -- is so inspired by his ideals and sacrifice that he insists on taking over Diego's identity, to protect his family (by insulating them from further trouble) and to complete his mission and get vengeance for his murder (becoming El Zorro when he learns about the native legendary helper of the people.)
@@pudgeboyardee32 That's a great story...if any of it were true. While yes, there is an Irishman who Zorro was partially based on, he was a soldier, not a priest. Secondly, he tried to start a rebellion with local natives and African slaves, but was betrayed by someone he tried to recruit and was tried and executed during the Mexican inquisition. He is actually the subject of a fiction book though, but that was written way after the Zorro stories were made.
"Non chronological storytelling is always way harder to get away with in film"
Christopher Nolan: are you challenging me
Harder. not impossible.
HAHAHAHHAHA, I was just thinking the quickest summary of the Scarlet P is: Zorro but British
Definitely makes sense since the Scarlet Pimpernel directly inspired Zorro
Except written as a book rather than a serialised adventure in a pulpy "Western" magazine as Zorro (The Curse of Capistrano) was originally written.
@@wolf1066 Technically, Pimpernel was published as a play before being published as a novel, even if the novel was written first. Either way, the plots and characters were more than a little similar
@@unfabgirl Wasn't aware Pimpernel was published as a play, first. Cheers.
I've read both _The Scarlet Pimpernel_ and _The Curse of Capistrano_ (whole serial gathered together in one book).
The latter very much screams "pulpy serial" and both are "spoiled" by the fact that the original intent was to hide the identity of the daring hero - which is not possible with modern audiences - unless the reader's lived under a rock all their life - as who _doesn't_ know Don Diego [de la] Vega is Zorro and Sir Percy Blakeney is the Scarlet Pimpernel?
Makes me wonder, given the play had a long run from 1903, why Orczy bothered trying to hide the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel - did she think that few people who watched the play would bother reading the book?
@@wolf1066 Technically, she wrote the book first, but it didn't sell. So, she rewrote it as a play and the success of the play allowed her to publish the book. As for why, considering it is a pre-internet era, I suppose she thought it was easy to get away with, given the fact that not everybody would immediately know the twist. And novels tend to reach larger audiences than plays.
"Sink me" will become a much more prominent part of my vocabulary, when lockdown ends.
I shall offer little to no explanation, to my work colleagues.
We watched The Scarlet Pimpernel movie in one of my history classes in High School and we were doing the exact same thing for weeks.
why wait?
@@Hiraghm - Watch the movie.
@@colin1818 I saw the movie when the version with Anthony Andrews came out. I've lost count of how many times I've seen the Leslie Howard version.
I was asking why he felt it necessary to wait until the lockdown ended... as if it's ever going to be allowed to end.
I see your use of commas and am pleased
I also love how Piercy completely riffs on French fashion to the point that Gandalfs Character is actually dressing better. Piercy got so deep under his skin.
Thanks to Chuck Jones, I still misread this title as The Scarlet Pumpernickel.
You are certainly not the only one. Check out 5:23
To be fair, the Scarlet Pumpernickel is a fantastic version and is one of the more memorable cartoons
Exactly! I had to double check because that is the only version I've known.
Dom did a slip of tongue about 18 mins in and said scarlet pumpernickel
Edit nvm he's playing with us at that point lol
Lol the Dom-extras walking across the scene was something I didn't realize I needed in my life. It feels like the other characters from you past videos made a cameo in this video.
My wife's grandparents were in this film, albeit only as extras. Great to see it get the adaptation treatment.
The 'Sink Me' is right out of the 1930's version with Leslie Howard, another sexy Englishman. XD As much as I liked the 80's movie, I must admit that the Leslie Howard version was the one I saw as a kid and the one I still think of when someone talks about the Pimpernel. I love that original film. Incredible actors, amazing costumes, so lovely in every way.
Not just the "sink me," but also the fake out of the firing squad and, I think, the sword fight with Chauvelan -- not confident about the fight, tough. I saw the Leslie Howard one as a kid and, although nostalgia is probably a large factor, it's one of my top 10 favorite movies. The 1930s version avoided the anti-semitism. Why on earth did they include it in the 1980s?
You could say the Scarlet Pimpernel started the clinche about Superheroes having an alter ego about being some rich useless playboy
MCU Tony Stark - "Excuse you, why did I even come to mind? I was never in the superhero closet. I am/was literally never useless. I was an engineering genius, went to MIT at 14, took over Stark Industries at 21 and turned it into a billion dollar multinational corporation. People could hate me all they wanted, but they never thought i was an idiot or mentally incapable of being a super hero. Just morally incapable, which I proved wrong. I just happen to be a rich playboy. Rude. Don't put me with Wayne. Put Wayne with Queen. Batman doesn't even create his own gadgets. And don't ask me how he uses Wayne Industries Tech without the IRS finding out about it somehow."
@@MorganMalfoy13 Would this be the same Tony Stark who told a terrorist organization to come have a fight at his home with no plans, created Ultron, hacked Shield files and as a result probably saw Hydra finger prints and didn't tell anyone, took an unprepared Peter Parker to fight in Civil War, and is responsible for at least 4 other MCU villains due to bad business decisions?
OG superhero, been saying it for years!!
Dom made that exact point in the video...
@@Tadicuslegion78 or if we go by the comics the same Tony Stark who sold US government murder robots so they could kill all the mutants and also the same Tony Stark who planned and executed an attack to US Congress while he was the defense secretary so the Congress would start tagging ‘people with mutations’ and ‘deal with them more efficiently’. Yes I have many feelings about Civil War, Mutants and Tony Stark ☺️
Me, a french bookworm: 1:25 weird, never heard of these books ! 2:57 ohhhh I see why.
What can we expect from the bloody English? 😉
Read Ascendance of a Bookworm yet?
Dom: (about Ian McKellen's character) Dude, she's just not that into you!
Me: If anyone's going to be not into anyone, McKellen is not into her.
LOL, his character is, though.
As an aside, I guess for an actress it must be more comfortable to have a character overstepping boundaries like that, knowing that the actor behind the character never would act that way, for obvious reasons.
"the scarlett simpernel" is all I will ever be able to see whenever I come upon the book or an adaption again xD
Y'know young Ian Mckellen really looks like Jason Issacs XD
Anthony Andrews gives me strong Tom Hiddleston vibes.
I’m crushing on a young Sir Ian and have always had a thing for Jason Issacs
Sir Ian was hot in his youth.
@@vaclav_fejt Tom would make a great Sir Percy.
I have watched the movie a dozen times and never noticed that. But now I can't unsee Sir Ian as Isaacs now.
Sometimes it feels like we all are stuck in the middle of one long treacherous riddle
Here in Hell the blood runs deeper.
Well, it's higher and higher and into the fire we go.
Of who trusts who, maybe I'll trust you, but can you trust me? Wait and seeeeeee
And that is why the Lord created men.
And I'm the queen of Spain.
Aristocrats were not the majority of the victims of the Revolution- **a lot** of ordinary people died, too- nor was the guillotine the only way they died - look up ‘Loire marriages’...
The "glorious revolution" is almost always an excuse for insane people to partake in a bloodbath while hiding behind a noble cause.
I tried couldn't find anything what does it mean?
@@staceys5447 I guess this: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_marriage
They also executed anyone who was a political opponent of the regime and nobles who had actually betrayed the nobility to help overthrow the king then got executed.
The September Massacres involved killing anyone who was imprisoned at the time, including 115 Catholic priests who had refused to recognise the regime, women, children, and 200 Swiss soldiers. They also attempted to kill the ambassador of Sweden, Madam de Stael.
Later, they executed major revolutionary figures such as Camille Desmoulins and his wife, simply for not 100% supporting their political beliefs.
I really wish the English speaking world stopped idolizing the French revolutions.
And just like many other supposedly populist revolutions, they went after their own. Robespierre would make lists of people who were supposedly enemies of the people in order to go after political opponents. Or even political allies he just didn't like for some reason.
He had more in common with Stalin and Mao than anyone actually deserving of admiration.
I'm not gonna lie - I actually gasped out loud to see the Scarlet Pimpernel being reviewed. So much of a guilty pleasure. I'm kinda sad Dominic didn't look at the TV show because it is so bad that it's almost enjoyable. (it also has Martin Shaw and Ronan Vibert as villains and they're the only worthwhile aspect)
The tv show was better than I was expecting when I watched it, but the bar was set so low for me. It is great for drunk binge watching though
I remember when this came out on broadway and was so badly received, they closed it and redid the entire play and rereleased it. I saw the good version. It was excellent. It was one of only two times where the best part was the costumes and that is a compliment. The other was The Lion King.
"But why do you keep going to France?"
"Froofroo!"
"Froofroo?"
"Froofroo."
This needs a revival. Except maybe now everyone will be rooting for the Guillotine, so it might need some tweaking
@@ASMRBookclub Yeah, tweaking would do it some good. Let people root for the Guillotine. That could make an already great comedy even better. Knives Out style.
Also, though I don't remember, I imagine their sexuality is played for laughs in the play, making them seem less threatening by seeming stereotypically gay. That could also be done in a way that is knowing and self-aware to make it a commentary on old sensibilities rather than a reinforcement of them.
I haven't seen the play, but the frou-frou exchange definitely makes me think of crepes... You just can't get good ones outside of Paris, dear boy.
I've never seen either version, but I'm sad that the revised version apparently turned the brother-sister duet into a romantic love song.
I actually named my dog Sir Percy after the Pimpernel because I love the character so much (I learned of him from the musical but I love that TV film and the miniseries). However, I get asked if he's named for the Weasley (not even close) or Percy Jackson (...okay, that's the reason we call him Seaweed Brain). No one ever gets the Pimpernel He's got a sword mark on his side and everything. I'm thrilled to see you talk about this story, Dom 💜💜💜
That's so cute! Especially nicknaming him seaweed brain!
@@staceys5447 Thanks! He also gets called The Puppy Pimpernel. That and Seaweed Brain are fairly interchangeable. When I was watching this video, everytime Dom said "Sir Percy", his ears would perk up lol
When I hear Sir Percy, I think Blackadder
When I was 12, I was flipping channels and found this particular adaptation. As an adoring fan of Marvel comic books my brother had brought home about that time, it felt like my new home. I went on to write my bachelor's thesis on the Pimpernel, focusing on the thesis that Orczy had, indeed, invented the use of the secret identity as a mask for the self, as Superman does as the fumbling reporter and (as mentioned here) Batman does as the man-about-town Bruce Wayne. I conferred with the original publisher of Batman over the course of my research, and he agreed that connection was very likely. I mean, "The Shadow" and "Zorro" are clearly thinly-veiled adaptations of the Pimpernel story, a point laid out clearly in "Zorro: The Gay Blade," wherein Zorro and a clear spoof of Sir Percy are supposed to be twins who take turns as Zorro. I got to read all 12 books Pimpernel books, Orczy's autobiography, a sort of biography of the Pimpernel written by Orczy's son, as well as a few related books. I have to say one of the books I found most intriguing was "Leatherface;" no, not the horror character based on notorious killer Ed Gein but basically the original Batman, cape and cowl, best-friend-as-chief-of-police, running on rooftops to fight bad guys when not in his rich-playboy disguise, etc. He's truly the prototypical Batman in all ways that matter. My favorite experience of that time was meeting the original actor who played Broadway's Pimpernel, the perfectly tall, perfectly blond, and incredibly gentlemanly Douglass Sills. We bumped into him after watching an early rendition (which was thankfully altered later to become the current version I've seen about 18 times). He offered to warn my hands just because he was a nice guy. Much longer story a little bit shorter, I have to say I love this adaptation of the Pimpernel, even with its flaws. I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it. The newer BBC miniseries version is good and involves more plotlines, though it gets a little worse when the actress who played Marguerite left the set. It's good but not as good as this one.
You met Douglas Sills????? That's amazing; I've never seen the musical, but I adore the soundtrack. Douglas Sills puts so much emotion into Prayer. ❤ I still think When I Look At You - Reprise should have been Percy's song. Cheuvlan has Where's the Girl, for heaven's sake. 😂
@@StarlitSeafoam, agreed. He was just as amazing in person, at least for that brief moment I met him.
I'm in the "heard of him" camp as well.
Funny enough this REALLY helped inform this old movie, Zorro the Gay Blade. George Hamilton plays twin brothers, Don Diego Vega (Zorro) and Ramon Vega, who joins the British navy and comes back super fopish. Ramon takes over the Zorro persona and does EVERYTHING the Scarlet Pimpernel does here, even make up a silly poem.
Thank you for clearing up a 40 year old movie for me. 😄
That is amazing! I hadn't thought of Zorro the Gay Blade in YEARS (saw it in the theater). When the Scarlet Pimpernel hit U.S. television the next year, I just never made the connection to the Gay Blade, but you're absolutely right. (Looking it up, I'm surprised that the Gay Blade is '81; just going by vague recollection I would have guessed a few years earlier. It's really difficult for me to think of it as having come out in the same year as Raiders of the Lost Ark.) So, thank YOU for this comment, which connects a few dots that I never realized should be connected!
So basically Batman runs an Underground Railroad to save rich people from the consequences of their oppression.
The original revolutionary government wasn't much better when it can to oppression considering they beheaded anyone, and their family, who didn't march in lock step with their ideology. Imagine Cancel Culture taken to a murderous extreme.
I would only be okay with this if it were to just save the children rather than the adults with fully informed ideas of the world around them.
@@JohnnyHardCastle1 I dare say they were far worse, look at any history video about the French Revolution, the heads of the new government was a mob of bloodthirsty murderers who kept sliding down what counted as "the rich" until they were killing their own members for not being bloodthirsty enough until they finally downed themselves in blood and got replaced yet again.
You may as well have sympathy for the Salem Witch Hunts or McCarthyism, just because they were "the poor" doesn't make their vile acts once they gained power right.
@@JohnnyHardCastle1 "At least they're not a totalitarian mob that murders even the slightest opposition." Cannot be the bar for what qualifies as not oppressive. The French aristocracy are perfectly capable of being oppressive in addition to the successors that overthrew them being murder happy. It isn't an either/or situation.
@@quinnsinclair7028 normally, no, it shouldn't be the bar, but when people are singing the praises of the murder mob as they gleefully kill countless children and other innocent people for the crime of being distantly related to rich assholes then it absolutely can be.
I think even if you already know The Big Reveal, Marguerite Blakeney's character arc is still interesting and makes the book
worth reading
I read the book after seeing this movie. I actually really enjoyed the book and how it kept the doubt there.
The fact that the Doms "Sink me" is on POINT, I'm cryinggg Blakeney has been my character crush for so long 😭
The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of my favorite literary characters. I even dressed as him for Halloween (obviously no one knew who I was). I love the Anthony Andres movie and am so glad you did this! Thank you!
I’m somewhat saddened that Dom didn’t do an awards episode like he did with The Three Musketeers.
Let’s hope it’s a future video!
**insert Blackadder reference here**
Hot potato, orchestra stalls
Puck will make amends.
You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would, your brain would make a grain of sand look large and ungainly, and that part of you that can't be mentioned, I'm reliably informed by women around the court, wouldn't be worth mentioning even if it could be!
LOL
Glad to see someone actually left references 😃😃🙂
"Hooray, it's the Scarlet Pimpernel... and you killed him."
Will technically I killed *them* 😉
Dom "During that moment he was struck blind deaf and dumb," me but he could sure play mean pinball for that moment
Plays by sense of smell 🧙
Played like a magic man
I remember reading the book for the first time and thinking wow! The female characterization felt immediate-such a strong (and ridiculously steamy) arc.
I first heard about Scarlet Pimpernel in Black Adder The Third.
"I mean, what's the bloody point of being the Scarlet Pimpernel if you're going to fall for the old poisoned-cup routine? Scarlet Pimpernel, my foot! Scarlet Git, more like it!"
The best thing for me is that sir Percy, a.k.a. Scarlet Pimpernel, is played by Tim McInnery...who in the previous two seasons played a nobleman named Percy.
@@vaclav_fejt except there he isn't playing Sir Percy. He's Lord Topper in that episode. He's Lord Percy in seasons 1 and 2, and Captain Darling in season 4.
"They seek him here, they seek him there, those frenchies seek him everywhere, is he in heaven or is he in hell...."
"And what's that disgusting garlic smell?"
That firing squad fakeout was in an earlier B&W movie version as well, so apparently one of those innovations that becomes part of the mythos.
The one with Ashley from Gone With The Wind, whose name escapes me.
A moment, please.
Leslie Howard.
"hehe, I should be working" is absolutely how life with a cat is. XD
This was a really fun one! Would love to see you cover the 1980s Anne of Green Gables and Avonlea miniseries.
Lmao....scarlet pumpernickel.... that almost woke my partner due to my laughter....
Btw: nice hair. It works well for you. :)
Great video, although because of your accent I kept hearing "The Dew," and I watched the opening gag three times going, "What is the joke?? What am I not getting?"
Oh thank Gaius I'm not the only one! It took me forever to figure out it wasn't "The Dew."
Same lol! I've even read the book so I can't believe I didn't realize what he was saying! XD
I turned on the subtitles after successlessly trying to hear something else than "Duke" for the first three times ...
@@dmh2k7
"Gaius?" Didn't know people were still worshipping Caesar.
Also, my brain switched it to "duke" when I heard it.
I read the book in Swedish as a teenager. Interestingly, in Swedish he's called "Röda Nejlikan", which actually means "The Red Carnation". For some reason the translator changed the flower.
I've never understood why that was, but confusingly The Scarlet Pimpernel is now actually the reason why carnations are my favourite flowers.
Whenever someone talks about the 'secret identity who is a useless fop', my mind now turns immediately to 'The Creation of Man' from the musical version.
I can’t think of the guillotine without thinking “sing, swing, savor the sting!”
I did a double take when I heard the author's lastname
"Set during the French Revolution"
Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?
When I was a kid there was copy of this movie at my local library and used to borrow it all the time. I had forgotten about it. But am so please to remember this joy from childhood. Thanks you for that!
That shot of the Dom with the "Eat the Rich"-flag immediately reminded me of Tabatha from Contrapoints channel.
And then I though:
"What would happen if Tabatha and Terrance would discuss the ethics behind a private secret wizard school? And a secret wizard society in general."
...I fear for Terraces life now.
I first heard about Scarlett Pimpernel on that Looney Tunes episode.
For me it was a Tenacious D song
Same
For me the first time i heard of it was from Blackadder.
This is what is meant when one declares something a “seminal work”.
Try watching “Citizen Kane” or the original Hitchcock “Psycho”... it will feel as if you’ve seen it all before because you saw it on “Scooby Doo...”
Wait, even Scoob plots are trope-y now...
Throughout this entire video I kept hearing that female duck's _"Eek! Eek! Eek!"_
The OG Batman, Tiny Red Flower Man. Also… did you just say "Scarlet Pumpernickle"? He is Breadman!
17:42 Oh my god the sexual tension of that sword fight
This was my favourite film as a teenager. I loved it so much that I bought it on DVD as soon as it was available. I loved the love story and the scene where they are talking and Marguerite doesn’t know the Pimperwinkle is her husband really impacted me as a girl. I absolutely love it and both of my daughters do too. ❤
That 80’s adaptation has been one of my secret guilty pleasures since it first came out when I was a kid. Lol
The "sink me" line from Dom just before the 'what they left out' section got me to laugh pretty hard.
The "Scarlet Simpernel" definitely got a chuckle out of me. Great video as usual.
I find it absolutely fascinating that Batman of all things can be traced back to The Scarlet Pimpernel. This would make for a great lesson plan for high school English classes.
This and Zorro (Batman is closer to Zorro, but that stole some bits from this).
@@drewdederer8965 Yes! Zorro too! All three would make such a fantastic lesson plan!
I loooove the Le Guin tshirt as you're holding the "Eat the RIch" flag, bahaha
me too
Yep!
YEESSS!!!
This is a book I actually really love! I remember when I was a teen I became so seriously enraged with Margurite during the first few chapters I had to put down the book and leave it for a few months, but later when I picked it back up and read to the end I ended up changing my mind as I got a better understanding of her character and situation. To me though, the star of the book *is* the adventure of being behind enemy lines and the hopeless scenarios the characters have to cleverly escape from!
As for Sir Percy, I feel like he improves from a "eat the rich" perspective if you hone in on the fact that his motivation isn't really sprung from his desire to save rich people--it's because he's bored and this is the only activity challenging enough to satisfy him. Sure, you could say that's less noble, but to me it actually makes him a little better! The fact that the people he saves are rich is hardly what makes them his targets, so instead of this being about a really rich person feeling sorry for the plight of other really rich people, it's about a guy who chooses to do something productive for sport instead of something utterly useless or harmful--as you might assume most aristocrats in his position would.
It may because of the association with my childhood but I have a very fond spot in my heart for this story! I'm glad to see it covered and appreciated for its good points. ❤💗❤
I loooove S.P. (this movie version was a total touchstone of my childhood!) 🥰
But I'd have to quibble with this characterisation of SirP's motivations...? There's an element of derring-do and adventure-seeking, sure! But both from his dialogue in the book and how the Baroness (a hereditary aristocrat herself) describes the French populace throughout, it seemed very clear to me even as a kid that there was also a very strong element of class consciousness involved...? Sir Percy as an English nobleman was rescuing aristocrats not just because they had innocent family members, but because they were 'people like us' being persecuted by the "murderous canaille" (lower orders, 'great unwashed')... 😒
@@anna_in_aotearoa3166 I guess when I was reading it I was too deep into other aspects of the narrative to pick up on that! ^-^' That wasn't my personal read of it but I definitely won't disagree that the classist reading is a far easier one to make an argument for! It's hard liking older literature sometimes lol--there can be a lot to appreciate but you have to keep those rose-colored glasses firmly on if you want to keep enjoying it.
@@theladyfausta 😜 Your approach sounds a bit like when one is revisiting old childhood faves - usually gotta keep those nostalgia googles on good & tight! 🤣 Gotta admit tho, I'm one of those people who like to know as much as I can about the contemporaneous setting so I can read and go "yeah... that was the times, it's not that this author was a massive a-hole" (assuming that's actually true!) rather than just "lalala, I can't hear you, problematic thing!" ...but I also looove behind the scenes DVD extras & similar, so clearly a big context addict here! 😝
"and that they should just to get it out of their system" now were talking
That was a straight flex with all the costumes! Love it!
i like his ponytail bouncing behind him. also, a moment to appreciate the elaborate costumes he wears to represent bits of the book. good job
As a huge fan of the musical I was stoked for this.
Sing, swing, savour the sting
As she severs you, Madame Guillotine
Huge fan of the soundtrack, never been able to watch the actual musical :-(
🎶Hold your head even higher and into the fire we goooooo!🎶
Now come let our lady possess you
In her breath-taking, hair-raising bed.
She will tingle your spine
as she captures your heart and your head!
@@annemari sadly me too. Only recording I ever found was in German
I appreciate that Dom does videos that aren’t limited to what is recently trending, although I enjoy those too. 😊
Came back to this video because I couldn't find the "EAT THE RICH" segment as a .gif. It's too good!!
I actually squealed! My favourite adaptation of one of my favourite books
I wish there was an assassins creed unity DLC where we meet the scarlet pimpernel
*Slams fist on table* GENIUS!
Oh Lord please someone make a mod
That would have actually been really cool.
My historian brain kept screeching about how they didn't guillotine children lmao. But as he said, historical accuracy was not to be expected XD
but thay would drown them like the drowning at nantes or torture then like they did poor louis Charles she could have shown that or have sir percy team up with olympe de gouges or Antoine lavoisier or any lesser known victim of the terror who had a big impact on history .
@@gracefutrell1912 Nantes was Carrier being a horrible person, if you recall the revolutionary government absolutely did not approve of it and had him called back illico. Louis XVII's mistreatment was not state-sponsored either, it was purely his foster father being mean. So no, a revolution carried out in the intention of bringing forth progress and human rights did not kill children. Olympe de Gouges, as much as I admire her, frankly did not have a big impact on history.
We often have a very negative view of the French Revolution caused by the royalist regime which came after it painting it as something horrible, in order to make themselves look better when to be fair, I'd choose Robespierre as a ruler over Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.
@@m.h.7364 Oh sure you'd totally want a man who made it illegal to be worried to be your ruler instead of a few oafs who were forced into their position as teens
@@thomastakesatollforthedark2231 I'm not sure I understand your sentence but anyway, yes, Maximilien Robespierre, while he was never actually in charge of France, and certainly didn't make it illegal to be worried, was at least on the right track. And it's not just about Louis XVI being incompetent and quick to send the army to solve his problem, it's about the monarchy being a fucked up meat grinder of a political system. The First Republic was certainly not flawless, we French are the first to acknowledge it, but it was still leagues better than what came before.
If you genuinely believe that Robespierre was an evil bloodthirsty tyrant, I recommend reading perhaps McPhee or Leuwers, who are great starts for beginners!
@@m.h.7364 "still leagues better than what came before." At least the monarchy didn't make the streets run red with blood. No government that carries out mass executions is worthwhile regardless of their ideals.
On American TV it aired as a two part miniseries. My mother was OBSESSED.
Can you do a lost in adaptation for fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe?? Both the book and the movie are so good (and there are gays !!)
Yeeess, absolute favourite of mine and my sister's.
@@IvoirePunk Agreed!
YES PLEASE, I NEED SOME DOM-LEVEL ANALYSIS ON THIS!!!! Can you believe there are people who still deny that the characters are gay lol?
I can only imagine how “The Dom” (tm) might stage being covered in bees as a charmer... this Queen must see!
I want to see him react to the cannibalism of the abusive husband. "It's hog butchering time!"
Fuck yeah I've always wanted this one. I love this story.
Edit: Also this story made for a pretty good musical.
You're wonderful! Thank you for all the work you do
Every time I see the title "The Scarlet Pimpernel", I think of Daffy Duck's "The Scarlet P-P-Pumpernickel"
EDIT: Oh Dom, you sly man bun, you.
A+ fashion, would watch again on silent just to enjoy the costumes!!
The Scarlet Pimpernel was one of my required reading materials for middle school. I remember being surprised the main pov was the wife's and enjoying the story better after she'd figured out his identity. (Probably because the action picked up a bit.)
Had no idea this book had sequels, or adapted media for that matter, interesting.
Only found this episode now, great as usual. You've gotten me back into reading, so thank you.
This video has made me happier than I have been in months! This is amazing!
My favourite version of The Scarlet Pimpernel is Pimpernel Smith(1941), its final speech gives me goosebumps every time.
That one is magnificent but more an 'inspired by' than adaptation... Leslie Howard is definitely my favorite pimpernell actor, both versions he played give me joy. The 'sink me' catch phrase was in the '34 version(not to the same degree) as was the fake out ending. Maybe that is where the '82 adaptation sourced them from? Haven't seen the earlier ones so it is possible that one of them was the real introductory point for some of the changes.
"The Riddle" and "Madame Guillotine" make EXCELLENT amv material. I've seen really great vids based off of those songs and thanks for explaining the context!
Thank you for making this video 👍
Love it as always dude, amazing work!