The Scarlet Pimpernel - Series 1 [1999]

Customer Reviews:

Great Entertainment.......2005-11-17

I really loved this version of the Scarlet Pimpernel. As a period drama it has everything. The portrayal of Percy by Richard E Grant was highly entertaining. His devilish wit, charm - not to mention timing, is superb. Elizabeth McGovern as Lady Marguerite Blakeney is beautiful, impulsive & vivacious. Roman Vibert gave Robespierre a truly reptilian & precious persona, suitably filling me with horror & revulsion.

However, Martin Shaw as Chauvalin really steals the show. Monstrous – yet charming, cruel – yet gentle, cynical – yet vulnerable. His love for Marguerite bringing him almost to a point of balance as well as depth. Mr Shaw’s clear enjoyment of the role really comes through. Add to that those seductive good looks, which lend themselves so convincingly to both the character & the period & you have in this, an altogether thoroughly entertaining drama

Depends on if you love the book..........2005-08-01

If you haven't read the books, I imagine you'd find this exciting and good fun. However, it veers away from the books so wildly that if you know them you will spend the entire time feeling frustrated! Other reviewers have said that the story and characters are more historically accurate than Baroness Orczy's original... fair enough if that's your opinion, but I think if you're going to make a film from a book you should get someone who loves the books to write the screenplay. I got the impression that this film was made by people who thought the original was too silly and needed revising. So as a result it's not a version for the Orczy fans.

Pick your Pimpernels!.......2004-08-01

Comparing this to the 1982 Anthony Andrews/Jane Seymour version, the huge difference in production values is striking. 1980s television, even on a fairly large budget, was shot in flat, pedestrian stretches, with no attempt at more than standard studio-set direction. This 1998 version is as beautiful as a Milos Forman movie (like "Amadeus", it's largely shot in Prague) with lovely lighting, fast, fluid camera moves, elliptic scene-setting dialogue; and a real attempt at historic accuracy (the brothel, the theatre, the Dangerous Liaisons-style make-up...) In fact, some scenes, especially those dealing with sex, are a lot truer to the 18th century than Baroness Orczy's Edwardian adventure novels.

This is not to say that there aren't a number of historical clunkers in this new version of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" - but never mind; they belong firmly in the swashbuckling fiction tradition. Robespierre, while bearing very little relation to the historic character, is a find: cold, foppish and understated, more of an Eastern European Communist than a French revolutionary. Prague susbtituting for Paris is rather disconcerting, if very pretty; I doubt the Comité de Salut Public met in Baroque palaces (if only because Paris cruelly lacks them.)

Finally, the actors here are absolutely superlative. I can't imagine why people liked Anthony Andrews's one-note upper-class-twit-of-the-year caricature of Percy, or Jane Seymour's stock Dr Quinn/Marguerite. Even the young Ian McKellen, looking uncannily like Mr Spock as Chauvelin, was surprisingly flat and predictable. Here Richard E. Grant is a fantastically overwrought Percy, flamboyant and sneering; Elizabeth McGovern shows warmth and vulnerability; and Martin Shaw's Chauvelin, while unfaithful to the book, is a marvellously complex villain with enough ambiguous traits to avoid the cardboard-cutout of previous incarnations.

Richard E Grant is the Scarlet Pimpernel.......2003-10-01

He has the charm, the wit, and the blue eyes to carry it off. It is shame he is wasted in Argos ads. Series one is true to the novels written by Baroness Orczy and Martin Shaw is brilliant as Chavuelin. Brilliantly funny, appeals to both male and female. Males for the action and heroics and the females- well Richard E Grant need I say more? The BBC do their dramas well, especially as they have no breaks and you do need your wits about you- and allow yourself to be captured by the thrill of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Swashbuckling Perfection.......2002-09-18

Even though I had already seen the series I was glued to my seat during all three episodes on this DVD. The acting is subtle but brilliant, the attention to detail with respect to costumes and location absolutely excellent. You really are back in the 18th century! Cannot wait for the second series to be releases on DVD.

UK DVD:

UK DVD List

UK DVD