FILM CLUB - The Elusive Pimpernel

Powell & Pressburger Season - 1950

Bloody hell what happened here? This film is one almighty mess. There are glimpses of the Powell flare, in filmed scenes shot through a screen or trees with things allowed to be fuzzy or obscured. Mont Saint Michel being surrounded by water. Those deep close ups on faces. But the rest of it is cardboard cut out melodrama, all a bit farcical. 

 

David Niven, who was pretty much launched into international stardom on the back of A Matter of Life and Death, returns. Cyril Cusack plays the main baddie. Jack Hawkins playing against type as George 4th. And starlet of the moment Margaret Leighton as the love interest. So a somewhat stellar cast, plus Archers regulars, to play with. On the surface what could go wrong? But with this film their golden run of surefire classy movies, was to all but cease.

Powell wanted to make The Elusive Pimpernel as a musical. He was told he couldn't by the films financiers Sam Goldwyn and Alexander Korda. Powell was not remotely interested in making the script as a light hearted drama. Both he and Niven wanted to back out. The threat of contract suspension meant both were compelled to make a film neither of them wanted involvement with.

The contentiousness continued after the films final cut was presented. Niven severed his contract with Goldwyn due to being forced to make the film. Goldwyn insisted on further changes and additions, the cost of which he refused to pay for. This left Korda footing the bill, who took Goldwyn to court over it. Because Goldwyn and Korda fell out the film didn't get a US distributor till three years later. UK box office revenue alone barely covered a third of its cost to make. It ended up being both a financial as well as creative catastrophe.

This sorry saga illustrates the entirely less accommodating nature of post war film making. The Archers really struggled to make even one film thereafter entirely to their own unique design. Powell being forced to make a film he had not a jot of interest or heart in, meant he produced a bonafide turkey. Not for the first time either. The Archers would cease their collaboration with I'll Met By Moonlight, another film Powell had no feeling for.

Pressburger made what he could from poor quality source material - Baroness Orcsy's cod romantic romp set during the French Revolution. Though the comedic tone of the film, though light, had never been P&P's strong point. Actors walk around delivering complex dialogue and exchanges without a scintilla of understanding of feeling or motive. It feels and looks amateurish, and it really didn't have to be. Contractual obligation, never a good motivation for anyone to produce their best work.

CARROT REVIEW - 2/8