Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: They Seek Him Here…
The Scarlet Pimpernel (UK, 1999)
With his double identity, outlaw status, and penchant for disguise, the Scarlet Pimpernel may have been the clear template for Zorro, but in the novels, he was more secret agent than swordsman, and most screen adaptations have been light on the action side. The BBC’s 1999-2000 series of TV movies, in direct competition with ITV’s swashbuckling Hornblower shows, sought to rectify that imbalance.
Richard Carpenter’s new version of the dapper outlaw of the French Revolution was given a hidden array of gadgets reminiscent of ‘60s spy heroes, and in most episodes found occasion to put a sword in his hand. And since Carpenter made the Pimpernel a good swordsman but not great, and constantly menaced him with guns and explosives, it added a level of urgent threat to the stories not previously seen. If Richard E. Grant as Sir Percy and the Pimpernel was less light-hearted than the Leslie Howard and Anthony Andrews incarnations, he had good reason.