| |
"Thought
You'd
Seen
The Original Movie About
A Daring Archeology Professor
Battling The Nazis?
Think Again!"
The plot probably
has a familiar ring to it: a resourceful Professor of Archeology
goes up against the growing might of pre-war Nazi Germany. In a
thrilling adventure, with the fate of many on the line, our hero has a
very common last name and is known for his daring bravado. But
this isn't a big-budget production from Lucas and Spielberg – in fact,
while it might have influenced the 1981 film you're probably thinking
of, this movie came out forty years
earlier!
In
1941, British actor Leslie Howard released a movie he had directed
and produced with his own funds, earned from his appearance in the
Hollywood blockbuster Gone
With
The
Wind (1939).
Howard had portrayed the honor-bound
intellectual Southern gentleman, Ashley Wilkes. Howard was
passionate about the British war effort, and especially wanted to alert
a wider audience to the growing threat of Nazi Germany. Howard also
wanted to produce a film which updated his famous role as Sir Percy
Blakeney in The
Scarlet
Pimpernel (1934) from
Revolutionary France to pre-World War II
Europe. The result was an amazing feature film entitled Pimpernel
Smith (1941), known by the
release title of Mister
V
in the United States.
 Howard
played
the
title role of Professor Horatio Smith, who uses his
cover as an absent-minded archeology professor to smuggle intellectuals
out of Nazi Germany. During one daring rescue, Smith is wounded,
which results in revealing his secret identity to his admiring
students. They enthusiastically join him in his fight, but things are
complicated when one of his students brings a mysterious woman into
their inner circle. Smith engages in a game of cat-and-mouse with a
ruthless Gestapo adversary who has been assigned to track him down.
|
An Inspiring Film...
This
movie
is
even credited
with inspiring Swedish diplomat Raoul
Wallenberg, who attended a private screening with his sister Nina in
1942. "On the way home," his sister recalled, "he told me  this
was the
kind of thing he would like to do." Wallenberg went on to
mount a
rescue operation in Budapest that, conservatively estimated, saved tens
of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the
Nazi gas chambers. It is hard to imagine that any other film has ever
inspired an act of heroism on
quite this scale.
|
Now
available for the first time on DVD, Pimpernel
Smith
serves as a
reminder of the power of cinema to change opinion and influence
society. A profoundly moving film about the struggle for good in the
world, Pimpernel Smith deserves to be seen by today’s
audience.
Indy fans will not be
disappointed!
|
A Heroic Leading Man
Leslie Howard was one of
those rare individuals for whom one's principles were as important as
life itself or anything in it. In his life, fame and success were his
in good measure, but he consistently chose to work those projects that
he felt were worthy rather than those  that were strictly lucrative.
When he was called upon to perform the role of Ashley Wilkes in Gone
With The Wind, he was very reticent to accept, and when he did
so it
was in large part dependant on his being given the money and resources
to make Pimpernel
Smith as a weapon in the propaganda war against Nazi
Germany. This film, as well as Howard's The First Of
The Few and the BBC radio broadcasts in which he castigated
Nazism and defended democracy and human rights were very effective
propaganda weapons for the British. Howard even caught the notice
of Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who is said to have
referred to him as "the most dangerous propagandist in the British
service." Sadly, on June 1,
1943 the Nazis hunted him down over neutral airspace in the Bay of
Biscayne and shot down Flight 777, the civilian airliner in which they
knew he was a
passenger.
|
You may order Pimpernel
Smith on DVD
securely via credit card online for
just US$19.99 $15.99
$9.99
= Special Launch Price!:
NOTE: This DVD
carries a 100%
satisfaction guarantee.
If unsatisfied, simply return it for
a prompt refund of the purchase price (please see FAQ
for return info).
If you would prefer to order via PayPal, please use this link:
Internet
Security Notice:
Our secure online
order form looks like this:
|
|
