FORGOTTEN TELEVISION: ADVENTURES OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (1955-1956)

THE ADVENTURES OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (1955-1956) – British television series based on Baroness Emma Orczy’s 1903 play and 1905 novel (and series) about Sir Percy Blakeney (Marius Goring), who puts on a foppish and dim-witted air to disguise the fact that he is secretly the Scarlet Pimpernel.

As that figure, he and his network of agents covertly organize the escape from France of aristocrats and others condemned to die on the guillotine under the Reign of Terror in the 1790s. Chauvelin (Stanley Van Beers), one of the most rabid operatives of the Revolutionary mad dogs terrorizing France, works to prevent the Scarlet Pimpernel and his eponymous League from rescuing his targets.   

Strangely, the series omitted Sir Percy’s beautiful and brilliant wife Marguerite, a former French actress whose daring matched his own. Instead, the show used a different female ally for the Pimpernel – Countess la Valliere (Lucie Mannheim).

Some of the novel’s League of the Scarlet Pimpernel were supporting characters, including Second Doctor Who star Patrick Troughton as Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Anthony Newland as Lord Hastings. The series ran for 18 half-hour installments.  

THE EPISODES:

THE HOSTAGE – Our hero’s efforts to help a condemned Baroness escape to England are complicated when she reveals that Agent Chauvelin is holding her son hostage. She refuses to leave until the Scarlet Pimpernel rescues her son, too. With Robert Shaw and Yvonne Furnaux.

SIR PERCY’S WAGER – Continuing the deception that he is not the Scarlet Pimpernel, Sir Percy makes a high-profile bet that his alter ego will succeed at saving Lady Caroline Wells from the Revolutionary Tribunal in France.

THE PRINCESS – After the Pimpernel and his League spirit the Marquise de Manton away to England, he returns to France to rescue the Marquise’s beloved maid Ginette. Sir Percy is attracted to Ginette but the idiotic class divide between them makes a proper romance impossible. I REALLY missed Marguerite Blakeney in this episode.

A TALE OF TWO PIGTAILS – Our hero and his League of the Scarlet Pimpernel rescue French aristocrat Melanie de Monsantes from the guillotine, but Chauvelin travels to England intent on finding the true identity of the Pimpernel. Sir Percy disguises himself as the Prince of Wales’ tailor while Chauvelin is in London. THE Peter O’Toole appears.

THE LADY IN DISTRESS – The Pimpernel conducts an operation to smuggle a woman named Cecille (Ingeborg Wells) out of France but it’s all just a trap by Chauvelin. Sir Percy gets shot and suffers a sword wound during this episode.

SOMETHNG REMEMBERED – Melanie de Monsantes persuades the Scarlet Pimpernel and his League to help her brother Jacques, who is in France leading resistance to the Reign of Terror. Our heroes manage to destroy a shipment of guns being counted on by Chauvelin and his superiors.   

THE ELUSIVE CHAUVELIN – Chauvelin visits England again and takes an innocent man that he thinks is the Scarlet Pimpernel back to France with him. Sir Percy goes into action to save the man, even disguising himself as Chauvelin at one point. CHRISTOPHER LEE played the Chief Executioner.

THE SWORD OF JUSTICE – An Englishman who hates aristocrats and wants them all dead impersonates the Scarlet Pimpernel in France and lures fleeing refugees into his hands for death. Our hero goes to France and engineers Chauvelin’s capture of the fake Pimpernel.

THANKSGIVING DAY – When an American woman traveling through France is arrested by the paranoid Tribunal, President John Adams covertly requests the Scarlet Pimpernel’s help to rescue her from the guillotine. Naturally, our hero succeeds.

SIR ANDREW’S FATE – Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Hastings smuggle some fugitives out of France, but Sir Andrew is wounded and must be left behind. Sir Percy himself goes to France to retrieve him and also meets Madame Tussaud.

THE AMBASSADOR’S LADY – Chauvelin uses a new diplomat sent to London as part of a plot with Lord Hastings’ treacherous wife to murder said diplomat to convince his superiors to declare war on England.

THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT – With Christmas approaching, the Scarlet Pimpernel engineers the escape to England of four French aristocrat children, their dog and a pet donkey.

THE FLOWER WOMAN – The Countess la Valliere poses as a flower woman to help the Pimpernel and his men rescue as many condemned prisoners as they can before the real-life September Massacres occur.     

THE IMAGINARY INVALIDS – Sir Percy goes to France disguised as a doctor in order to rescue the daughter of the banker Rothschild, who is being used as leverage by Chauvelin and his superiors.

ANTOINE AND ANTOINETTE – The Scarlet Pimpernel, Sir Andrew and Lord Hastings manage to rescue two condemned lovebirds from prison and get them safely away to England.

THE WINGED MADONNA – Sir Percy and the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel enact a fake funeral as cover to smuggle a religious relic, a devoted priest and a pregnant woman to England.

GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD – Our heroes work covertly in England for a change in order to thwart a planned assassination to be carried out by phony Highwaymen.

THE FARMER’S BOY – The Scarlet Pimpernel must engineer the escape from France of the daughter (Elvi Hale) of one of his French agents before Chauvelin finds her. Roger Delgado himself guest stars.

*** As strange as it may sound, I’ve been a sucker for the Scarlet Pimpernel novels since I was a kid even though I don’t like the aristocratic snobs that Sir Percy rescues much of the time.

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