THE ADVENTURES OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (1955-1956) – British television series based on Baroness Emma Orczy’s 1905 novel (and series of stories) 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.
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