Pimpernel Smith is together with Chaplin's The Great Dictator one of the most effective anti-Nazi films ever made. OK, the concentration camp seems rather idyllic compared to what we now know about those places, but the unique mix of comedy and suspense is masterful (it reminds me somewhat of the now forgotten thrillers by Manning Coles, light-years from the nitty-gritty tone of today's blockbusters. Just to set the record straight: Howard's last lines, spoken from the mist at the frontier railway station are first "I'll be back." Sullivan fires a couple of shots into the dark before the voice comes back: "We'll ALL be back." Spoken in 1941, at the height of the Battle of Britain and years before the invasion, those word are nicely prophetic...
Review of 'Pimpernel' Smith
