The Standard-Times – 1999

By Matt Wolf.

Richard E. Grant is dressed in what he calls his “18th-century grand fop gear” to play Sir Percy Blakeney, the gallant and enduring aristocrat who leads a dangerous second life as the Scarlet Pimpernel. In tight breeches and white stockings, the 6-foot, 2-inch actor also wears 2-inch heels. “They’re just to annoy people who are height-impaired,” he deadpans.

Television is preparing yet another screen retelling of “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” based on the Baroness Orczy’s tales of derring-do and double-dealing set in 1792 near the climax of the French Revolution. This version, a co-production of A&E in the United States and the BBC in Britain, with some Australian money as well, will have its American premiere on A&E at 9 p.m. Sunday. The $9 million sequence of films continues with two further two-hour TV movies, which can be viewed independently. Their air dates have not yet been scheduled.

Besides Grant in the title role, the cast includes American actress Elizabeth McGovern (“Ragtime,” “Ordinary People”) as Sir Percy’s French wife, Marguerite, and Englishman Martin Shaw as Robespierre’s dastardly henchman, Chauvelin, who — in this version, if not in the books — is Marguerite’s one-time lover. “The baroness raises nothing of the kind,” says producer Julian Murphy. “They are very pure books.”

This first of three movies was shot largely in the Czech Republic, standing in for 18th-century Paris as it did last year in the Liam Neeson film of “Les Miserables.” Both films used the rural town of Zatac, with “its extraordinary rundown old center,” as Murphy describes it. But on this particular day, cast and crew have relocated to Wrotham Park just north of London. Here, taking over the same stately home used nearly a decade ago in Kenneth Branagh’s film “Peter’s Friends,” an elaborate intrigue starts to unfold whereby the viewer discovers the Pimpernel’s true identity well before the other characters do.

The story, of course, has been told and retold since “The Scarlet Pimpernel” was published in 1905 by Baroness Emma Orczy, a Hungarian-born Englishwoman. The baroness’ novel was rejected by so many publishers that she and her husband, Montagu Barstow, produced it as a play. It was a hit that ran in London for four years.

“The Scarlet Pimpernel” became a best seller, and fodder for at least three TV sagas and two films, the best known being the 1934 Leslie Howard-Merle Oberon movie. The Broadway musical of the same name is well into its second year. “Anybody leading a double life is (part of) an ongoing literary and cinematic tradition that seems to grip the imagination,” says Grant, who has appeared in the films “Withnail and I,” “The Player,” “The Age of Innocence,” “Hudson Hawk” and last year’s “Spice World — The Movie.” What does the role require?

“Swordfighting, horse riding, killing baddies, kissing women, saving women, saving aristocrats, sailing — all gentlemen’s sports, really,” replies Grant, 41.

“It’s a romantic story with a twist,” says Patrick Lau, Hong Kong-born director of the first two films. “This guy is almost schizophrenic, for heaven’s sake. He’s an English aristocrat who went out and saved all these French people.”

The tale brings together elegant society swells with plenty of swashbuckling, but departs in tone from the fruitiness of the Broadway musical.

“I’m absolutely focused on the fact that if this man was saving anybody from being beheaded, he would have to be kind yet manipulative yet deceitful — whatever is required to do that,” Grant explains. Elsewhere on the set, co-star Shaw, late of Broadway’s “An Ideal Husband,” is engaged in his separate negotiation with tights.

“Now I know what it’s like for women,” he grumbles agreeably. “It’s not pleasant.” Shaw isn’t sure Chauvelin is one of those villains who gets the best lines, but he adds with a smile, “he gets the best women.”