"Pimpernel" Smith "Pimpernel" Smith "Pimpernel" Smith (released in the United States as Mister V) is a 1941 British anti-Nazi thriller, produced and directed by its star Leslie Howard, which updates his role in the 1934 "The Scarlet Pimpernel" from Revolutionary France to pre-Second World War Europe. The "British Film Yearbook for 1945" described his work as "one of the most valuable facets of British propaganda". The film helped to inspire the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg to mount his real-life rescue operation in Budapest that saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from Nazi concentration camps during the last months of the Second
The Scarlet Pimpernel wily new French envoy to England. Chauvelin's agents have stolen a letter proving her beloved brother Armand is in league with the Pimpernel. Chauvelin offers to trade Armand's life for her help against the Pimpernel. Contemptuous of her seemingly witless and unloving husband, Marguerite does not go to him for help or advice. Instead, she passes along information which enables Chauvelin to learn the Pimpernel's true identity. Later that night, Marguerite finally tells her husband of the terrible danger threatening her brother and pleads for his assistance. Percy promises to save him. After Percy unexpectedly leaves for France, Marguerite discovers