The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
Leslie Howard: Sir Percy Blakeney
Photos
Quotes
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Percy Blakeney : They seek him here, they seek him there, / Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. / Is he in heaven? Or is he in hell? / That damned elusive Pimpernel!
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Percy Blakeney : [before reciting his poem to Winterbottom] Stab me, I'm bubbling over with good humor this morning. Would you believe me, I've just written a masterpiece.
Col. Winterbottom : Who, sir? You, sir?
Percy Blakeney : Me, sir
Col. Winterbottom : No, sir.
Percy Blakeney : Yes, sir. All about this mysterious Pimpernel fellow. How it came to me Heaven only knows, because it was the busiest moment of the day. Damn me, I was tying my cravat.
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Col. Winterbottom : Are you being offensive, sir?
Percy Blakeney : Who, sir? Me, sir? No, sir.
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Lady Marguerite Blakeney : Oh, but Percy, through me, a good, a generous man may lose his life. Oh, Percy, what can I do? How can I warn him?
Percy Blakeney : Warn him? Against what?
Lady Marguerite Blakeney : Against the danger if he goes back to France.
Percy Blakeney : Well, if he's the kind of lunatic I take him to be, your warning's not going to stop him.
Lady Marguerite Blakeney : But he might be going to his death.
Percy Blakeney : That's all the fellow lives for. Besides, he doesn't know you're in love with him.
Lady Marguerite Blakeney : I'm not in love with him! I admire his head of wisdom, but I'm not in love with him.
Percy Blakeney : Oh, but you are. It's a dangerous game, my dear. Falling in love with a phantom. For all you know, he might be a married man who is deeply in love with his wife.
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Citizen Chauvelin : [after Percy recites his poem to Chauvelin] Delightful.
Percy Blakeney : What?
Citizen Chauvelin : Especially that line, "Those Frenchies seek him everywhere."
Percy Blakeney : Yes, I like that, too, because you see, I hear that they do and that gives the line a sort of something... sort of gives it... uh... uh... something. Uh... u-uh... if I make myself clear.
Citizen Chauvelin : Clear as crystal.
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Percy Blakeney : Open up your sleeves, man. Let your ruffles take the air. Let them flow! Let them ripple!
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Armand St. Just : Percy, may I ask you something? What's happened to you and Marguerite?
Percy Blakeney : Marriage, I suppose. Why?
Armand St. Just : You loved her once, I know.
Percy Blakeney : Do you remember the first family to go to the guillotine? The St. Cyrs? They told me it was Marguerite who denounced them.
Armand St. Just : It was a lie!
Percy Blakeney : I wish I could believe that.
Armand St. Just : Did you ask her?
Percy Blakeney : I did. She flashed back a "yes" as sharp as the knife of the guillotine. I watched that execution. The Marquis, his wife, his son. And it was my wife who put them there.
Armand St. Just : So that's why you ceased to love her. What a tragedy.
Percy Blakeney : Ceased? I shall love her till I die. That's the tragedy.
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Lady Marguerite Blakeney : Can't you rise above trivialities for once?
Percy Blakeney : Can't rise above anything more than three syllables, my dear - never could.
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Percy Blakeney : I'm in love.
Elderly citizen of Boulogne : It's the wife of another man!
Percy Blakeney : No it's my own.
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Percy Blakeney : Devilish clever race, the French. How they speak that unspeakable language of theirs defeats me.
Citizen Chauvelin : You flatter us, Sir Percy.
Percy Blakeney : No, no. You've got the cleverest heads in the world. The only trouble is, you all go to pieces around the neck.
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Percy Blakeney : Magnificent fight this afternoon, my dear. Gad! That Mendoza's got quick ears. In the 10th round, when Jackson had him down, I shouted, "Get up, Mendoza!" And damn me, he did and sink me, he won!
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Elderly citizen of Boulogne : We shall have to teach perfidious Albion a lesson!
Percy Blakeney : [to fellow-members of League disguised as French soldiers] It won't take *us* long to cross the Channel, eh boys?
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Treadle : That, Sir Percy, is the last word in cuffs.
Percy Blakeney : Oh, gad, I should hope so. For there should never be another like it.
