50 Fun Facts About The Scarlet Pimpernel

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what does Sir Percy tip into his snuffbox to disable Chauvelin at a Calais inn?

Pepper from the inn's own supper table does it: Sir Percy offers a polite pinch, and Chauvelin is left sneezing and blinded while his quarry strolls out of the door.

Which Marvel Comics co-creator called the Scarlet Pimpernel the first character who could be called a superhero?

Stan Lee read the Pimpernel stories as a child. Sir Percy already had the superhero's kit decades before capes and masks: a secret identity, a calling card and a band of helpers.

Which Looney Tunes star plays the hero of The Scarlet Pumpernickel, a 1950 cartoon spoof of The Scarlet Pimpernel?

Daffy Duck pitches the swashbuckler to his studio boss because he is tired of comedy roles, then realises he never wrote an ending. Animators later voted it among the 50 greatest cartoons.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, a cart driver disguised as an old hag clears the Paris gate by saying her grandson has what?

Smallpox sends the sergeant and the whole crowd backing away from the cart, which rolls out of Paris with a condemned countess and her two children hidden inside.

In Baroness Orczy's novel, Sir Percy signs his secret notes with a scarlet pimpernel; what kind of thing is a real one?

A wildflower of English roadsides, the pimpernel is tiny and star-shaped, which is the joke: the most wanted man in France hides behind one of the humblest things in the hedgerow.

Baroness Orczy, who created the very English Scarlet Pimpernel, was born on a family estate in which country?

Hungary is where she was born, on the family estate at Tarnaörs, which her parents left for Budapest in 1868 fearing a peasant revolution. The family settled in London when she was 14.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what is Sir Percy doing when Chauvelin enters the supper room to trap the Pimpernel?

Sleeping on a sofa, mouth open and breathing noisily, Sir Percy looks so harmless that Chauvelin lies down on another one to wait for a hero who is already in the room.

Which English actor played Chauvelin opposite Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour in the 1982 film The Scarlet Pimpernel?

Ian McKellen's Chauvelin has a past relationship with Marguerite in this version, which was filmed at English stately homes including Blenheim Palace.

Which anti-apartheid leader was dubbed the Black Pimpernel, after Baroness Orczy's hero, for evading police in disguise?

Nelson Mandela earned the nickname before his arrest and long imprisonment. He shared it with Harald Edelstam, a Swedish diplomat who helped resistance fighters escape the Germans.

Where was Baroness Orczy standing when, by her own account, the character of the Scarlet Pimpernel first came to her?

A London Underground platform was where the idea struck. She sent the finished novel to 12 publishers, and it reached print only after the stage version had found an audience.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which patriotic song does Sir Percy sing loudly as he walks into Chauvelin's trap at Calais?

God Save the King, belted out in a cheerful voice, tells the hidden Marguerite that her husband has arrived, and that he does not care who else at the inn hears him.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what object on the floor of Sir Percy's study tells Marguerite who her husband really is?

A gold ring rolls across the carpet when her foot knocks it, and the tiny star-shaped device engraved on its shield is one she has seen before.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what was Marguerite St. Just's celebrated profession in Paris before she married Sir Percy?

Actress at the Comédie Française, she also hosted a salon of the brightest minds in Paris, which is why London is baffled that she chose a husband who seems so dull.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which Dover inn kept by Mr. Jellyband is the first stop for refugees smuggled out of France?

The Fisherman's Rest is where the league's young men bring the families they rescue, and where two of them are later ambushed in the coffee-room by Chauvelin's agents.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what is the name of Sir Percy's private yacht, which carries the rescued across the Channel?

The Day Dream is the schooner that waits off the French coast during the final rescue, and the last chapter finds husband and wife reconciled on board.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, how does Sir Andrew Ffoulkes try to destroy the secret note Marguerite wants to read?

Burning it in a candle nearly works, but Marguerite pretends to feel faint, plucks the scorched scrap from his fingers and claims the smell is a cure for giddiness.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which royal is Sir Percy's intimate friend and is rumoured to know the Pimpernel's identity?

The Prince of Wales treats Sir Percy as a favourite companion and escorts Marguerite at the ball. Asked whether he knows who the hero is, he refuses to confirm or deny it.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, in which town on the Thames outside London does Sir Percy keep his superb mansion?

Richmond is where Marguerite, home from the ball at dawn, at last tells her husband that her brother is in danger, and where he promises to help.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what does Chauvelin hold over Marguerite to force her to spy for him at a London ball?

A stolen letter written by her brother Armand proves he is working with the Pimpernel, so Chauvelin offers a trade: Armand's life for the hero's name.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which nobleman's family was guillotined after Marguerite denounced him?

The Marquis de St. Cyr had Armand beaten for courting his daughter, and Marguerite's angry accusation of treason then sent the whole family to their deaths.

Who played Sir Percy in the 1934 film The Scarlet Pimpernel, opposite Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey?

Leslie Howard's Sir Percy is often called the definitive one. In 1941 he directed himself in an updated version of the role, a mild professor who smuggles victims out of Nazi Germany.

Which diplomat was inspired by the film Pimpernel Smith before rescuing thousands of Jews in wartime Budapest?

Raoul Wallenberg saw the banned film at the British Embassy in Stockholm with his sister Nina, and told her as they left their seats that it was the kind of thing he would like to do.

Which composer wrote the 1997 Broadway musical The Scarlet Pimpernel, which starred Douglas Sills as Sir Percy?

Frank Wildhorn set a book and lyrics by Nan Knighton, and the show later travelled to Japan, where the all-female Takarazuka Revue staged its own version.

Which masked avenger of 1919, a nobleman posing as an idle dandy, is a literary heir of the Scarlet Pimpernel?

Zorro's Don Diego wears lace, writes poetry and shuns violence so that nobody suspects him, the same trick of playing harmless that Sir Percy had used more than a decade earlier.

The Scarlet Pimpernel was a stage play before it was a novel; in which English city did it first open?

Nottingham saw the 1903 opening fall flat, but the leading man kept faith, had the last act rewritten and took it to London, where it went on to pass 2,000 performances.

Besides the Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy created which Scotland Yard sleuth, an early female detective lead?

Lady Molly of Scotland Yard appeared in 1910. Orczy also wrote the Old Man in the Corner, an armchair sleuth who solves crimes chiefly by logic.

The success of The Scarlet Pimpernel let Baroness Orczy buy a villa in which Riviera resort, her wartime home?

Monte Carlo's Villa Bijou was her home through the war years. Her husband died there in 1942, and she could not return to London until the fighting was over.

Which novel, the first sequel to The Scarlet Pimpernel, did Baroness Orczy publish a year after the original?

I Will Repay is remembered for a slip: its climax ends at a famous lovers' grave in a Paris cemetery that was not founded until 1804, more than ten years after the events of the story.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, a nobleman has Armand St. Just thrashed for sending what to the nobleman's daughter?

A love poem, small and ardent, was the whole offence: the next night the nobleman's valets waylaid Armand outside Paris, because a commoner had dared to court an aristocrat's daughter.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which rescued convent schoolfriend of Marguerite does Sir Andrew Ffoulkes marry?

Suzanne de Tournay is smuggled out of Paris with her mother and brother in the opening chapters, and the novel closes with her brilliant wedding to Sir Andrew, her escort across the Channel.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which minister hosts the grand Foreign Office ball where Marguerite spies for Chauvelin?

Lord Grenville is the Foreign Secretary, obliged to treat Chauvelin with marked but frigid courtesy as the accredited agent of the new French government.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, where is Marguerite sitting alone when Chauvelin slips in to name his price for Armand's life?

In her opera box at Covent Garden, with the music playing, she hears the bargain: help him unmask the Pimpernel that same night, or her brother dies.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what strands both Marguerite and Chauvelin at Dover overnight as they race to reach France?

A violent storm blows in from the French coast, so no skipper will sail. Marguerite's one comfort is that her enemy cannot put out from the harbour either.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, in which squalid Calais inn kept by Brogard do Sir Percy and Chauvelin come face to face?

Le Chat Gris, the Grey Cat, is a decrepit wayside inn outside Calais whose landlord holds that a free citizen owes his guests no courtesy, however smartly they are dressed.

Baroness Orczy made the Scarlet Pimpernel's ancestor the sitter in which Dutch painter's The Laughing Cavalier?

Frans Hals becomes the hero's adoptive father in her 1914 novel, which gives the grinning sitter the name Percy Blakeney and makes him an English mercenary in the Dutch Republic.

In Baroness Orczy's sequel Eldorado, which royal captive does the Scarlet Pimpernel go to Paris to rescue?

The young Dauphin is the prize, and the mission nearly ends in disaster when Armand St. Just, distracted by a romance, betrays his leader to Chauvelin.

In the Carry On spoof Don't Lose Your Head, what alias does Sid James use in place of the Scarlet Pimpernel?

The Black Fingernail is really Sir Rodney Ffing, hunted across France by Kenneth Williams as the fiendish Citizen Camembert and Peter Butterworth as his sidekick, Citizen Bidet.

Which star played Sir Percy in The Elusive Pimpernel, the Powell and Pressburger film first planned as a musical?

David Niven led the cast with Margaret Leighton as Marguerite, and American audiences saw the film under another title, The Fighting Pimpernel.

Who played Sir Percy in the 1999 television series The Scarlet Pimpernel, opposite Elizabeth McGovern and Martin Shaw?

Richard E. Grant's version was filmed in the Czech Republic, and Marguerite did not appear at all in its second run of episodes.

Which actor-manager, great-uncle of John Gielgud, created the stage role of Sir Percy in The Scarlet Pimpernel?

Fred Terry made Sir Percy a signature part opposite his wife, Julia Neilson, as Marguerite, and the pair went on playing together in London and on tour for 27 years.

Where did Baroness Orczy meet Montagu Barstow, the husband who co-wrote the stage version of The Scarlet Pimpernel?

At art school in London she met the illustrator she would marry, and early in their marriage they worked side by side as translators and illustrators to make ends meet.

Scarlet Pimpernel author Baroness Orczy founded a women's league in World War I that pledged to persuade men to do what?

Enlist to fight was the message of her Women of England's Active Service League, and some 20,000 women joined, each promising to urge the men she knew to offer their service.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, what misfortune struck Sir Percy's mother soon after his birth and sent the family abroad?

Incurable insanity, then seen as a curse on a whole family, made his father take her overseas, which is why Sir Percy grew up abroad and came home almost a stranger to England.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which sergeant at the West Gate of Paris boasts of his nose for aristocrats in disguise?

Bibot likes to toy with fugitives as a cat does with a mouse before he arrests them, yet he lets the hero's own cart roll past him without a search.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, a gate sergeant tells how the hero once slipped out of Paris disguised as what?

A captain of the guard storms up shouting that a cart which has just left hid a duke's family, then charges out after it with a dozen soldiers, who are the real fugitives.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, which duke's son and league member is ambushed alongside Sir Andrew Ffoulkes at a Dover inn?

Lord Antony Dewhurst, a son of the Duke of Exeter, ends up gagged and tied back to back with his friend while their attackers search their pockets for the league's papers.

In the opening of The Scarlet Pimpernel, what are the old women beside the guillotine doing as heads fall?

Knitting beside the scaffold, they sit close enough to be spattered with blood, and the hero copies their look for one of his boldest disguises.

Which New York editor, who helped thousands of refugees flee Vichy France, was dubbed the American Pimpernel?

Varian Fry was a 32-year-old Harvard-educated classicist when he took on the rescue work, and a later book about him carries the nickname as its title.

The Tartan Pimpernel, who helped Allied servicemen escape occupied France, had what peacetime job in Paris?

A clergyman, the Reverend Donald Caskie led the Church of Scotland's Paris congregation before the war, then ran a seamen's mission in Marseille that sheltered stranded British servicemen.

Scarlet Pimpernel author Baroness Orczy was a founding member in 1930 of which society of crime writers?

The Detection Club had room for her because she was known for mysteries as well as swashbucklers, including an early series with a woman sleuth in the lead.