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The opening view of the Mediterranean on the cusp of the 19th-century picks up where Curtiz left off, aristocrats applaud entertainers aboard the galleon until the troupe leader faces the audience with pistol in hand: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most exciting part—no tricks, all real!" Sirocco the Pirate (Louis Hayward), masked with sword at the service of the Revolution, undercover as a powdered wit in the Neapolitan court. "I'm never sure what part you're playing." The countess (Mariella Lotti) meets her future husband in his dashing guise and can't quite conceal an intrigued smile, the giggling ninny awaiting her back on land is no match. Elsewhere, the Queen (Binnie Barnes) trembles over the uprising spilling over from France while the minister of police (Massimo Serato) simmers with machinations of his own. "Have you read Voltaire?" Edgar G. Ulmer in Italy, with accesses of Cinecittà luxury for a chiaroscuro recomposition of The Scarlet Pimpernel. (Anchise Brizzi cinematography and Nino Rota score, plus a memory of Roma città aperta in the torture chamber.) Rogue and fop in a masquerade aided by the sidekick (Mikhail Rasumny), "how do you explain that, my philosophical friend?" Torches and watery reflections in the grotto indicate the antecedent of Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn, near-continuous camera movement points up the proximity of Ophüls' The Exile. The villain is "rotten with power," his satirical likeness adorns the hero's staging of a Beauty and the Beast ballet before the storming of the palace, "a little divertissement I consider my masterpiece." The finale contrasts strikingly with Mann's in the concurrent Reign of Terror. With Alan Curtis, Virginia Belmont, Franca Marzi, and William Tubbs. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |