Line #21 Film/PimpernelSmith


1	[[quoteright:206:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pimpernel_smith.jpg]]
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3	->'''General von Graum:''' Why do I talk to you? You are a dead man.\
4	'''Smith:''' May a dead man say a few words to you for your enlightenment? You will never rule the world, because you are doomed. All of you who have demoralized and corrupted a nation are doomed. Tonight you will take the first step along a dark road from which there is no turning back. You will have to go on and on, from one madness to another, leaving behind you a wilderness of misery and hatred. And still you will have to go on, because you will find no horizon, and see no dawn, until at last you are lost and destroyed. You are doomed, captain of murderers. And one day, sooner or later, you will remember my words...
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6	In 1939 the Nazis continue their program of internment and extermination of those who don't conform to their ideals. The days are dark, but rescue is at hand, in the unlikely form of a rather eccentric archaeology professor, Horatio Smith, and his band of loyal students.
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8	''Pimpernel Smith'' is a British 1941 anti-Nazi thriller, produced and directed by its star Creator/LeslieHoward, which updates his role in the 1934 film ''Film/{{The Scarlet Pimpernel\|1934}}'' from Revolutionary France to pre-World War II Europe. The British Film Yearbook for 1945 described his work as "one of the most valuable facets of British propaganda". The film is also notable for helping to inspire 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 between July 9 1944 and January 17 1945.
9	----
10	!!This film provides examples of:
11	* AbsentMindedProfessor: Prof. Horatio Smith.
12	* AdventureArchaeologist: Prof. Horatio Smith.
13	* BavarianFireDrill: Prof. Smith uses this to waltz right through the numerous security checkpoints and administrative offices of the Nazi propaganda headquarters.
14	* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Shakespeare was German. Only kidding; he was actually the Earl of Oxford.
15	* {{Blackmail}}: 'The nice kind of blackmail.'
16	* ChasteHero
17	* CulturedBadass: Prof. Smith is a dreamy intellectual who doesn't mind getting down to business.
18	* CutHimselfShaving: Averted. Prof. Smith doesn't bother trying to explain the arm injury that reveals him to his students, saying only, "I wouldn't pay too much attention to newspaper reports, gentlemen."
19	* DeadpanSnarker: Professor Smith, at times.
20	--> '''Prof. Smith:''' Gentleman, this is the German-Swiss frontier. The barbed wire is to prevent the oppressed Swiss from escaping into free Germany.
21	* DistinguishedGentlemansPipe: The Prof smokes one.
22	* DressingAsTheEnemy
23	* {{Eagleland}}: Maxwell, an obvious embodiment of American stereotypes.
24	* FamousNamedForeigner: Wagner and Marx.
25	* GuileHero: Smith lives by his wits.
26	* InTheOriginalKlingon: General Von Graum informs Smith that Shakespeare was actually German.[[note]]This was, of course, a parody of the idea, dating back at least to WWI, that Shakespeare was racially "Aryan," even if he himself had been born and lived in England, and that the Germans had naturally a deeper critical understanding of his work.[[/note]] Smith responds, "But you must at least admit that the English translation is marvellous!"
27	* LaResistance
28	* LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn: In one scene, the increasingly obnoxious orchestral interpretation of "There is a Tavern in the Town" turns out to be coming from a group of German musical experts off-screen trying to research the song's relationship with the spate of recent escapes.
29	* {{Leitmotif}}: Smith likes to whistle a tune called 'There is a Tavern in the Town'.
30	* ManInAKilt: Jock [=MacIntyre=]
31	* MasterOfDisguise
32	* NerdGlasses: Clarence, who gets no respect and suffers a bit of good natured ribbing from his friends about his stutter.
33	* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: All the actors playing German and Nazi soldiers sound as if they have just walked off the cast for ''Literature/OliverTwist''.
34	* RedHerring: Those boxes that the students were guarding on the train? Turns out there was nothing of interest to [[ThoseWackyNazis Those Wacky Nazis]] there. Not even an ancient Aryan civilization.
35	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: When General Von Graum sneers that he might as well not waste his words on a "doomed man", Professor Smith coolly retorts with a few words for his enlightenment, which offer a searing indictment of Nazi Germany.
36	* StealthHiBye: Prof. Smith has a talent for this. It's frequently mentioned and/or demonstrated, and it's also how Smith escapes across the border at the end of the film.
37	* StealthInsult: The Prof. loves these.
38	* ThoseWackyNazis
39	* TheWonka: Prof. Horatio Smith
40	* VillainousGlutton: Von Graum has a penchant for chocolates.

Context Film / PimpernelSmith