Pimpernel Smith is a 1941propaganda film, directed by and starring Leslie Howard, which updates the Scarlet Pimpernel story from Revolutionary France to World War II Europe. Under the guise of an absent-minded university professor, Horatio Smith (Howard) helps refugees escape from the Gestapo. After being wounded during a fake archaeological 'dig' for Aryan artefacts near the Swiss border, the professor's students recognize his true identity and enthusiastically join him in his fight. But things are complicated when one of his students brings a mysterious woman into their circle; a woman who is secretly working for the Gestapo. The climatic final scenes involve a game of cat-and-mouse between Smith and his Gestapo adversary, who has been instructed to track down the professor.
