Raymond Massey

I love Raymond Massey (1896 - 1983), especially as Citizen Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel. A more dastardly foe of Sir Percy Blakeney there could not be. But, of course, he was always thwarted by the cunning of the Pimpernel.

[Raymond Massey as Citizen Chauvelin
in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1934]

Massey said of his experience filming the movie, "I never had such fun working in a movie as I did on The Scarlet Pimpernel. Of all the heavies I have played on the screen, the most wicked and the most fun to do was Chauvelin. There was a spirit in that company, a feeling of confidence, a sort of élan which I have often found in the theater but never sensed in any other movie."

During the filming of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Massey was not only starring in the play The Shining Hour on London's West End, but he was directing it as well. This meant long days for the director-actor but the film's producer, Alexander Korda, made it easier for him by making a car and driver available to Massey. This allowed him to get in a snooze during the one-hour trip to and from Elstree Studios in Borehamwood. Massey didn't have to worry about meals due to the fact that the play called for him to eat two full hot meals during his performance each night. (The play was known jokingly as "The Dining Hour.")

[Leslie Howard and Raymond Massey
in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935]

The original director of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Rowland Brown, was fired on the first day of shooting. In Raymond Massey's autobiography, A Hundred Different Lives, he recounts how producer Korda watched Brown direct a scene and then told him what he was doing wrong. Brown told Korda that the film was going to be his way or he would walk. Korda replied, "Please walk," which Brown did. Korda had hired a new director, Harold Young, by the end of the day. Massey stated, "The next day Young ostensibly took over, but the direction throughout the months of shooting remained an unofficial but smooth collaboration," which I take to mean that Young figured out that one doesn't argue with the Hungarian.

Raymond Massey also said of Korda, "Alex was Hungarian, imaginative, intelligent, extravagant. Although lacking business sense, he had an uncanny ability to find money, and he also had an uncommon feeling for quality."

Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935

Leslie Howard, Raymond Massey and Anthony Bushell in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935

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