Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I wrote about a British story coming out of the Olympics. Sim took us to book shops in Bloomsbury — perfect spots for book bloggers to hang out! Tina reviewed Eye in the Sky (and I’ve already got the DVD in the house from Netflix). Jean finished the recap of her trip to England with a visit to Winchester Cathedral and Jane Austen’s home in Chawton. She also reviewed a book about English — the language, that is. Becky reviewed Unhooked, a novel with some elements of Peter Pan but a dark and dangerous twist.

Taking Becky’s advice, we watched The Scarlet Pimpernel this week. She thought we’d enjoy it after watching the Errol Flynn movie, Captain Blood. Both are mid-1930s films with historic settings. And, she was right!

The Scarlet Pimpernel gives us pretty French countryside and grand English interiors

Leslie Howard had the title role in The Scarlet Pimpernel and he had fun with it. His character had to pretend to be an English dandy so that no one suspected that he was really the mastermind behind a series of bold rescues of aristocrats destined for the guillotine during the Reign of Terror in France.

I vaguely knew that The Scarlet Pimpernel was a book, but I was surprised to discover that it was a series begun in 1905 — and written by a woman, British-Hungarian author Emma Orczy. It was a play before it was a book, so this story travels well.

The scratchy sound was a distraction at first, but we got used to it and enjoyed the characters and the intrigue-filled plot. Since The Scarlet Pimpernel was set in Britain and France, I can use this post for double-duty — British Isles Friday today and Dreaming of France on Monday.

Have you seen this movie?