Based on Niven's Elusive?

After watching 'The Elusive Pimpernel' (1950), with David Niven and Margaret Leighton, I have to wonder if this series wasn't in fact 'inspired' by the failed-musical, Technicolor remake, instead of the 1934 'classic'? Niven's Sir Percy, perhaps because the film was going to be a musical, is lively and comic, much like Grant's take on the character - there's even a scene where Percy and the Prince of Wales recite together the 'We seek him here' verse, with much leaping about and grandstanding for the crowd, that could easily have been switched for the same moment in the Grant series. Armand is reduced to a minor character in both, and Marguerite only has one facial expression. But it's the interpretation of both productions that so links them together, in my mind - bawdy 'challenges' to Orczy's romance (some sort of orgy in a barn, a turkish bath scene), settings and effects over dialogue and story (intercut fireworks for Chauvelin's pepper-induced sneezing fit, Marguerite's rooms as some sort of grey marble, Grecian temple), costumes more vivid than the acting (why was Marguerite wearing a curtain as a travelling dress?), pointless little changes and additions (League members, the St Cyrs becoming the St Didiers). All very 'brave new world', from the 1950s and the 1990s.

Has anybody else seen the Niven Pimpernel film?

Sarah

"Tony, if you talk that rubbish, I shall be forced to punch your head" - Lord Tony's Wife, Orczy