Leslie Howard was a Hollywood and Broadway star in the 1930s and represented
the best of Englishness for Americans, and on his return to Britain
came to represent England's ideals for the English. Howard's English
qualities come together in 'Pimpernel'
Smith (1941), which he also produced and directed. A Cambridge professor
who uses archaeology as a cover for rescuing intellectuals and artists
from Nazi Germany, Smith (Howard) evades his captors at the end by vanishing,
quite literally, in a cloud of smoke. There is much in the film which
suggests that Howard's identification with the struggle against fascism
was idealistic rather than political, and when asked by an American
student how he got into the racket Smith responds, 'When a man holds
the view that progress and civilisation depend in every age upon the
hands and brains of a few exceptional spirits it's rather hard to stand
by and see them destroyed.' The film also throws light on Howard's platonic
attractiveness: Smith's only love is for 'the one sublime woman', a
Greek marble of Aphrodite.
That he had a great deal of respect for real women, however, is demonstrated
by his last film as a director, The
Gentle Sex (1943), co-directed with Maurice
Elvey), it centres on women's contribution to the war effort. Howard's
best known part may be as Ashley in Gone With the Wind (1939), but he
was best loved as the ideal Englishman: patriotism with a light touch,
often whimsical, sometimes comic, never too serious to be jingoistic.
He died in 1943 after his plane was shot down by the Luftwaffe.
