Inkling Explorations Link-Up: Disguises

I've seen the Inkling Explorations link-ups before, and they always look like great fun. I haven't participated yet because nothing ever springs immediately to mind, or I forget, or it's a month when I'm too busy writing or editing to blog... but this month when I saw the prompt I knew exactly what to post about!

This month's selection is: A scene involving a disguise in book or film

And what better movie AND film story involving disguises than The Scarlet Pimpernel?A little bit of explanation leading up to each of these scenes. Sir Percival Blakeney is an English aristocrat living during the French Revolution. He has gathered a group of daring friends to help smuggle French aristocrats out of France to escape being sentenced to death and having their heads forcefully removed from their bodies by Madame La Guillotine. A master of disguise (see where I'm going here?!?!?) Percy is the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel who frustrates the French soldiers no end. They never know where he will strike next, all they know is his secret name and that he tends to smuggle their intended victims out from under their noses and into thin air!Here we have Sir Percy disguised as a creepy old lady, seeking passage out of Paris with a wagon load of rescued prisoners in the back of his cart. They make it through the gates because a member of Percy's crew is pretending to have Scarlet Fever or the Plague or something... and the soldiers don't want any part of that. Also, they believe the Scarlet Pimpernel is an aristocrat... so they tend to be looking in all the wrong places! Another of Sir Percy's disguises as he spirits away the Dauphin (the Prince of France) What Sir Percy ACTUALLY looks like. Not a disguise, per se, though the foppish aristocrat is every bit as much of mask and disguise as the ones depicted above. This is the moment when Marguerite (Percy's wife, whom he does not trust and who has no idea who he really is) "meets" the Scarlet Pimpernel and refuses to look at his face so she cannot betray him even by accident. One of the most powerful moments in the film (I reviewed it a while back if you're interested in learning more about this movie).I know it's not Fantasy, per se... but we'll return to the theme of the month tomorrow in a lengthy discussion about one of the most controversial subjects in the genre: Magic.