The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
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| The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | |
|---|---|
 Colonel Blimp DVD Cover |
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| Directed by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Produced by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Written by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Starring | Roger Livesey Deborah Kerr Anton Walbrook |
| Music by | Allan Gray |
| Cinematography | Georges Perinal |
| Editing by | John Seabourne Sr. |
| Distributed by | General Film Distributors |
| Release date(s) | June 10, 1943 UK |
| Running time | 163 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £200,000 (estimated) |
| IMDb profile | |
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) is a film by the British writer-director-producer team of Powell & Pressburger under the banner of The Archers, starring Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr and Anton Walbrook.
The film's name is taken from the satirical Colonel Blimp comic strip by David Low.
- "An unforgettable story of forty gallant years!" - Poster tagline
Contents |
[edit] The Story
The film begins with a British Home Guard exercise during the Second World War. The leader of the defenders, Major General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey), is 'captured' by soldiers who have decided to strike early (despite Candy's protestations that "War starts at midnight!"), as they believe this is how the Germans would fight. Candy then scuffles with the young lieutenant in charge of the soldiers and both fall into the bathing pool. The film then flashbacks to Clive's days as a young officer in the British Army.
[edit] Boer War
Candy is a young officer in the Loamshire Regiment, on leave from the Boer War in South Africa. One day, he receives a telegram from Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr), who is working in Germany as an English teacher. She complains that people are spreading anti-British propaganda and she wants an official from the embassy to investigate. When Candy brings this to his superiors' attention, they refuse him permission to intervene, as he is a soldier, not a diplomat. He decides to involve himself anyway.
In Germany, he meets Edith. At a cafe, he recognizes one of the people responsible for the propaganda as a former spy his division had caught in South Africa. He creates a major diplomatic incident when he confronts him. Under provocation, he inadvertently manages to insult the entire German army. As a result, he is forced to fight a duel with a German officer, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook). In order to avoid a full-scale crisis, the duel is ostensibly about Edith's honour and afterwards, it is agreed that the matter will be closed.
After the duel, while they are both recuperating from their wounds, they become fast friends. Edith visits them both regularly in the hospital and, although it's implied that she has feelings for Clive (as suggested by Powell in the commentary track), she agrees to marry Theo. Candy is delighted and leaves for home. He soon realizes, to his consternation, that he loves Edith himself.
The film then flash forwards to the next war, showing time passing through a fast montage of collected trophies from Candy's hunting trips in Africa.
[edit] World War I
As a Brigadier General in the First World War, Candy is older and more like the blimp-like figure seen in the beginning. He believes that the Allies won the war because, in his words, 'right is might', even though it is clearly implied in one scene that the Allies use unsportsmanlike methods to extract information; however, Candy's back is turned.
He meets a nurse, Barbara Wynne (Kerr again), at a convent where he is eating dinner and is surprised by her resemblance to Edith. He learns that the nurses are from Yorkshire and stages a party for Yorkshire war nurses upon returning home, in the (successful) hope that he would meet her again. He courts and marries her, despite their age difference. Upon entering their house, Barbara makes Clive promise that he will 'never change'. Candy swears not to until his house is flooded and 'this is a lake'.
Concerned for the welfare of his friend, Candy tracks Theo down at a POW camp. Candy greets his friend as if no time had passed, much to Theo's distaste, as evidenced by his snubbing of Candy. Theo later apologizes and accepts an invitation for dinner with other army officers, but he returns to Germany with little hope, unconvinced by Candy's assertions that his country will be treated fairly.
In another montage to the final flash-forward, it is disclosed that Candy's wife dies in the interim between the two World Wars of unrevealed causes.
[edit] World War II
Set in wartime England, Theo is in an immigration office. Now older and sadder, he relates to the official how his children had been caught up in the Nazi ideology and estranged from him. He had refused to travel to England at his wife's urging before the war's onset; by the time he was prepared to leave, she had died (like Barbara, of unrevealed causes). Candy shows up in time to vouch for Theo and save him from internment.
In a poignant scene, as Candy and Theo share memories, Candy reveals to his friend that he loved Edith and only realized it when it was too late. He admits that he never got over it and even shows Theo a portrait of his dead wife (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Edith). Theo does not immediately notice the resemblance, since he and Edith had grown old together. This scene further illustrates that, while Theo has moved on with the times, Candy is still unabashedly nostalgic and relies on his past memories. Theo then meets Clive's driver, Angela 'Johnny' Cannon (Kerr yet again), who reveals that Candy had chosen her out of 700 women soldiers. She mentions that her boyfriend is in the army as well.
Candy, who was restored to the "active list", is sent back into retirement after his address for the BBC (regarding the British Army after the retreat from Dunkirk) is cancelled. Candy had planned to say that he would rather lose the war than use the methods employed by the Nazis. Theo realized that this would happen and urges his friend to accept modern warfare. Candy is determined to make a difference and forms a Home Guard for Britain's defence. His resolve strengthens after his house is bombed in the Blitz. He moves to his club and is in the Turkish bath shown in the opening scene after having arranged a war exercise to train his troops.
The film has returned full circle back to the beginning. It is revealed that the young lieutenant who captures Candy is in fact Johnny's boyfriend. He used her to learn about Candy's plans and location. She tries desperately to warn Candy, but fails. Candy, who is held prisoner for a few hours, is humbled by the incident and at last understands the necessity for modern methods to defeat the Nazis. Candy, Theo and 'Johnny' wait for the soldiers to march past Candy's old house. Candy then recalls that when he had visited Germany against orders, he had been given a full dressing down by his commanding officer. Afterwards, he had declined an invitation to dinner. He then asks 'Johnny' to invite her boyfriend to dinner and 'he better come'. Theo then muses whether or not the young lieutenant would become a 'grand old man' like Candy.
The bombed out house, like many houses during the blitz, has been converted to a water tank. Remembering his promise to Barbara, he realizes that 'here is the lake and I still haven't changed.' The film ends with Candy saluting the new guard as it passes by him and at last accepting that his time has passed. The death of the old ideas is the death referred to in the title. The final shot is a close-up of the motto on the tapestry used as the background in the opening scene which states - Sic Transit Gloria Candy (Thus passes the glory of Candy).
[edit] The Production
According to the directors, the idea for the film did not come from the comic strip by David Low, but from a scene cut from their previous film, One of Our Aircraft is Missing, in which an elderly member of the crew tells a younger one, "You don't know what it's like to be old." On the Criterion Collection Laserdisc for which Michael Powell had initially recorded a commentary alongside Martin Scorsese (which has been revived on the Criterion DVD), Powell states that the idea was actually suggested by David Lean (then editor) who when placing the scene on the cutting-room floor mentioned that the premise of the conversation was worthy of a movie on its own right.
The film was shot in four months at Denham Studios, and on location in and around London. Filming was made difficult by the wartime shortages. Powell wanted Wendy Hiller to play Kerr's parts, but she pulled out due to pregnancy.
Further problems were caused by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who tried to stop the production. Churchill's exact reasons, and why he did not succeed, have been debated by film historians. Although it is strongly pro-British, the film is a satire on the British army and has a sympathetic German character. It implicitly suggests Britain should 'fight dirty'. There is also a certain similarity between Candy and Churchill and some historians have suggested that Churchill may have mistaken the film for a parody of him. The exact reasons remain a mystery.
Because of the British government's view of the film, it was not released in the United States until 1945, and then in a modified form, as The Adventures of Colonel Blimp, or simply Colonel Blimp. The original cut was 163 minutes long. It was subsequently reduced to a 150 minute version, then later even further, to 90 minutes for television. Martin Scorsese, who has long praised the works of Powell and Pressburger, claimed to have seen the 90 minute version on television in the Criterion Collection commentary. One of the crucial changes made to the shortened versions was the removal of the flashback structure of the film.
In the 80's, the original cut was restored for a re-release, much to Emeric Pressburger's delight. Pressburger, as affirmed by his grandson Kevin Macdonald on the Carlton Region 2 DVD featurette, considered this the best of their works.
[edit] Criticism
- "What is it really about?" – C. A. Lejeune, The Observer, 1943.
- "Colonel Blimp is as unmistakably a British product as Yorkshire pudding and, like the latter, it has a delectable savor all its own." – New York Times, March 30, 1945.
- "It addresses something I've always been profoundly interested in – what it means to be English... it is about bigger things than the war. It takes a longer view of history, which was an extraordinarily brave thing for someone to do in 1943, at a time when history seemed to have disintegrated into its most helpless, impossible and unforgivable state." – Stephen Fry, interviewed by the Daily Telegraph, 2003.
The film provoked an extremist (and unintentionally funny) pamphlet The Shame and Disgrace of Colonel Blimp from the obscure Sidneyan Society:
- "[A] highly elaborate, flashy, flabby and costly film, the most disgraceful production that has ever emanated from a British film studio."
In recent years, particularly after the highly successful re-release of the film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp has been re-evaluated critically and is today regarded as a masterpiece of British cinema. The film is praised for its effective dazzling technicolor cinematography (which with later films like The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus would become The Archers' greatest legacy), the performances by the lead actors as well as for transforming, in Roger Ebert's words, 'a blustering, pigheaded caricature into one of the most loved of all movie characters'. [1]
[edit] Trivia
- At the end of the film, the Latin phrase "Sic Transit Gloria Candy" is shown. It is a parody of the well known saying, "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi." ("Thus passes the Glory of the World", i.e., Fame is fleeting.)
- The portrait of Barbara Wynnn shown by Candy to Kretschmar-Schuldorff when they meet at the outbreak of the Second World War was later used as a prop in the film League of Gentlemen in which Roger Livesey also appeared, as a drunken defrocked clegyman.
- The character of Frau von Kalteneck, a friend of Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, was played by Roger Livesey's real-life wife Ursula Jeans. Although they often appeared on stage together, this was their only appearance together in a film.
[edit] Literature
- Ian Christie (1978). The Colonel Blimp File, Sight and Sound, 48. Includes the contents of Public Record Office file on the film
- Ian Christie (1994). Introduction to The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (script) by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, Faber & Faber, ISBN 0-571-14355-5. Includes the contents of Public Record Office file on the film, memos to & from Churchill and the script showing the difference between the original and final versions.
- James Chapman (1995). The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp reconsidered. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 03/95 15(1):19 – 36.
- A. L. Kennedy (1997). The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. London: BFI
[edit] External links
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp at the Internet Movie Database
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp at the BFI's Screenonline. Full synopsis and film stills (and clips viewable from UK libraries).
- Synopsis and review at the British Film Institute.
- Criterion Collection essay by Ronald Haver
- Exhaustive Blimp material at the Powell & Pressburger Appreciation Society, including Chapman's article and the Sidneyan pamphlet.
- Trailer at Virgin.net
[edit] DVD Reviews
[edit] Region 2 France
 |
Powell and Pressburger The films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger |
|---|---|
| 1930s | The Spy in Black | The Lion Has Wings |
| 1940s | Contraband | An Airman's Letter to His Mother | Forty-Ninth Parallel | One of Our Aircraft is Missing | The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | The Volunteer | A Canterbury Tale | I Know Where I'm Going! | A Matter of Life and Death | Black Narcissus | The Red Shoes | The Small Back Room |
| 1950s | The Elusive Pimpernel | Gone to Earth | The Tales of Hoffmann | Oh... Rosalinda!! | The Battle of the River Plate | Ill Met by Moonlight |
| 1960s | Peeping Tom (not Pressburger) | They're a Weird Mob | Age of Consent |
| 1970s | The Boy Who Turned Yellow |
