The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) is a film by the British film making team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger under the banner of The Archers. It stars Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr and Anton Walbrook. The title derives from the satirical Colonel Blimp comic strip by David Low but the story itself is original. The film is renowned for its beautiful Technicolor cinematography.
Plot
The film begins in 1943, the middle of the Second World War. The leader of the defenders in a Home Guard training exercise, Major General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey) is "captured" in a Turkish bath by soldiers led by a young lieutenant who has decided to strike preemptively, in contravention of antiquated conventions of war, as he believes this is how the Germans fight. Candy protests in vain that "War starts at midnight!" They scuffle and fall into a bathing pool. This segues back forty years to when Clive was a young lieutenant, an extended flashback which begins with his days as a young and impetuous officer and leads back to the present day.
Boer War
In 1902, Candy is an officer on leave from the Boer War in South Africa, where he has been awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry. Through a friend, he receives a letter from Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr), a woman he has never met who is working in Berlin as an English teacher. She complains that a German named Kaunitz is spreading anti-British propaganda about the Boer War, and she wants the British embassy to do something about it. When Candy brings this to his superiors' attention, they refuse him permission to intervene, as he is a soldier, not a diplomat – but he decides to act anyway.
Candy and Edith go to a fashionable café, where he recognises Kaunitz as a former spy and double agent his division had captured in South Africa. He confronts the man and, provoked by being spat upon in the face, inadvertently manages to insult the entire Imperial German Army officer corps, creating a diplomatic incident. As a result, he is forced to fight a duel with a German officer chosen by lot, Theodor Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook), though the German privately disapproves of duelling. In order to avoid a diplomatic crisis, the duel is ostensibly over Edith's honour.
After the duel, while they are recuperating from their wounds in the same nursing home, Candy and Theo become friends. Edith visits them both regularly and although it is implied that she has feelings for Clive,[1] she becomes engaged to Theo. Candy is delighted and leaves for home, but soon realises to his consternation that he loves her himself.
The film then moves forward to World War I, showing the passage of time through a montage of trophies from Candy's hunting trips all over the world from 1903 to 1914; the last "trophy" is a German helmet labelled "Hun – Flanders" and dated 1918.
World War I
As a Brigadier General in the First World War, Candy believes that the Allies won the war because "right is might",[2] even though it is implied in one scene that the Allies use unsportsmanlike methods to extract information whilst Candy's back is turned.
By chance, he meets a nurse, Barbara Wynne (Kerr's second role), at a convent where he is sent for dinner and is surprised by her striking resemblance to Edith. Attempting to learn her identity once he is back in England, he stages a party for Yorkshire war nurses, in the (successful) hope that he would meet her again. He courts and marries her despite their twenty year 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 prisoner of war camp in England after the Armistice. Candy greets his friend as if nothing has changed, but is snubbed. Later, on his way back to Germany to be repatriated, Theo apologises and accepts an invitation to Clive's house. He remains sceptical of the assertions of the officers and government officials he meets there that his country will be treated fairly, and he returns to Germany with little hope.
Once again, time moves forward in a montage. Candy's wife dies between the world wars of an undisclosed cause. Candy is retired in 1935.
World War II
In 1939, at an immigration office in wartime England, an older and sadder Theo relates to an official questioning him how his children had become Nazis and were estranged from him. Before the war, he had refused to move to England when his wife Edith wanted to; by the time he was ready, she had died. As with Barbara, the cause of her death is not revealed. Candy shows up in time to vouch for Theo and save him from internment.
After dinner, Candy reveals to Theo that he loved Edith and only realised it when it was too late. He admits that he never got over it, and shows Theo a portrait of his dead wife Barbara. Theo does not immediately see the similarity, since he and Edith had grown old together, and his memories are of an older Edith. Theo then meets Clive's driver, Angela "Johnny" Cannon (Kerr's third role), who reveals that Candy had personally chosen her out of 700 other women. Theo is amused by the resemblance between her, Barbara, and Edith.
Candy, who has been restored by the War Office to the active list, is engaged by the BBC to give a radio talk regarding the British Army's retreat from Dunkirk. Candy plans to say that he would rather lose the war than win it using the methods employed by the Nazis – but this sentiment ensures his talk is canceled at the last minute. Theo reads the speech beforehand, realizes that this would happen, and urges his friend to accept the need to fight and win by whatever means are necessary, since the consequences of losing are so dire.
Now apparently irrelevant, Candy is sent back into retirement, but, at Theo's and Angela's vigorous suggestions, he turns his energy to the Home Guard, Britain's secondary line of defence against invasion. Another montage, this time taken from Picture Post – dated September 19, 1942, illustrates how Candy's energy and connections are instrumental in helping to build up the Home Guard. His resolve does not waver even when his house is bombed in the Blitz (in which his batman-turned-butler is killed) and is replaced by an emergency water supply cistern. He moves to his club, where he relaxes with his staff officers in a Turkish bath before the scheduled beginning of a training exercise he has arranged.
The film has now come full circle. The brash young lieutenant who captures Candy is in fact Johnny's boyfriend. He had used her as an unwitting spy to learn about Candy's plans and location. When she discovers this, she tries to warn Candy, but is too late. Candy is held prisoner for a few hours and is humbled by the incident.
Theo and Johnny find him sitting in a park across the street from his old house. Candy recalls that when he had visited Germany against orders, he had been given a severe dressing down by his superior in the War Office. Afterwards, the man had invited him to dinner. He declined, but had often regretted doing so. He then orders Johnny to invite her boyfriend to dinner and "he'd better accept."
Clive remembers the promise he made years ago to Barbara that he would "never change" until his house is flooded and "this is a lake." Seeing the water cistern, 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.[3]
Cast
- Ursula Jeans as Frau von Kalteneck
- James McKechnie as Spud Wilson
- David Hutcheson as Hoppy
- Frith Banbury as Baby-Face Fitzroy
- Muriel Aked as Aunt Margaret
- John Laurie as Murdoch
- Neville Mapp as Stuffy Graves
- Vincent Holman as Club porter (1942)
- Spencer Trevor as Period Blimp
- Roland Culver as Colonel Betteridge
- James Knight as Club porter (1902)
- Dennis Arundell as Café orchestra leader
- David Ward as Kaunitz
- Valentine Dyall as von Schönborn
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- Carl Jaffe as von Reumann
- Albert Lieven as von Ritter
- Eric Maturin as Colonel Goodhead
- Robert Harris as Embassy Secretary
- Arthur Wontner as Embassy Counsellor
- Theodore Zichy as Colonel Borg
- Jane Millican as Nurse Erna
- Reginald Tate as van Zijl
- Captain W. Barrett as The Texan
- Corporal Thomas Palmer as The Sergeant
- Yvonne Andre as The Nun
- Marjorie Gresley as The Matron
- Felix Aylmer as The Bishop
- Helen Debroy as Mrs.Wynne
- Norman Pierce as Mr. Wynne
- Harry Welchman as Major Davies
- Edward Cooper as B.B.C. Official
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Cast notes:
Production
According to the directors, the idea for the film did not come from the newspaper 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." Powell has stated that the idea was actually suggested by David Lean (then an editor) who when removing the scene from the film, mentioned that the premise of the conversation was worthy of a movie on its own right.[5]
Powell wanted Wendy Hiller to play Kerr's parts but she pulled out due to pregnancy. The character of Frau von Kalteneck, a friend of Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, was played by Roger Livesey's wife Ursula Jeans; although they often appeared on stage together this was their only appearance together in a film.
Further problems were caused by Prime Minister Winston Churchill who, prompted by objections from James Grigg, his secretary of state for war, sent a memo suggesting the production be stopped. Grigg warned that the public's belief in the "Blimp conception of the Army officer" would be given "a new lease of life."[6] After Ministry of Information and War Office officials had viewed a rough cut, objections were withdrawn in May 1943. Churchill's disapproval remained, however, and at his insistence an export ban, much exploited in advertising by the British distributors, remained in place until August of that year.[6]
The film was shot in four months at Denham Film Studios and on location in and around London, and at Denton Hall in West Yorkshire. Filming was made difficult by the wartime shortages and by Churchill's objections leading to a ban on them having access to any military personnel or equipment. But they still managed to "find" quite a few Army vehicles and plenty of uniforms.
Releases
The film was released in the UK in 1943. Due to the British government's disapproval 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. It was reduced to a 150 minute version, then later to 90 minutes for television. In his Criterion Collection commentary on the film, Martin Scorsese claims to have seen the 90 minute version. One of the crucial changes made to the shortened versions was the removal of the flashback structure of the film.[7]
In 1983, the original cut was restored for a re-release, much to Emeric Pressburger's delight. Pressburger, as affirmed by his grandson Kevin Macdonald on a Carlton Region 2 DVD featurette, considered Blimp the best of his and Powell's works.
Criticism
The film was heavily attacked on release, due mainly to its sympathetic presentation of a German officer, albeit an anti-Nazi one, who is more down-to-earth and realistic than the central British character. It should be noted that sympathetic German characters had previously appeared in the films of Powell and Pressburger, for example The Spy in Black and 49th Parallel, which were also made during wartime.
Although the film is strongly pro-British, it is a bit of a satire on the British Army, especially the leadership of it. It suggests that Britain needs to 'fight dirty' in the face of such an evil enemy as Nazi Germany.[8] There is also a certain similarity between Candy and Churchill and some historians have suggested that Churchill may have wanted the production stopped because he had mistaken the film for a parody of himself (he had himself served in the Boer War).[9][10] Churchill's exact reasons remain unclear and one should bear in mind that he was acting only on a description of the planned film from his staff, not on a viewing of the film.
Other critics comment:
- "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 by "right-wing sociologists E. W. and M. M. Robson," members of 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[11] and is today regarded as a masterpiece of British cinema. The film is praised for its dazzling Technicolor cinematography (which, with later films such as The Red Shoes and 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'.[12]
Miscellany
- Michael Powell once said of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp that it is
"...a 100% British film but it's photographed by a Frenchman, it's written by a Hungarian, the musical score is by a German Jew, the director was English, the man who did the costumes was a Czech; in other words, it was the kind of film that I've always worked on with a mixed crew of every nationality, no frontiers of any kind."[13]
At other times he's also pointed out that the designer was German, and the leads were Austrian, Scottish and Welsh.
- David Mamet has written: "My idea of perfection is Roger Livesey (my favorite actor) in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (my favorite film) about to fight Anton Walbrook (my other favorite actor)."[14]
- A close copy of the portrait of his wife Barbara shown by Candy to Kretschmar-Schuldorff when they meet at the start of the Second World War was used as a prop in the film The League of Gentlemen in which Roger Livesey appears as a former army officer turned con-man who makes his living by posing as clergymen of various faiths.
References
Notes
- ^ This is suggested by Michael Powell in the DVD commentary track.
- ^ Moor, Andrew (2005). Powell and Pressburger: A Cinema of Magic Spaces (Cinema and Society). London: I. B. Tauris. p. 76. ISBN 1850439478.
- ^ 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), parodying the well-known saying, Sic Transit Gloria Mundi — "Thus passes the glory of the world", i.e. fame is fleeting.
- ^ Erik at the Internet Movie Database, Spangle at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Michael Powell, commentary on the Criterion Collection Laserdisc (also available on the Criterion DVD)
- ^ a b Aldgate, Anthony; Richards, Jeffrey (1999). Best of British. Cinema and Society (2 ed.). London: I. B. Taurus. ISBN 9781860642883.
- ^ As may be seen in the shortened version available at some national libraries like the BFI
- ^ As is shown in the film in Theo's speech to Clive after Clive's broadcast is cancelled
- ^ Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (1994). Ian Christie. ed. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Faber & Faber. ISBN 0-571-14355-5.
- ^ A. L. Kennedy (1997). The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. BFI. ISBN 0-85170-568-5.
- ^ Chapman, James (March 1995). "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp: reconsidered.". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. pp. p. 19-36. http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/43_Blimp/Blimp02.html.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (October 27, 2002). "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)". rogerebert.suntimes.com. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20021027/REVIEWS08/210270301/1023.
- ^ Ian Christie, "Powell and Pressburger", 1985; in David Lazar, Michael Powell: Interviews, 2003. ISBN 1578064988
- ^ David Mamet, Bambi vs. Godzilla, 2007, p. 148
Bibliography
- Includes the contents of Public Record Office file on the film
- Christie, Ian. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (script) by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger. London: Faber & Faber, 1994. 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
External links
DVD Reviews
- Region 2 UK – Carlton DVD
- Region 2 Franc – Warner Home Vidéo / L'Institut Lumière
- Review by John White at DVD Times (UK)
- Region 1 USA – Criterion Collection
- DVD Comparisons
