The unintentional theme of this year's movie columns has been "accidental movies": ones I watched and ended up loving, despite a slow start or homely title.
So it's fitting that today I talk about Michael Powell's and Emeric Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943).
Based on its awkward moniker, I'd long assumed that The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was one of those grimy, eat-your-spinach English anti-war comedies like The Bed Sitting Room and Oh, What a Lovely War. So what was it doing on so many "greatest movies of all time" (or at the very least, "Greatest British movies") lists?
Weirder still is that "Colonel Blimp" was a once-famous British cartoon character, a walrus-like blowhard spouting jingoistic clichΓ©s. His name quickly became a byword for Establishment ignorance and arrogance.
An unlikely inspiration for a superb film β until you recall that Coppola's The Godfather was based on a trashy "airport" novel, hastily written by an aging, unknown author who knew nothing about the Mafia, but was desperate to keep loan sharks from breaking his legs.
So to get a sense of what an awe-inspiring achievement today's movie is, imagine Wes Anderson β without a single ironic wink β turning Hagar the Horrible into an elliptical, enigmatic epic to rival Citizen Kane.
(...Colonel Blimp is often called "the British Kane," by the way. American critic Andrew Sarris confessed to the heresy that he thought it was better β and that particular judgement was based upon viewing what we now know was a truncated, washed out print...)
When writing about Pather Panchali, I confessed that I'd only held fast through its meandering start because I'd learned my lesson the first time I stuck ...Colonel Blimp into my DVD player:
This movie's opening scene gives off an unpromising, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang aroma. But once again, I implore you: DO NOT BE PUT OFF! That beginning will make perfect sense in the end.
Soon enough, we meet "Colonel Blimp" β the character's name is actually Clive Candy (played by Roger Livesay) β a fat, balding general, dozing in the officer's Turkish bath. A cocky young soldier rushes in to tell Candy that World War II has begun. He insults the old gent in the process, and gets more than he bargained for:
With that, we're transported back in time to Edwardian England, where young Candy meets the two most significant people in his life: his Prussian officer counterpart Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook), and beautiful Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr).
Edith marries Theo, breaking Candy's heart. Throughout the film, he searches for another "Edith." He finds not one, but two...
Like a Gone with the Wind for guys β it's been known to make grown men cry β ...Colonel Blimp spans decades of conflict and peace, love and loss, with welcome helpings of sly, dry British comic relief.
Strap in for a two-hour, 44-minute cinematic rollercoaster ride: We've just finished cheering Candy's paean to fighting wars "honorably and fairly," when his now shattered (now German) friend Theo tells him that such grand principles will help the Nazis destroy the very civilization Candy has sworn to preserve. The Battle of Waterloo may have been "won on the playing-fields of Eton," but Theo gravely informs Candy that those days, their days, are gone, if they ever really existed at all:
I've lost track of how many times I posted that clip on my old blog after September 11th...
Neither pro- nor anti-war, this paradoxical movie has a military setting but not one battle sequence; a bittersweet romance about a lifelong unrequited passion, there are no love scenes, either.
Indeed, as Molly Haskell notes, in ...Colonel Blimp "calamity and loss happen mostly offstage, the eponymous commander does not die, the moments of wistfulness and longing are not allowed to linger."
So un-movielike.
But so much like reality:
Time and History plow ahead, headless of our personal, and even world-historical, tragedies; I'm not the only one who felt affronted when that goddam sun kept right on stupidly shining all bloody DAY on 9/11.
But what of the events we do see onscreen? For many of the film's admirers, its greatest sequence is the duel, about which entire essays have been written. ("My idea of perfection is Roger Livesey, my favorite actor, in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp β my favorite film β about to fight Anton Walbrook, my other favorite actor," says David Mamet.)
Others treasure the scene in which Theo, a broken man whose own children have become Nazis, seeks asylum in Britain:
That speech is so memorable that, in 2010, a writer for the left-wing Guardian compared it favorably to one delivered by then-Labour Party leader Ed Miliband β while feeling obliged to add:
Of course, the speech [in ...Colonel Blimp] is brilliant propaganda. At the time, it spoke directly to the patriotic urge and even now, 67 years later, I defy anyone in Britain to watch it and not feel better about where they live. But Pressburger, who wrote it, didn't need to confect the feelings behind Walbrook's words. A Jewish Hungarian, he found a new life in Britain in 1935.
The very existence of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a secular miracle. For one thing, it was shot (at Powell's rigid insistence) in Technicolor; in war time England, that opulent stock was exceedingly difficult to obtain, and even considered indecently, well, American.
Plus, as Powell recalled later:
I have often been asked how we managed to obtain military vehicles, military uniforms, weapons and all the fixings after being refused help by the War Office and the Ministry of Information. The answer is quite simple: we stole them.
They were forced to. Prime Minister Winston Churchill's judgment uncharacteristically faltered: he misinterpreted the script as unpatriotic (as well as a personal attack) and tried (and failed) first to stop its production, and then ban its release.
Crudely edited prints circulated (barely) for almost half a century, until the movie was, at last, re-restored (long story...) to great acclaim.
Be it by accident or design, the definitive Criterion/Scorsese edition of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp next airs on TCM on... September 11. Some of us will just be returning from the Mark Steyn Alaska Cruise that day, but regardless of where (or how jetlagged) you'll be, this movie is worth making time for:
Beneath The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp's nostalgic, sumptuous fairy tale surface lies an unflinching yet endlessly entertaining examination of what it means to be an honorable, civilized man, when that very civilization is, despite all your costly (and literally scarring) sacrifices, dying before your eyes.
Kathy will be among Mark's special guests on the upcoming Alaskan cruise, setting sail in early September. If you'd like to partake in the revelry and review aboard this annual shindig, you can book a cabin for next year's Mediterranean voyage here. Join in on the year-round discussion with a membership to the Mark Steyn Club.
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27 Member Comments
Simply a lovely film. Roger Livesay and his rich, kindly and humane baritone are always a joy to watch and give you a moment of confidence in the future of the human condition. He and Wendy Hiller staged one of the most intelligent "war between the sexes" in another Powell/Pressburger masterpiece, "I Know Where I'm Going." Man could those two make motion pictures!
Kathy - thank you so much for introducing me to this movie. I was intrigued by your review, and I was lucky enough to find it on Amazon available for rent. I told my husband about it and we eagerly sat down to watch it.
Oh my. I'm tearing up now just thinking of the scene where Theo tells Clive that "You have to pay the school fee again." What powerful acting, powerful words, powerful emotions. There are several scenes that just rip your chest open and expose your heart to the elements. Wow.
My husband and I and our friends often comment that music after a certain date just reeks. The melody is grating, the words are incomprehensible (which is sometimes a blessing) and there is either no message or a message that is untrue, depressing, and debilitating. Movies and tv shows are like that, too. After a certain date, they all became nothing but pathos, with no heroes and no uplifting messages.
This movie has a intelligible plot, captivating characters, sparkling dialogue (and how), heroes and admirable men and a message that is true, uplifting and poignant. It checked ALL the boxes for us, and we are still talking about it four days after seeing it. I now have the other movies that Clive (Roger Livesey) and Theo (Anton Walbrook) starred in for Michael Powell on my watch list. There are certain actors that just own the screen and you can't make yourself look away - Orson Welles, Rufus Sewell, and now Anton Walbrook are on my current list. Thank you for introducing this movie to us - we are grateful for the experience.
Thanks Kathy for the wonderful review. It reminded me that I'd seen a version of the film many years ago and I look forward to seeing the longer and restored version on TCM.
I was struck by how, during the movie, the impression of the Candy character moves from derision to enormous respect. I thought of the movie as a sort of military version of Goodbye Mr Chips (not the musical). Livesay's voice is even a little evocative of Robert Donat's.
Yes that comparison to Goodbye Mr. Chips is quite apt. I'd say that Blimp is a bit more... epic and majestic.
......now a review of the original Four Feathers please......
Thanks Kathy - I am inspired to find and watch it.
I will confess that I watched the first several minutes some time ago, and gave up, assuming it was another smart-arsed attack on Britain's vanished values.
I think you'll appreciate it. It is more multi-dimensional than just a pro- or con satire; it is more of a rich human tapestry.
Mark. It's incredible, but I quoted most of the passage where Theo(Anton Walbrook) is admonishing Clive Candy about fair play and trying not to use the methods of the totalitarians, in a previous reply concerning the subject of the EU, ;I think. Politics may have been a bit more gentlemanly in 1945, up to a point then, but definitely not now. You only have to look at the nastiness, vilification, global and media propaganda directed at Nationalists, true democrats, philosophers like yourself, Jordan Petersen, Stefan Molyneux, Nigel Farage to name but a few. If anything, the British politician Rees-Mogg comes across as a 'Colonel Blimp' in our age. This film is just as apt in our times as it was then and perhaps far more important now.
The exchange about the nature of war between Theo and Clive (2nd clip) should be required watching for every Never Trumper out there. The trouble is the Never Trumpers would scoff because they do not understand the true threat liberalism poses to our Republic.
It's currently streaming on the new Criterion Channel.
You bet it is! I don't have Netflix or Amazon Prime but you better believe I was on the "waiting list" when THAT channel was still in the planning stages :-). The definitive version of course.
We found it, too, Kathy. We're going to view it tonight. I get a big kick from reading your reviews. I have the "Dodsworth" film marked in my smart phone calendar and felt-tipped noted on my Alley Cat Allies paper calendar for August 26th. Thank you!
Hi, Fran! I appreciate all that-- tell me what you think.
Kathy, I finished watching the film tonight. I really loved it and have so much to say about it but since there is no way to collapse five paragraphs, i'll just leave it at this. It was a work of art for me. I like films which allow me to see lots of details, sceneries that are so artistically treated I start seeing old paintings, and intricacies of relationships between characters that force me to contemplate bigger pictures and ideas. I'm so happy you chose this film to share with the club. Thank you for helping me appreciate it more completely than I might otherwise have done.
Brilliant and grown up film. Great review. And it is immensely sad. I tend to only to watch Talking Pictures channel now in the British Isles......for similar forgotten, grown up, British films.
Wow that sounds like a great channel.
It really is......tons of forgotten films, mostly from the early 50s.....great story telling and acting you are not aware of.
And I presume a lot of fun British noir, which is rarely seen over here.
Fun noir. Now there's a concept. But yes. And a lightness of touch and grown up stoicism.
And the English actors, often recognizable for later Carry On movies, aping American accents!
I'm just watching a film about general Custer....with Robert Shaw as Custer.....interesting.....
Surperb review Kathy, worthy of a very special film. Thank you.
I also really enjoyed the long and affectionate introduction by Martin Scorsese including where he refers to "Bob" de Niro's ability to fade into the background. Would that he still exercised it.
Thanks, John -- and that's a great point about de Niro. I don't think he was always so wacky, and only got that way after he sold out and started making garbage movies for money. His dumb political outbursts seem to be his attempt to maintain respect from his peers.
Great movie. I've gotten lucky and caught it a couple of times for free on YouTube,I guess in between times that it's been taken down for copyright infringement, and appreciated the interwoven themes of humanity, fair play, loss, etc. But what I loved most was Deborah Kerr. For me, she was Citizen Kane's Rosebud, and All Quiet on the Western Front's (1930) butterfly.
Well said, David. And if you liked it free on YouTube, I encourage you to watch it, at least once, in its restored version.
Because the free stuff -- like the clips I was forced to use, above -- looks pretty blah.
The magic of the Technicolour doesn't come through like it does in, for instance, the Scorsese clip I embedded. You can see a real difference.
"...turning Hagar the Horrible into an elliptical, enigmatic epic to rival Citizen Kane." - that's good.
Thanks Sol!