TSPDT placing: #147
Directed by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Written by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Starring: Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook, Roland Culver, James McKechnie, Albert Lieven, Arthur Wontner
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) was produced at the height of World War Two, and that such an illustrious Technicolor production was completed amid both nightly London bombings and the opposition of Prime Minister Winston Churchill is a testament to the consummate professionalism of The Archers, producer/writer/director team Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Certainly one of the more magnificent British productions of the 1940s, the film starred Roger Livesey as Clive Wynne-Candy, an illustrious veteran who with the onset of WWII, to his dismay, finds himself ignored by those who should be respecting his military experience rather than dismissing it. Livesey (a replacement for Laurence Olivier) plays Wynne-Candy in three stages of his life, authentically and sympathetically tracing his fluctuating disillusionment with "honourable warfare" through years of hard-earned living. The portrayal sidles a delicate line between geniality and parody, and as a lifetime-spanning dramatic performance, it's easily on par with Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) and Orson Welles in Citizen Kane (1941).The film's title was borrowed from a comic strip by David Low, in which the titular Colonel Blimp was presented as dim-witted British reactionary, a bloated old man with a walrus moustache who issued absurd political commands from the comfort of a Turkish Bath – "Gad, sir," he once says, "we must have a bigger Army to protect the Navy, and a bigger Navy to protect the Army." As a political candidate, Low's Colonel Blimp proposes "shooting down politicians and establishing a Dictatorship of colonels to safeguard democracy." Contradictory and anachronistic, a symbol of both jingoism and complacency, the character epitomised Low's dissatisfaction with contemporary British politics. Powell and Pressburger's version of Colonel Blimp is substantially more sympathetic, tracing in flashback the leading character's transformation from a young, impetuous Boer War soldier to a pot-bellied veteran with an outmoded belief system. As the times changed, our Colonel Blimp didn't. But a new World War demands a new set of rules, and if Britain is to survive she must embrace the dishonourable tactics of her enemy.
I originally decided to watch The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp as a tribute to the recently-deceased cinematographer Jack Cardiff, but I apparently got the film confused with a later Powell and Pressburger production, A Matter of Life and Death (1946). Cardiff did, indeed, serve as a camera operator in 'Colonel Blimp,' but the praise for the film's breathtaking Technicolor photography must go to Georges Perinal, who captures and savours every vibrant hue, transforming each frame into a vivid cinematic canvas. If for no other reason, then the decision to shoot in Technicolor was worthwhile for capturing the stunning green eyes and red hair of Deborah Kerr in her first major role. As Clive Candy's "romantic ideal," to which all other women in his life must aspire, Kerr demonstrates such beauty, elegance and independence that you just about want to marry her – not once, but three times. Antony Walbrook also does an excellent job as the impressively-named Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, Candy's German duelling opponent and later best friend.
Powell and Pressburger, to their credit, didn't deal in stereotypes. Even in propaganda pieces like 49th Parallel (1941), the enemy Germans were portrayed as ordinary humans, with their own hopes and ambitions. Likewise in 'Colonel Blimp,' the character of Kretschmar-Schuldorff is inherently good, despite his occasional disenchantment towards the "winning" side. Note, for example, how readily Candy and his adversary reconcile their differences in the Berlin nursing-home, not with violence – as was forced upon them by their respective nations – but through mutual understanding; its with some irony that the filmmakers satirise how easily individuals, but not countries, can reach a satisfactory compromise. The manner in which Powell and Pressburger goodnaturedly (and even nostalgically) poke fun at the stuffy ceremonial formality of traditional warfare reminded me of the exploits of fictional French patriot Brigadier Ettiene Gerard. Pressburger must certainly have been aware of the stories, since he worked in a reference to Arthur Conan Doyle {and while we're on the topic, watch out for Arthur Wontner and Ian Fleming, who had previously played Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, respectively}.
9/10
Currently my #1 film of 1943:
1) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
2) Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder)
3) Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (Roy William Neill)
5) This Land is Mine (Jean Renoir)
6) Journey into Fear (Norman Foster)
7) The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
8) Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (Roy William Neill)
9) Hitler’s Children (Edward Dmytryk, Irving Reis)
2) Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder)
3) Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (Roy William Neill)
5) This Land is Mine (Jean Renoir)
6) Journey into Fear (Norman Foster)
7) The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
8) Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (Roy William Neill)
9) Hitler’s Children (Edward Dmytryk, Irving Reis)
When American Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) marries Serbian immigrant Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), he convinces himself that his wife's fear of intimacy is simply a remnant of her superstitious childhood. But Irena is adamant that she not consummate the marriage, for she fears that, due to a Satanic family curse, her sexual passion will force her into the form of a bloodthirsty panther. Irene constantly surrounds herself with feline imagery, is instinctively drawn to a captive zoo panther, and her fears swiftly become a psychological obsession that threaten to take her over. Oliver confides his concerns in attractive co-worker Alice Moore (Jane Randolph), who is biased by her love for him, and psychiatrist Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway, who oddly appeared in the same role in The Seventh Victim), who dismisses Irena's worries as mere insanity. The three supporting players give good performances, but Simone Simon is weak; she does display a certain exotic allure and a shy vulnerability, but her dialogue delivery is entirely unconvincing.
Val Lewton originally instructed Tourneur to completely avoid showing the elusive panther, but RKO demanded more money-shots. Even so, Irena's feline form is on screen only for a few shots, and never in plain view. The filmmakers evidently understood that seeing nothing was infinitely more frightening than seeing a trained animal, and so the unknown – a shadow that lurks cunningly in the shadows – is exploited for maximum thrills. Lewton's initial insistence on not showing the panther, maintaining ambiguity on Irena's mental state, suggests that he had in mind something more than a simple "monster picture." Is this panther that plagues a shy, married woman's mind representative of something within ourselves – of suppressed jealousy, aggression and lust? Sex and violence have often blended together in mythology. Mafdet, the Ancient Egyptian goddess of justice and execution, possessed the head of a lioness; she was later replaced by Bast, whose image then changed to represent fertility and motherhood. In the same way, Irena's marital lust is intrinsically linked with her aggression, and abstinence alone will only temporarily quell her desires.
The surviving outlaws of the Old West – William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien – cling to the tattered vestiges of their former ways, embracing an outdated code of "honour" that feels woefully inadequate in the modern world: they are "unchanged men in a changing land. Out of step, out of place, and desperately out of time." But unlike 'Ride the High Country,' which featured genre stalwarts Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as washed-up Western heroes, none of the "Wild Bunch" ever were heroes. Having always lived on the dark side of the law, as wanted outlaws, how can these men possibly recover any sense of nobility? They do, indeed, march wordlessly across General Mapache's headquarters to reclaim their captive member, but only after passively watching him endure hours of torture. Is it guilt that prompts Pike Bishop to come to the aid of his companion? With the old Western heroes long dead, must it fall to its villains to display some sort of decency? Is that what our society has come to?
The stylisation of Sergio Leone (particularly 
The Bad and the Beautiful employs a similar storytelling device to All About Eve (1950), telling its story almost entirely via noirish flashbacks. Three successful artists – a director, actress and writer – arrive at the home of Jonathan Shields, the disgraced Hollywood producer to whom each of the three owes their monumental success. So why do they loathe him? Shields gave director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan) his big break in cinema, worked with him to great acclaim, and then shut him out of his dream project, a Gone with the Wind-like epic called "The Faraway Mountain." Georgia Larisson (Lana Turner) was likewise plucked from obscurity, rescued from a lifetime of self-loathing sex and alcoholism, before being abandoned in her moment of triumph. Novelist James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell, in another great dramatic role) already had some acclaim, but also the hindrance of distracting Southern belle wife Rosemary (Gloria Grahame). Though he couldn't possibly have foreseen the consequences of his actions, Shields took care of that, as well.
Each of the three owes their livelihood to Jonathan Shields, and I think that this is the true root of their hatred: they're eternally in debt to him, and like Faust, feel as though they have traded their souls for a room at the top. Kirk Douglas portrays Shields wonderfully, and in the film's most searing moment, he explodes into a fit of rage, his short, stocky stature seeming to inflate as his antagonism grows. But Shields isn't really as inherently "bad" as the film's title would have you believe. He is presented as a flawed genius, whose personal shortcomings stem from the same artistic vein as that which fuels his cinematic intuition (a Graham Greene quote clarifies my meaning: he once described himself as having "a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary domestic life," and that "unfortunately, the disease is also one's material"). Indeed, Shields was modelled on several filmmakers, most noticeably Val Lewton (whose Cat People (1942) gets an indirect reference), Orson Welles, and David O. Selznick, whose box-office flop 
I must admit that I found myself less-than-captivated during the film's opening half, perhaps because Rossellini wouldn't focus exclusively on any one character. The most interesting moments were those tinged with drama – a German soldier unexpectedly removes a gun from his pocket, a terrorist bomb shakes the city buildings. But if I had any doubts about the director's technique, then the harrowing realism of Anna Magnani's death, photographed as though through the lens of a bystanding newsreel camera, without any dramatic fanfare or unnecessary cinematic punctuation, convinced me of its merits. Notably, Rossellini deviates towards drama in his film's second half, but I considered this an improvement, my complete sympathy now directed towards a specific character, the dignified Roman priest Don Pietro (Aldo Fabrizi). The German treatment of captured rebels is unflinching in its hostility, including a prolonged torture session with a blow-torch, and a sombre firing squad execution as city children watch on with downcast eyes. Interestingly, Rossellini doesn't end the film with an Italian victory, as might be expected. The misery lingers; any victory could only be hollow.
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