The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) is quite a remarkable film, and all the more so when one considers that it was made at the height of World War II. It is rightly one of the most celebrated of the films from the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

Historical Background: When Michael Powell (1905-1990) went to work for Alexander Korda at London Films, in the late thirties, he was paired up with another newcomer, Hungarian refugee and writer Emeric Pressburger (1902-1988), marking the beginning of a fruitful partnership that would ultimately become legendary. They worked together on Spy in Black (1939) and One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1941), but it was not until they left London films in 1942 to form their own production company, The Archers, that they emerged as one of the greatest tandems in British film history. Powell had a marvelous visual imagination that nicely complemented Pressburger's literary creativity. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) was the first product from The Archers and established both a style and a standard that would persist as the pair continued with a string of masterpieces that included I Know Where I'm Going (1945), Black Narcissus (1946), Stairway to Heaven (1946), The Red Shoes (1948), and Tales of Hoffman (1951). All of these fine films featured elaborate sets and costumes, highlighted by vivid Technicolor photography.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp became one of the most beloved films made in the U.K. during World War II, but it was not well received by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. For two years, Churchill prohibited the film from being exported. Finally, he had no choice but to relent because the film had become such a smash hit in Britain that it was no longer feasible to suppress it. What precisely Churchill objected to is anybody's guess. It might have been the film's sympathetic treatment of the German officer, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff. It might have been the skewering of the old-fashioned idea that war could be fought on a civilized basis. Or, it might have been concern that the Americans would recognize that war against the Nazis would inevitably be a brutal affair. In any case, the version finally released in America was very badly decimated, with seventy minutes worth of cuts reducing the film's length from 163 minutes to 93. Now, thanks to the efforts of Martin Scorsese and The Criterion Collection, Americans and others can see the film restored to its full length and in brilliant Technicolor instead of pale, washed-out hues.

The Story: The film opens on a day in 1942, with the British homeguard having scheduled a mock defense of London for midnight. An enterprising young officer, Lt. Spud Wilson (James McKechnie), takes it upon himself to simulate the dirty tactics of the enemy by refusing to play by the rules. He leads his battalion into the "enemy" compound six hours early, easily capturing the commanding officer, General Clive Candy (Roger Livesey), and his entire staff, while the plump, elderly Candy is lying about in a Turkish bath. Candy, a decorated military man who fought wars in a more civilized era, is irate at the impudence of Wilson and wrestles him into the pool. His pride stung, Candy's career flashes before his eyes – and before viewers in an expended flashback, covering three periods in the General's life.

In 1902, freshly decorated with a Victoria Cross for heroic deeds in the Boer Wars in South Africa, Candy uses his leave, in defiance of the British War Office, to take a freelance trip to Berlin, with the aim of confronting a German scoundrel named Kaunitz (David Ward), who is stirring up anti-British sentiment with lies about supposed British atrocities in South Africa. Candy meets the lovely Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr) and gets into an altercation with Kaunitz in a beer hall. Candy insults the German officer corps, leading to a saber duel between Candy and a German officer, chosen by lot – the somewhat reluctant Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff. Later, both combatants end up in the same hospital, recuperating from their respective scars. Along with Edith and Frau von Kalteneck (Ursula Jeans), they make a foursome for bridge, to wile away the days of convalescence. Edith and Theo fall in love and Candy gallantly steps aside, not realizing until later the depth of his own feelings for Edith.

While pining and awaiting the next war, Candy occupies himself with hunting big game in remote spots throughout the world, gradually filling up the wall space of his aunt's den with mounted trophies. When World War I begins, both Clive and Theo find themselves fighting in brutal and chaotic conditions. Candy can barely make his way around the war zone. As the armistice approaches, Candy dines at a mission and spies a nurse, Barbara Wynne (Deborah Kerr), who is a dead-ringer for Edith. Back in London after the war, Candy arranges to meet and marry Wynne and the pair settles into the London townhouse Candy inherited from his aunt. Meanwhile, Kretschmar-Schuldorff is an embittered POW in England and snubs his old friend when he tries to pay him a visit.

When war next looms, in 1939, Candy, now a widower, is ready to serve his country again. Kretschmar-Schuldorff, on the other hand, has fled Germany, disgusted with the Nazis and now a widower himself. Candy helps his old friend gain political asylum in Britain, which isn't easy since Theo's two sons are both resolute Nazis. Candy's old-fashioned ideas about civilized warfare run him afoul of the war office. His radio speech is canceled at the last minute. Small wonder! He had intended to say that he would be ashamed to fight in the manner of the Nazis and that he would rather accept defeat than victory if it could only be won by those methods! Theo points out that there will be no other methods in the world if the Nazis are victorious. Candy is mustered out of the service, but is still able to put to use his experience and skills by training the homeguard and acquiring equipment for them. The story now comes full circle, returning to the London defense maneuver with which the film opened.

Themes: It's not easy to make a film about war in wartime unless it is a straight patriotic, propaganda piece. Anything with the slightest ambiguity tends to offend a nation needing to pull together for a war effort. It is to the great credit of Powell and Pressburger that they were able to create a film with genuine artistic integrity and thematic richness that was nevertheless embraced by the British public, even if not by Prime Minister Churchill. The film's central theme is how people should fight wars. Candy was from the old school. He could point to the fact that the British had won the Boer War as well as World War I, fighting, as we put it, in a clean, honest way. For Candy, that meant no bombing of civilians, killing of women, children, or old people, and treating POW's with respect. Even Edith, as early as 1902, had to wonder about Candy's chivalrous ideas. "With a little common sense and bad manners, there would have been no war at all," she had argued, in relation to the Boer War. In reality, it's doubtful that war has ever been waged in a civilized manner. Each country tends to define as "uncivilized" whichever tactics are more available to the other side. From the British viewpoint, the Germans had been "uncivilized" when they introduced poison gas into the warfare in World War I, but by 1939 it was obvious to every alert observer that World War II was bound to be the least civilized war yet. Furthermore, if the war was lost, England and most of the rest of the free world could anticipate a mighty uncivilized future for a very long time. If there had ever been a time or place for Candy's quaint notions of warfare, they were gone. Similar issues persist today, such as when countries with the most powerful conventional military forces decry the use of terrorism by less wealthy opponents.

Nothing about The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp could be seen as pacifist or likely to undermine British resolve. Quite the contrary, it presented an argument for the necessity of going all out, even if it meant fighting "dirty." Hitler certainly would. Churchill's foremost concern, however, was public opinion not in Britain but in America. Churchill was realistic enough to understand that winning the war depended on drawing America into it. Britain could hold on, for a while, but victory would require help from across the Atlantic. A film that argued that the present war would have to be fought brutally was not something Churchill wanted projected to a skittish American public.

Churchill himself had some understanding of another central idea articulated in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp: that there's a natural progression by which rebellious youth ultimately age into reactionary, obsolete old men and women. Churchill had famously stated, "Any man under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart, and any man over 30 who is not a conservative has no brains." I don't personally subscribe to that assertion, but it illustrates Churchill's understanding of the fact that each of us becomes increasingly old-fashioned with the passage of time. The cycle of life ensures that human society is continually reinvigorated with fresh, if sometimes naïve, ideas and initiatives. Powell underscores this concept by telling his story in a cyclical manner.

Powell presents a fairly modern view of women in this film, through Deborah Kerr's three characters. Edith Hunter was independent enough to make her own way in Germany, rather than settling for menial employment in her native country. Though she married Theo and bore him two sons, she was still braving a society and culture that was increasingly antagonistic to people of her native origin. Barbara Wynne was perhaps the most "traditional" of the three women portrayed by Kerr, but even she had chosen, as she said, "to join the military" and follow her husband all around the world. She had died in Jamaica. Angela "Johnny" Cannon, the youngest of the three women, is fittingly the most liberated, having joined the military and adopting a masculine nickname. These women aren't yet on fully equal terms with the men in their lives, but they're much more than mere ciphers.

I've often wondered why nations are so much less adept than average, ordinary individuals at settling their disputes. Powell and Pressburger apparently wondered about that as well. One theme of the film is the stark contrast between the friendship between Clive, a British officer, and Theo, a German officer, juxtaposed against the seeming impossibility of friendship between their respective nations. I suspect that is it something about the anonymity of "national interests" and "foreign policy" that allows citizens to tolerate a level of immorality in the behavior of their governments that they would never tolerate in their friends.

Production Values: As the film's title suggests, the story was inspired by a satirical comic strip drawn by cartoonist David Low that routinely skewered the British military officer corps, as well as the aristocracy from which they mostly derived. Colonel Blimp of the comic strip was a rotund oaf, with a walrus-shaped mustache, clinging desperately to quaint notions of chivalry and ethics of warfare. In the hands of Pressberger and Powell, however, only the antiquated notions about warfare found their way into the character of their protagonist, Clive "Sugar" Wynne-Candy. Otherwise, the man presents an admirable mix of courage, loyalty, devotion, and military acumen. Though Wynne-Candy ages into a man who is old-fashioned in his ideas, we nevertheless see him as essentially like ourselves, and far from the stuffy, elitist character of the cartoon strip.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp has the breadth of a film epic, even if it lacks thrilling adventure or monumental battle scenes. The venues run a gamut from a Turkish bath, to a Berlin beer hall, and on to World War I vintage scenes of muddy warfare. It is the character of the protagonist that is stretched out across this tapestry, more than the ebb and flow of history. Also evident in this film are the first inklings of the magic and surrealism that would enliven future films from The Archers. Pressburger crafted a tight and witty script, though a bit of trimming in some scenes could have benefited the film.

The film has a circular structure, highly appropriate to its thematic content. The story begins at its end, in 1942, then circles back to three earlier times in the life of the protagonist: 1902, 1919, and 1939. The editing technique evident for this film is highly sophisticated, especially during the transitions (the beginning of the flashback and jumps forward between the three film segments). The beginning of the flashback from 1942 is creatively indicated by a slow crane shot traversing the length of the Turkish pool. After the elderly Candy dives in while tussling with an impudent young officer, the young Candy emerges moments later from the other end of the pool. Later, the passage of time between the 1902 and 1919 segments is signaled by a clever montage in which the trophy heads of various animals shot by Candy get added one by one to the den wall at Aunt Hamilton's townhouse.

You won't find many films from the forties or earlier that are as visually beautiful as this one, especially with the bright colors and sharp resolution provided by Criterion. How The Archers could have managed the budget required for the lavish sets (by Alfred Junge) and expensive Technicolor processing in the middle of a war is a marvel. There's a great bit of scripting and camerawork accompanying the famous duel sequence in Berlin. For several minutes, we follow the meticulous protocol by which a duel is organized, including selection of opponents, seconds, a neutral captain, a time and place, and weapons. The Germans even present the British with a manual outlining their rules. All this for two combatants who haven't even met! Tension mounts as the sabers nearly touch and the captain asks if the two men are ready. Then, after a few thrusts and parries, the camera tracks upward and out of the building into a starlit, snowy dawn over Berlin. Powell announces, through this device, that it was the formalities and protocols that interested him, not the outcome.

Another astonishing aspect of this film is the makeup by which Roger Livesey is transformed in three stages from a trim, young man in 1902 to a corpulent, round-faced and pot-bellied man of seventy in 1939. Some use was made of a stunt double for distance shots in the 1939-1942 scenes, but the close-ups make you wonder how Livesey's face could become so much puffier. The costumes are also outstanding. Check out the various hats worn by Deborah Kerr, for example!

The soundtrack is another major strength of this film. Each of the three major time periods represented in the film is infused with music appropriate to that time, whether it's the German band in the beer hall or the swing music of the late thirties. Powell manages to toss in some musical and script references to his favorite film of the time, The Wizard of Oz (1939), by giving Candy the nickname "The Wizard" and having him hum "We're Off to See the Wizard."

Wendy Hiller was Powell's first choice for the three roles that ultimately went to Deborah Kerr. As much as I adore Hiller, I don't imagine that she could have performed these particular roles better than Kerr. Hiller was lined up to do the film, but got herself pregnant and was replaced. This film provided Kerr's first major role – or, more precisely, first three major roles. Amazingly, her three performances here are barely recognizable as the same actress. Kerr had a small previous part in Major Barbara (1941) and went on to a successful career in such films as Black Narcissus (1946), The Adventurers (1946), King Solomon's Mines (1950), Quo Vadis (1951), Julius Caesar (1953), From Here to Eternity (1953), The King and I (1956), Tea and Sympathy (1956), Separate Tables (1958), The Innocents (1961), and Casino Royale (1967).

Robert Livesey gives a great, impassioned performance. He manages the aging process in a completely believable way. He was also not Powell's first choice. Powell had wanted Laurence Olivier, but Livesey's rewarded Powell with a career performance. Livesey had already appeared in Rembrandt (1936) and Drums (1938) and subsequently worked in I Know Where I'm Going (1945), Stairway to Heaven (1946), and The Entertainer (1960).

Austrian actor Anton Walbrook's role is critical to the film as well. I take nothing away from his fine performance if I say that it was not as great as his next one for Powell, in The Red Shoes (1948). Walbrook's other work included Victoria the Great (1937), Gaslight (1940), 49th Parallel (1941), La Ronde (1950), and Lola Montès (1955). There are several outstanding supporting performances as well. I particularly enjoyed James McKechnie as Lt. Spud Wilson, Roland Culver as Col. T.H. Betteridge, and David Ward as Kaunitz.

Bottom-Line: The Criterion DVD for this film has some pretty good extras. There's a commentary track with Martin Scorsese and Michael Powell. It's a bit sporadic, with fairly long segments in which the track returns to the film's dialog. Powell was quite elderly when the track was made and is not always comprehensible. Nevertheless, there's a wealth of insights provided by both participants. The DVD also includes a documentary about the film entitled "A Profile of the Life and Death of Colonel Blimp." There's also a segment pertaining to the original comic strip by David Low.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is an uberbuff film, combining a strong script, excellent performances, beautiful sets and costumes, vivid Technicolor, excellent camerawork, skillful editing, great use of music, and superlative direction. It's a wee bit long at 163 minutes, but only noticeably slow in a few spots. It's a film about war, yet with no battle scenes. Even more, it's a film about the natural life cycle we humans endure. You'll find this film has both thematic depth and entertainment value.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older