grantss
It is World War 2 and Major General Clive Wynn-Candy is a senior officer in the Home Guard. He seems the stereotypical English General - old-fashioned, play by the rules, and drastically out of touch. Through flashbacks we see his Army career, from its early days onwards, and it wasn't always so. Wonderful, interesting, moving movie. The life of a military officer, his loves, regrets, how the times change around him, and how he adapts to them, or not. The movie starts rather frenetically, which was off-putting, but once it settles down it is a wonderful movie. Roger Livesey is great in the lead role, but it is the amazingly beautiful Deborah Kerr (in three roles) who steals the show.
MissSimonetta
Though The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus get more attention, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is the true masterpiece of the Powell and Pressburger collaboration.The film covers roughly forty years, chartering the transition from the values of the late Victorian period to World War II. It is a melancholy picture which both celebrates and criticizes its main character, a military man of an older world, where war adhered to fair play and honor, or at least, that's what he believes. Anton Walbrook and Deborah Kerr are marvelous in supporting roles.A fantastic movie. I'll have to get the Criterion blu-ray soon!
evanston_dad
A very odd and fascinating film tracing the military career of a hotshot Englishman.That the film is both odd and fascinating should come as no surprise to anyone, since it was created by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. While watching the film, I felt its length and checked my watch a couple of times. But days after I'd seen it, I found myself thinking back on it, and I realized how much I liked it. It's the kind of movie I want to see again, because I have a feeling it would grow richer with multiple viewings.Roger Livesey gives a spectacular performance as the main character, authentically maturing and aging before our eyes from young go-getter to old man being left behind by changing times. Deborah Kerr is also radiant and lovely (was she ever not?) in fulfilling one of the film's most charming conceits -- she plays different women who come in and out of the life of our hero but who all remind him of his first and true love.The movie makes some pretty shocking points about war given that it came out while WWII was raging. So many war-themed films of the time were propaganda pieces designed to make the Allied Forces feel heroic and noble for stepping up against evil forces. But this movie suggests there is no such thing as a gentleman's war, that war is ugly and that one side has to be willing to fight uglier and dirtier than the other to ensure victory.A mesmerizing film.Grade: A
Semp
An extraordinary film, full of wonders and invention. Roger Livesey's performance as Candy features one of the most amazing transformations of the history of cinema, from young Candy to old Candy. It is as if two different actors were playing the role.Emeric Pressburger's script is one of the most ambitious and literary ever used in a film. It is heartbreaking and at the same time very clever and self-reflecting. It talks about a passed age, and it shares some common themes with Proust's Remembrances of Things past. It could be a novel standing on its own.Colonel Blimp is a masterpiece for the ages, which will never grow old.The summit of the Archers' career.
AD
