Movies - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

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	Movies - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) is a film by the British writer-director-producer team of Powell & Pressburger under the banner of The Archers, starring Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr and Anton Walbrook.

The film's name is taken from the satirical Colonel Blimp comic strip by David Low.

:"An unforgettable story of forty gallant years!" - Poster tagline

The story

The film begins with a British Home Guard exercise during the Second World War. The leader of one of the sides, Major General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey), is 'captured' by soldiers who have decided to strike early (despite Candy's protestations that "War starts at midnight."), as they believe this is how the Germans would fight. Candy's life is then shown in flashback.

As a young officer on leave from the Boer War in South Africa, he meets Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr), who is working in Germany as an English teacher. He is provoked when she is treated rudely and inadvertently manages to insult the entire German army. As a result, he is forced to fight a duel with one of their officers, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook). They are both wounded, and with honour satisfied, they become fast friends while recuperating. Edith visits them both regularly in the hospital and eventually marries Theo. Afterwards, Candy realizes to his consternation that he loves her.

As a Brigadier in the First World War, Candy again meets his friend, now an embittered POW, but is snubbed by him. He also meets his future wife (Kerr again), a nurse newly arrived in France from England.

Finally, we meet Candy as a retired Major General at the start of the Second World War. He intercedes when he learns that Theo has been denied permission to remain in England. The two become friends again. Kerr makes her third appearance, as his driver Angela 'Johnny' Cannon. Now widowed, he gets a new lease of life and renewed enthusiasm when he is put in charge of the Home Guard. This brings the story full circle back to the beginning of the movie.

There was a strong message for wartime audiences: the British code of 'fair play' was meaningless when fighting the Nazis.

Image:The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Deborah Kerr as Edith Hunter.jpg|Deborah Kerr as Candy's lost love, Edith Hunter Image:The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Deborah Kerr as Barbara Wynne.jpg|Kerr as Candy's wife, Barbara Wynne Image:The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Deborah Kerr as Angela 'Johnny' Cannon.jpg|Kerr as Candy's chauffeur, Angela 'Johnny' Cannon Image:The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Tapestry.jpg|The tapestry featured at the beginning and end of the film

The Production

According to the directors, the idea for the film did not come from the 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."

The film was shot in four months at Denham Studios, and on location in and around London. Filming was made difficult by the wartime shortages. Powell wanted Wendy Hiller to play Kerr's parts, but she pulled out due to pregnancy.

Further problems were caused by the Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who tried to stop the film's production. Churchill's exact reasons, and why he did not succeed, have been debated by film historians. Although it is strongly pro-British, the film is satire on the British army, with a sympathetic German character. It implicitly suggests Britain should 'fight dirty'. There is also a certain similarity between Blimp and Churchill.

Because of the British government's view of the film, it was not released in the United States until 1945, and then in a modified form. It was released as The Adventures of Colonel Blimp, or simply Colonel Blimp.

Criticism

:"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.

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