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 the defenders, 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 general in the First World War, Candy again meets his friend Theo, 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 reconcile. 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.

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 a satire on the British army and has a sympathetic German character. It implicitly suggests Britain should 'fight dirty'. There is also a certain similarity between Blimp and Churchill and some historians have suggested that Churchill may have misunderstood the film as a parody on himself. The exact reasons remain a mystery.

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. The original cut was 163 minutes. It was subsequently reduced to a 150 minute version then later even further shortened to 90 minutes for television. Martin Scorsese, who has long praised the works of Powell and Pressburger, claimed to have seen the 90 minute version on television in the Criterion Collection commentary. One of the crucial changes made to the shortened versions was the removal of the flashback structure of the film.

In the 80's, the original cut was restored for a re-release, much to Emeric Pressburger's delight.

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.

The film provoked an extremist (and unintentionally funny) pamphlet The Shame and Disgrace of Colonel Blimp from the obscure Sidneyan Society:

"^* highly elaborate, flashy, flabby and costly film, the most disgraceful production that has ever emanated from a British film studio."

In recent years, particularly after the highly successful re-release of the film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp has been re-evaluated critically and is today regarded as a masterpiece of British cinema. The film is praised for its effective dazzling technicolor cinematography (which with later films like The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus would become The Archers' greatest legacy), the performances by the lead actors as well as for transforming, in Roger Ebert's words, 'a blustering, pigheaded caricature into one of the most loved of all movie characters'. ^*

Trivia

At the end of the film, when the camera zooms in on the tapestry, the Latin phrase "Sic Transit Gloria Candy" is shown. This translates to "Thus passes away the glory of Candy." It is a parody of the well known "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi." (Fame is fleeting.)
During the duel, the camera leaves the building and zooms in on the frosted window of the carriage, where Babyface Fitzroy is writing something backwards. Apparently, he is writing his initials: T. d'A. F.
The portrait of Barbara Wynnn shown by Candy to Kretschmar-Schuldorff when they meet at the outbreak of the Second World War was later used as a prop in the film League of Gentlemen in which Roger Livesey also appeared, as a drunken defrocked clegyman.
The character of Frau von Kalteneck, a friend of Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, was played by Roger Livesey's real-life wife Ursula Jeans. Although they often appeared on stage together, this was their only appearance together in a film.

References

James Chapman (1995). The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp reconsidered. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 03/95 15(1):19 – 36.
Ian Christie (1978). The Colonel Blimp File, Sight and Sound, 48. Includes the contents of Public Record Office file on the film
Ian Christie (1994). Introduction to The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (script) by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, Faber & Faber, ISBN 0571143555. Includes the contents of Public Record Office file on the film, memos to & from Churchill and the script showing the difference between the original and final versions.
A. L. Kennedy (1997). The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. London: BFI

External links

Blimp at screenonline.org.uk
Synopsis and review at the British Film Institute.
The Criterion Collection page includes a critical essay by Ronald Haver.
Exhaustive Blimp material at the Powell & Pressburger Appreciation Society, including Chapman's article and the Sidneyan pamphlet.
Trailer at Virgin.net