The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

I watched this on a 42 inch Panasonic plasma hdtv, and the first realisation is how good this movie looks despite the fact it's made in 1943. The images are crisp and sharply focused, the colors vibrant and real, the cinematography simply amazing.

The opening sequence shows a group of uniformed bikers zipping along in formation, wearing green khaki uniforms and green helmets, accompanied by ironic music. They are on a mission, and split off in different directions.

The cinematography is simply amazing, and the images fill the entire screen. Don't they know the war is not supposed to start till midnight? It's amazing how good this movie looks compared to costly high tech modern movies, often in letterbox or widescreen.

This continues throughout the movie, as you realise how exceptionally well it is shot down to the smallest detail.

The first thing to know about this movie, is that no one called Colonel Blimp is in the movie. Colonel Blimp was a popular cartoon character satirised regularly in the Evening Standard, and Officer Candy the protagonist is Blimp.

It shows his life over 40 years from 1902 just after the Boer War, of how this impetuous young officer, a gentleman with a sense of decency and fair play yet naive, who did not evolve with the times, so the movie explores his potentially lethal naivete.

We see a parallel story of Candy and a German officer Schulborg with whom he duels in Berlin, and they become friends. Deborah Kerr, 18 at the time plays 3 different roles, as the governess with whom Blimp falls in love and loses, the woman he later meets and marries, and subsequently the young woman who becomes his driver.

You'll discover many outstanding scenes in this movie, especially when Schulborg played by Anton Walbrook, makes his plea for asylum in Britain, and what he says after, it's one of the outstanding acting perfomances I have seen. The other, a montage sequence showing gunshots and wild animals appearing stuffed and mounted in Blimp's den. Quite fascinating to watch his sexual frustration being channeled by shooting wild animals.

There are several bonuses with this, one is a commentary with both Martin Scorsese, and Michael Powell. You get to see some of the very clever cartoons, and you will also discover that Winston Churchill did his best to ban this movie. You may not know that Churchill was also involved in the Boer War, so some saw parallels between him and Blimp. He thought this movie might lower the morale in the army.

Fortunately, Churchill's attempts to suppress this movie failed, as did his attempts to prevent it from being seen overseas. This led to J Arthur Rank standing behind Directors Powell and Pressburger, and taking out ads and promoting it through his Odeon movie chain. 'See the banned movie.' Churchill may have lost this battle, but he won the war.

Although perhaps he is lampooned, Roger Livesey's performance as Blimp, wins us over, and we respond to his general decency if not to his naivete about war being fought honourably according to principles.

Michael Powell, and Emeric Pressburger made Blimp, and both these names are worth remembering, because they made amazing movies together, and these films are better than most Hollywood movies. I am currently working my way through the collection.

I was introduced to them by Martin Scorsese, and Roger Ebert. Recently I saw Peeping Tom (Widescreen) - Criterion Collection actually banned in 1960, and nearly ended Michael Powell's career, and I highly recommend checking out The Red Shoes (Criterion) arguably their best work, and Thief of Bagdad, a movie way ahead of its time that inspired Lucas, Scorsese and Spielberg.

As the Criterion movies are quite expensive, I watch them through an online video rental service first, before deciding which ones to buy and shopping around.

I highly recommend this movie as being well worth not only a look, but also a purchase. I hope you found this review helpful.

A young military officer, "Spud" Wilson (James McKechnie), in the ecstasy of a mock war confronts an old officer Clive Candy (Roger Liveseys) who appears to be set in his way and unaware of today's (1943) attitude toward war. The young officer ridicules the older officer's ways and looks without giving a thought as to why or how the older officer became that way.

The explanation is through a flashback that Candy explains the apparent differences and that one day you may also find your self ridiculed. In the process we see how some decisions stay with us for life.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are well known for movies that have a mythical deep meaning like "I Know Where I'm Going!" (1945.) In one film "One of Our Aircraft is Missing" (1942) the deleted scene of a confrontation between a younger and older officered was deleted. This scene was the seed for this movie "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" (1943.)

At first the film does not seem to have quite the stature of the earlier Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger films but as the personalities evolve and the story unfolds you see that they still maintain the magic.

Two performances I find of special interest are those of Anton Walbrook as Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (the Uhlan officer) as he goes through attitude changes in life, and that of Deborah Kerr who plays the three women (Edith Hunter/Barbara Wynne/Johnny Cannon) in the life of Clive Candy.

Last note be sure to get the restored Criterion presentation of this Janus film.

I found "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" to be a haunting story, rich in story and superbly acted. I found the film to be a very private experience - one that you will be thinking about for a long time.

I really can't add anything to the comments made before other than to say that this is the type of film that makes Criterion a special mark. I would question many of their choices, films are available in other formats and of questionable importance (e.g. "Armageddon", "The Royal Tennanbaums" and "The Rock"). "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" probably would have been lost forever (or show up as a $...DVD on a "Bargains" rack) without the work put in by Criterion and the "legitimacy" conferred on it by being recognized by the brand.

myke