The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
1943

Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

(1943)

163 minutes

After the success of …one of our aircraft is missing Rank wanted Powell and Pressburger to make a film called One of Our Submarines is Missing. Powell said this was a typical distributor mentality. If the film is a hit make another just like or as close as possible. Instead they made this film.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp has a number of points associated with it that makes it significant in the history of the Powell.Pressburger collaboration.

First of all, it is their first film in Technicolor, something for which many of their films will become famous. Technicolor was a complex three strip process in which people using it had to be trained by Technicolor technicians. It required all kinds of approval from Technicolor and special training which was award to cinematographer Jack Cardiff, who is often considered the greatest cinematographer of all time. This is the start of his involvement with the Powell and Pressburger and he will be the principle photographer on their color films. (See the documentary film Cameraman). The Technicolor process produces extremely bright colors particularly suited to many of the Powell Pressburger “fantastic” films (Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Stairway to Heaven, Black Narcissus and Red Shoes)

Secondly it was Pressburger’s favorite film. Thirdly it is involved with a major political hassle in Britain which will involve Powell, Pressburger, the military and Winston Churchill and a number of motion picture players.

As an aside it also involves Powell’s affair with yet another star in his film – Deborah Kerr.

Powell said:
"Deborah Kerr is enormously sensitive and responds to a director particularly. I think she could have gone on to become a very great actress, but she went on as a contract artist with MGM for just too long."

For those of you who would like to see her in other films look at The Innocents and From Here to Eternity as 2 classic examples

The idea for the story springs for a line deleted from ...one of our aircraft is missing in which the elderly Sir George Corbett (Godfrey Teale) says to one of the younger men “I was just like you 30 years ago, and you’ll be just like me 30 years from now, You are what I was 20 years ago and in 20 years you will be what I am now”. David Lean suggested they cut the line and use it as a basis for another film. This they did and the result is The Life and Death of Col. Blimp

Originally, Powell wanted Lawrence Olivier and Wendy Hiller for the film. Olivier was in the military and could be released to make a “propaganda” film which was something he was desperate to do. (The Powell Pressburger duo had got Ralph Richardson released for The Volunteer and Olivier was very happy to get loose as well. He loved the script and unfortunately, the military did not, so they refused to release him for the film.

Roger Livesey, a stage actor who had done some films was working in a airplane factory and so they didn’t need to get him released. Powell liked him as an actor, but points out the part would have been very different if Olivier had played it. Powell said Olivier’s lips would have dripped venom, while Livesey’s dripped saccharine. This changes the character of Colonel Blimp a good deal and indicates how important casting is and that films are not the result of a single “auteur”.

Wendy Hiller was a well known stage actress who appears in Leslie Howard’s production of GB Shaw’s Pygmalion as Eliza Doolittle. It is she, to whom Powell writes explaining the basic “credo” of The Archers. She was unable to take the role because she became pregnant (again). She will however appear in I Know Where I’m Going for Powell and Pressburger alongside of Roger Livesey and Pamela Brown and others of the Powell- Pressburger team

So what was all the fuss about that the military objected to and caused Churchill to try to block the film’s production? (Ronald Neame, the cinematographer on ...one of our aircraft is missing and will become a director of such films as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Poseidon Adventure) will run onto similar problems when he gets refusal for help from the military when he attempts to direct a film called Tunes of Glory

Colonel Blimp was a well known cartoon character created by a left wing New Zealander named Low who has been described as He was a older heavy set army Colonel who often appeared in a steam room wrapped in a towel. Low’s purpose was to ridicule the older members of the military establishment as being woefully out of date (in effect doing what the left would now call age-ism)

. The Film is epic in scope covering about 40 years

Keep in mind since the start of the war that Pressburger was classified as an enemy alien despite the huge amount of anti German/Nazi propaganda he wrote. Do you think this had an impact on this script?

AFTER

Eliptical nature of the film (flashback structure)

Again, something of an episodic structure:

Chance to deal with favorite Pressburger themes: fate, boundry crossings, youth vs. age.

Friendship between opposites/rivals

Fate tied to romantic attraction; how fate and sexuality shape lives (especially Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and I Know Where I'm Going!

Affection for English character

Cultural differences and misunderstandings (Brits and Germans) will occur between Brits and Americans in Canterbury Tale. Candy’s lack of understanding of German culture precipitates the duel.

How is the idea of a fixed idea (idee fixe = /i:de fiks/) visually manifest? (Use of Deborah Kerr to play all the women’s roles that Candy loves)

What is the importance of casting Deborah Kerr in all three roles?

Shows Candy’s “obsession” with one thing.

Excellent acting – keeps three characters apart (only 21 at the time)

Watch set design (Junge) and lightening. Difficulties of lighting in blackout. Does audience catch Kerr as “Angela/Johnny”?

Once again problems with the audience “identifying” with a German. What is the importance of casting Anton Walbrook as a Theo and giving him the lines after the broadcast is cut?

Isn’t it better to have a German say those things than a Brit. In the latter case it would have been pure propaganda. Here it takes on a different meaning.

Music:

Use of Wagner (motif for “The Forbidden Question”) from Lohengrin. Later a snatch from Deutschland über alles

Motif associated with all of Candy’s loves.

FILM APPROACHES

Compare opening sequences to ...one of our aircraft is missing. Much unexplained action. There is something a bit ridiculous about knocking the motorcycle rider off the bike before he knows about the exercise.

Shifts through humor (fall in pool triggers flashback) or metaphor

Watch for odd transitions (Blimp pushes Spud into the pool and this triggers the flashback)

Long build up to the dual to show ritualization – duel is not really important. This is not an action movie. (overhead shot that leaves dual to go to Kerr at car)

Scene on the restaurant in Berlin – the cuts done to music and the movement is almost danced anticipating The Red Shoes and Tales of Hoffmann

WATCH ALSO in café scene for use of colors red and blue. One is on the right, one is on the left. Bandleader's jacket front has one color, theback another. Blue vs. red mirrors Germans vs. British

Shots of “game” appearing on the wall.

After loss of woman/wife return to shots of animal heads and hunting – picture of wife is in the same room with the heads.

Scorcese says British cinema strove for realism which Powell did not. He sites the steam room scene is unreal because of the steam which gives it a dream like quality. What? Steam rooms have steam that’s realistic. What is not realistic is the fact that the older soldiers would have simply pushed the younger out of the way. Or do you think Spud would have actually shot them to make the exercise more realistic? Or does Spud have rules that he thinks are more important than Blimps?

Period details were always important to Powell and Pressburger. Pressburger doing research found the rule book for duels in the British museum. Importance of accuracy in costuming etc.

COSTUMING AND TIME

SATORIAL CODES can still be played with in the film. Deborah Kerr has different posture based on corsets in first incarnation, not later ones etc.

Flashback – focus is on TIME and in this case the related idea of aging

Age as something that catches up to everyone (see Crocodile who swallowed the clock and is always catching up with Hook) in Peter Pan

Questions about The concept of TOTAL war and the question of whether wars are fought by rules or not as they (may have been) were previously. The argument rages still whether a nation which asserts morality can behave immorally in a war.

(Compare with the duel) Who wins?

One of the most discussed shots in the film is the one that ends the duel. What can you say about the build up and the camera movement at the end of the duel?

Use of the clock – open space, ritual movement of people in the space.

The camera movement at the end implies the outcome is not what is of interest – it was the ritual itself and so the camera leaves. This parallels the interest of the director in saying that wars are no longer fought by rules and the upper echelon of the military is still pretending there are rules.

Col. Blimp, like Jean Brodie later is complex figure whose good points and bad points are difficult to reconcile and come to grips with. Blimp has a Victoria Cross. He cannot possibly be someone who is thought of badly, yet is is woefully out of date. Maybe this happened to Powell and Pressburger, whose later films are general seen as a decline from their most brilliant films basically from Life and Death of Colonel Blimp to Red Shoes or Perhaps Small Back Room. Some would include Gone to Earth and Tales of Hoffmann as well perhaps.

Is Blimp unsympathetic? Generally thought to be. He has remained consistent – the times have changed

Does the relationship between Clive and Kretchmar-Schuldorff parallel that of Powell and Pressburger?

Why is the film called The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp if Candy is still alive at the end?

Candy is alive, but his recognition of Spud’s approach, but Blimp in effect is dead as a result of Candy having changed.

What is the message of the film?

War is not a game. There are no rules, you do what you have to win.

ENDING

Candy’s house and everything gone – house is now a well. Blimp too is gone.

Things to consider: