Capital Celluloid 2015 - Day 209: Tue Jul 28

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell & Pressburger, 1943):
BFI Southbank, NFT3, 5.45pm



This Passport to Cinema event, postponed in April, includes an introduction by Powell and Pressburger scholar Ian Christie. The film also screens on 25th July. You can find the full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
It's almost impossible to define this 1943 masterpiece by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was ostensibly based on a cartoon series that satirized the British military class, yet its attitude toward the main character is one of affection, respect, and sometimes awe; it was intended as a propaganda film, yet Churchill wanted to suppress it; it has the romantic sweep of a grand love story, yet none of the romantic relationships it presents is truly fulfilled, and the film's most lasting bond is one between the British colonel (Roger Livesey) and his Prussian counterpart (Anton Walbrook). Pressburger's screenplay covers 40 years in the colonel's life through a series of brilliantly constructed flashbacks, compressions, and ellipses; Powell's camera renders the winding plot through boldly deployed Technicolor hues and camera movements of exquisite design and expressivity. It stands as very possibly the finest film ever made in Britain. With Deborah Kerr, Roland Culver, and James McKechnie.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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