Original review at
TVGuide
TV Guide review
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1945)
One of the most celebrated films from the extraordinary director-writer
partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, The Life and Death
of Colonel Blimp is a warm and wise work that displays extraordinary
generosity of spirit. Home from the Boer War, a dashing young British officer
(Livesey) is distressed to learn of reports in German newspapers depicting
atrocities committed by the British in South Africa. Vowing to set the record
straight, Livesey heads for Germany, where he meets Kerr, a British woman
teaching English in Germany. Livesey succeeds in arousing the ire of the
locals to such an extent that it is determined he must fight a duel, and
a young German officer (Walbrook) is selected as his opponent. This leads
to a very amusing scene, as the proper British and rigid Germans discuss
the ground rules for the duel. Both Livesey and Walbrook are wounded in
the duel, and while hospitalized they form a friendship that will last more
than 40 years. As Kerr visits Livesey in the hospital, she and Walbrook
are attracted to one another and, with Livesey's blessing, they marry. Only
after he returns to England does Livesey realize he was in love in with
Kerr. However, continuing his military career, he meets a young nurse (again
played by Kerr) and marries her. She dies several years later, but Kerr
appears again as Livesey's driver during WW II. It is during that war that
Walbrook leaves his homeland, appalled at what the Nazis have wrought, and
joins his friend in England. There he finds Livesey a doddering brigadier
on the verge of retirement, still prattling on about honor and duty and
noting that he would rather lose the war than fight like the Nazis.
Based on a popular comic strip of the day, this was a controversial film
for director Michael Powell. Made during WW II, when films, if they were
political at all, were usually aimed at inspiring patriotism, this critique
of British staid traditionalism was not well received in England upon its
release. The movie so enraged Prime Minister Winston Churchill that he banned
its export. As a result, the movie, completed in 1943, was not shown in
the US until 1945, and then was heavily edited. The politics aside, this
is a marvelous film, featuring a superb performance by Livesey as the thoroughly
honorable gentleman who can only look with bafflement on the changing times.
Walbrook, a consummate performer, counterpoints the strutting martinet,
displaying sympathetic friendship for a man who cannot break out of his
rigid mold. Kerr's versatility is shown in her three-part role. This was
the first production of the Archers, sponsored by J. Arthur Rank and headed
by Powell and Pressburger, who had produced One of Our Aircraft is Missing
and The Invaders (aka 49th Parallel), a superb episodic
portrait of Nazi submariners in Canada. Another hallmark of The Life
and Death of Colonel Blimp was that it offered one of the few color
productions made during WW II, when such film stock was scarce.
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