Original at
The Onion A.V. Club
Stairway To Heaven
Hard-to-find and practically lost movies have a tendency to inspire
fetishization over the years; the longer the time out of circulation,
the greater the degree of reverence. It's much easier to inflate the
worth of something unseen--if White Dog ever surfaces again,
will anyone be able to look at it evenly?--than something kicking around
in the public eye for years. Consequently, it's something of a relief
that, after only occasional showings at art houses over the years,
the full-scale release of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's
1946 fantasy Stairway To Heaven (British title: A Matter
Of Life And Death) doesn't disappoint. David Niven plays a
British World War II pilot who, in the film's breathless opening
sequence, announces to an American radio operator (Kim Hunter) the
impossibility of his return from a bombing mission. He disembarks
from the plane without a parachute, awaiting certain death ...
which doesn't come. Waking up confused on an English beach, he
finds Hunter, falls in love, and soon finds himself pleading
his right to remain alive before not-always-sympathetic heavenly
officials. The writer/director team's unwillingness to clarify
where fantasy ends and reality begins, and an inspired depiction
of earth (stunning Technicolor) and heaven (crisp, vaguely
totalitarian black-and-white), help make Stairway To Heaven
a successful movie. Charming performances help as well, smoothing
over some of the clunkier elements, such as an extended debate
over the value of England that seems a bit too provincial given
the movie's celestial scope. Stairway To Heaven is an
ambitious, enjoyable, often beautifully romantic work that should
be seen, now that the mist of obscurity has lifted.
--Keith Phipps
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