Submitted by
Malcolm Pratt
Stairway to Heaven
Review by Bosley Crowther
New York Times, December 26th 1946
Written, produced, and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Cinematographer, Jack Cardiff
Edited by Reginald Mills
Music by Allan Gray
Production designer, Alfred Junge
Released by Universal International Pictures
Running time: 104 minutes.
WITH:
David Niven (Peter Carter)
Kim Hunter (June)
Roger Livesey (Doctor Reeves)
Robert Coote (Bob)
Marius Goring (Conductor 71)
Raymond Massey (Abraham Farian) [sic - it should have been Farlan]
Kathleen Byron (An Angel)
Richard Attenborough (English Pilot)
Had you harked you would have heard the herald angels singing an appropriate
paean of joy over a wonderful new British picture, Stairway to Heaven, which
came to the Park Avenue Theatre yesterday. And if you will listen now to
this reviewer you will hear that the delicate charm, the adult humor, and
visual virtuosity of this Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger film render
it indisputably the best of a batch of Christmas shows.
If you wished to be literal about it you might call it romantic fantasy
with psychological tie-ins. But literally is not the way to take this deliciously
sophisticated frolic in imagination's realm. For this is a fluid contemplation
of a man's odd experiences in two worlds, one the world of the living and
the other the world of his fantasies - which, in this particular instance,
happens to be the great beyond. And the fact that the foreword advises,
"any resemblance to any other worlds, known or unknown, is purely coincidental,"
is a cue to the nature and the mood.
We've no time for lengthy explanations - other than to remark that, by all
the laws of probabilities, Squadron Leader Peter Carter should have been
killed when he leapt from a burning bomber without a parachute over the
Channel on May 2, 1945. And that is the natural assumption which revolves
in the back of his injured mind. But, still alive after a freakish salvation
and in love with a thoroughly mortal American Wac, he resists the hallucinatory
"messenger" who keeps summoning him to the beyond. Indeed, he resists so
strongly - in his disordered mind, that is - that he conceives an illusory
"trial" in heaven in which his appeal to remain on earth is heard before
a highly heterogeneous tribunal. And through this court (and by a brain
operation), he is spared.
That gives you a slight indication of the substance and flavor of this film
- and we haven't space at this writing to give you any more, except to say
that the wit and agility of the producers, who also wrote and directed the
job, is given range through the picture in countless delightful ways: in
the use, for instance, of Technicolor to photograph the earthly scenes and
sepia in which to vision the hygienic regions of the Beyond (so that the
heavenly "messenger," descending, is prompted to remark, "Ah, how one is
starved for Technicolor up there!"). [sic]
We haven't space to credit the literate wit of the heavenly "trial" in which
the right of an English flier to marry an American girl is discussed, with
all the subtle ruminations of a cultivated English mind that it connotes,
or the fine cinematic inventiveness and visual "touches" that sparkle throughout,
notably in the exciting production designs of Alfred Junge.
Nor have we the space to say more than that David Niven is sensitive and
real as the flier chap; that Roger Livesey is magnificent as his physician
(and later advocate in the Beyond); that Kim Hunter is most appealing as
his American sweetheart; and that many more do extremely well, including
Raymond Massey, who plays the lawyer for the Court of Records at the heavenly
"trial." (Mr. Massey represents the spirit of the first Boston patriot killed
in the Revolutionary War.)
But we'll have much more to say later, when we've got Christmas out of
our hair. Till then, take this recommendation: see Stairway to
Heaven. It's a delight!
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