A Matter of Life and Death
Theatre Arts, New York, February 1947
From England, the films now pour to this country in a more or less steady
stream. Among recent arrivals the most notable is "Stairway To Heaven" (known
in England as "A Matter of Life And Death"). A fantasy written, directed
and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who were responsible
for "Colonel Blimp", it is set half in heaven and half on earth, as the
two planets battle over the soul of an RAF flyer who failed to die when
his number was up. Jockeying between sumptuously Technicolored earth and
the white-lighted heaven, the picture shifts its scene with an easy play
of imagination that is at once witty and appealing. The latter part of "Stairway
To Heaven" presents a heavenly debate for the soul of this unfortunate transgressor
against the laws of the universe. Conducted by a twentieth-century doctor
and an eighteenth-century American, the arguments surround the relative
merits of the two nations. Since the antagonists summon up amusing and pertinent
comments on national characteristics, one is inclined to forgive the fact
that their arguments bear no perceptible relationship to the story. A more
potent persuasion, and one that wins the victim his life in the end, is
the tear of the woman he loves, a WAC (played by the American Kim Hunter).
Faulty though its logic may be, "Stairway To Heaven" is a merry event, and
the playing of David Niven as the young man whose soul is at stake, of Roger
Livesey as the doctor who fights for his life and Marius Goring as the heavenly
messenger who fights for his death is all in the best of spirits.
H.R.L.
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