A retired British military man, relegated to training exercises at home while World War II rages on, reflects back on the events, loves, and friendships that shaped his life.
How did a film intended to inspire and rally British troops have its production nearly halted by an enraged Winston Churchill, and subsequently prevented from international distribution until after the war was over? The answer lies in the origin of the Colonel Blimp character, featured in a long-running political cartoon by David Low, which satirized conservative politicians and military officers as stubborn, pompous windbags.
The filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (an Austrian immigrant who fled the Nazis to become a British citizen) made 19 films together, covering genres as diverse as fantasy, espionage, literary adaptations, musical comedies, adventures, and even opera. While Pressburger primarily wrote the screenplays to be shot by Powell, they were both credited together as writers, directors and producers on all their films, working with a loyal international crew and many recurring actors.
Powell & Pressburger's approach to Colonel Blimp was to humanize the ridiculous character (renamed Clive Candy for the film) while still illustrating that by World War II, his old-fashioned ideas of gallantry and fair play were useless and actually detrimental in the face of an opponent like Hitler. A sympathetic German character who becomes a life-long friend of Candy was an attempt to see past the military face of the Nazis, and is one of the reasons Churchill wanted to stop the film from being made and seen.
The cast includes Roger Livesey, Anton Walbrook, and six-time Oscar nominee Deborah Kerr, who plays three separate women in the film. The photography, a majestic example of early Technicolor, is by French cameraman Georges Perinal, assisted by Jack Cardiff, who would eventually move up to the cinematographer's role for several Powell & Pressburger classics.
When the film was finally released abroad, it was in a heavily-cut form, yet still powerful enough to have a great influence on a young Martin Scorsese (among other major filmmakers); the sophisticated and inventive techniques on both the page and screen put it well ahead of its time. The film was restored to its proper length in 1983, and is now regarded as a masterpiece. In a 1999 poll conducted by the British Film Institute of the Greatest British Films of the 20th Century, Powell & Pressburger placed four films inside the Top 50, including Blimp, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life & Death, and Black Narcissus (the latter two films previously shown at Red House Cinema).
Film runs approximately 2 hrs, 40 min.
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