stcorbiniansbear
Colonel Blimp was a humorous cartoon figure born in 1934 with whom British audiences would have been familiar. The inventor claimed to have been inspired by hearing British officers in a Turkish bath arguing that cavalry officers should be permitted to wear spurs inside tanks.The opening credits suggest the Victorian origins of Colonel Blimp's character by use of a needlework tapestry in which the names of the featured players are embroidered. In the center is the rotund, red-faced mounted figure of Colonel Blimp himself, clad only in his signature Turkish towel.The movie opens with a military exercise in which the Home Guard is to defend London from a simulated attack scheduled for midnight. A clever young Army officer decides to jump the gun by six hours, since "the real thing" isn't played by rules. Despite the efforts of a young female military driver (English beauty Deborah Kerr in one of three roles) the dastardly sneak attack succeeds, and the aged Home Guard commanding general and his staff are captured - in a Turkish bath.The viewer's sympathy lies with the young Army officer, who has a realistic view of World War Two. The overweight General Clive Candy - in his Turkish towel - goes red-faced and sputters through his moustache about fair play, and we laugh at the ridiculous figure with his outmoded view of war.Then the movie takes us back 40 years to see a lean and dashing officer who has won the Victoria Cross in the Boer War. Upon receipt of a letter informing him of German lies about British atrocities, he goes on a personal mission to Berlin to refute them. He meets a beautiful English governess who penned the letter (another role for Kerr) and insults the German officer corps in a beer hall, which leads to a duel with Theo Kretschmar-Shuldorff, played by Anton Walbrook (Boris Lermantov in The Red Shoes).The Bear will not spoil the outcome, but we learn the reason for the General's ridiculous mustache. The duelists become fast friends and fall in love with the same governess. Candy acts as if he could not be more pleased for the couple, but then we see him at the theater with the sister of the governess.Let's just say she's no Deborah Kerr.During WWI, now-General Candy meets a nurse who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. When the armistice is signed, he drinks a toast with his driver and gives a little speech about how the Huns waged a barbaric war, but the British won through fair play. He marries the nurse and is reunited with his old German friend, who is now interred in an English POW camp. It is significant that she is 20 years his junior; his living in the past is reflected in his obsession with his first love. After his wife dies, her portrait humorously takes pride of place in his study along with all of his other trophy heads. Her last "incarnation" is the spunky military driver "Johnny" we see in the opening and closing scenes. She happens to be the girlfriend of the cheeky Army officer who cheated in the exercise, and one of the last things General Candy does is to make sure he doesn't get in trouble. It is as if he at least finally lets go of his obsession with the girl of 40 years before and allows her to be claimed by the next generation.At a farewell dinner, the British dignitaries are mostly cool to the defeated German officer, but by the end, they're doing their best to cheer him up about the prospects for him and his country.History proved them wrong, as the original audience would know, and today's audience should never forget. World War Two was the unfinished business of The Great War.The passage of time is cleverly marked by the accumulation of wild game trophies mounted in General Candy's study. By the time World War Two arrives, the world seems to have no room for the Colonel Blimp-like General Candy, now a widower, and his quaint ideas. Once again, his German friend is in England - this time as a refugee. His wife (Candy's first love) has died and both his sons are "good Nazis."The role for Walbrook is poignant because he really did flee Nazi Germany due to two strikes against him: Walbrook was half-Jewish and a homosexual. Theo Kretschmar-Shuldorff understands that Nazis represent an existential threat to civilization, and has grown wiser with years. We feel his pain as he must watch, from the wisdom of bitter experience, his old, naive friend face humiliation.Nonetheless, General Candy seems to find a place in his old age: commanding the Home Guard. The movie ends with a replay of the beginning, only now the viewer has more sympathy for the obese general with his Turkish towel and ridiculous mustache.It is another Technicolor feast for the eyes, although not up to The Red Shoes' visual level. This was wartime, after all, and Technicolor was expensive enough. Many scenes are shot on a soundstage before painted backdrops, but that does not detract.The film starts with a lot of energy and the pace and patter is brisk with some laugh-out-loud moments. It seems almost to age along with General Candy as the terrible new realities of two World Wars take their toll. It is funny, even as we go from laughing at General Candy to laughing with him. It becomes more poignant and even sad as World War Two overtakes it even as it has overtaken its original audience.Women are depicted as intelligent and capable, eventually taking their place in uniform by the end. There are some choice anti-German lines. Here is an observation by General Candy's wife (Kerr also) as they watch German WWI POWs enjoying a concert."I was thinking - how odd they are, queer. For years and years they're writing and dreaming beautiful music and beautiful poetry. All of a sudden they start a war, sink undefended ships, shoot innocent hostages, and bomb and destroy whole streets in London, killing little children. And then they sit down in the same butcher's uniform, and listen to Mendelssohn and Schubert. Something horrid about that... "The acting is very good. Kerr has that fair-skinned beauty that seems to be unique to the British Isles, and we are treated to same kind of set-piece profile shots we see in The Red Shoes. Walbrook plays a far more likeable character than Boris Lermontov, and Roger Livesey's General Clive Candy is humorous and convincing both as the idealistic young hero of the Boer War and the idealistic old fool of World War Two.Part of the reason the Bear finds this movie interesting is in trying to see it through the eyes of the British moviegoer of 1943. To the extent the message seems to justify adopting the worst methods of the enemy in order to prevail in an unprecedented kind of war, it is a little chilling. When old General Candy's BBC broadcast is cancelled, his German friend Theo tells him this:"I read your broadcast up to the point where you describe the collapse of France. You commented on Nazi methods--foul fighting, bombing refugees, machine-gunning hospitals, lifeboats, lightships, bailed-out pilots--by saying that you despised them, that you would be ashamed to fight on their side and that you would sooner accept defeat than victory if it could only be won by those methods."Theo disagrees. He is the expert on Nazis, after all. The message of the movie is Theo is right and General Candy is wrong. To beat Nazis, you must use the methods of Nazis.By 1943, the Germans had been turned back at Stalingrad and the Japanese defeated in the Battle of Midway. The Blitz was over, but V2 rockets were in the future. It is easy for us to say the tide had turned, but Allied victory was by no means obvious at the time and much hard fighting lay ahead, including D-Day and the conquest of Germany.Boomers may have an ambivalent historical appreciation for dreadful exigencies like the fire-bombing of Dresden and the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but to see it unapologetically championed in a movie of that time is a little disconcerting. If General Candy were to find himself in today's world, his ideals of limited war and fair play (or at least better public relations) might find a more receptive audience.The movie ends on a forced, upbeat wartime note, but we are meant to see General Candy as a pitiable relic and his ideals as a thing of the past. The genuine optimism is that for all the loose social media chatter about Nazis, we did not have to become them after all.At least not permanently.
Leofwine_draca
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP is at once many things. It's an affectionate comedy, with Roger Livesey's titular character a wonderfully warm-hearted buffoon who would provide a stereotypical influence for many subsequent elderly military characters in cinema around the world. It's an exploration of British military history in the early 20th century, with a strong satirical theme. Most importantly, it's an exploration of the British psyche, with all of its flaws and failings and good points to boot. Winston Churchill might have hated it - the barbs were perhaps too close to home - but this is quite the exemplary movie, lengthy but full of depth and character, old-fashioned in the best British tradition.
Brucey D
Much has been written about this film by others and, in truth, I have little to add to it. All I can do is to succinctly point out that this film is remarkable for many reasons including the following;.*It was made in Britain at what was arguably one of the worst times in WWII.*Had Churchill had his way, this film would never have seen the light of day.*Whilst being implacably opposed to war and Nazism in particular, it strikes a balance that is not unsympathetic to anyone holding civilised values, underlining that the war being fought was as much as anything else in support of those values.* Many other film-makers would almost certainly have produced a one-dimensional propaganda film at this time; however P&P (remarkably) turned a cartoon drawing caricature into a complex, sympathetic character, in a many-layered, well-nuanced plot whose horizons extend further than the then-present conflict.* In turns this film examines how life can shape a character, love, loss, the nature of one's identity and values, what it is to be British, and what 'total war' means, amongst other things, all impeccably rendered onto film.* Although neither man rated it his best work, this film is arguably P&P's masterpiece; it is truly impressive on every level.This film was restored once in 1983. However it has been restored again in 2012 (at the behest of Martin Scorsese amongst others) and the results are simply stunning.If you have not seen this film before, see it. If you have not seen the 2012 restoration, see it. I am no great wordsmith by any means but if you are not yet convinced to see this film I suggest you read some of the other reviews here or perhaps Roger Ebert's. Without hesitation, it scores 10/10 with me. It gets 96% on Rotten Tomatoes; why the average score here on IMDb is no higher is a complete mystery to me.
soreyes
I had the honour of watching The life and death of colonel Blimp and A matter of life and death both today, both films I thoroughly enjoyed. As a 27yr old British lad, it has only been now that I have been exposed to such gems that I wish I watched them earlier. I preferred TLANDOCB than AMOLAD, not to say that either one was an abomination because for me they are both marvellous. The main reason I liked TLANDOCB, for me, was how Roger Livesey played his character very well, such warmth almost satire like of what my perceived opinion of a British officer would had been in those days. Yes it was, in most ways, a satirical of the officer gentry types of that age. Although for me it wasn't all that, there was a lot more. The friendship struck between Clive Candy and Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff gives hope in this world that everyone should not be tarred with the same brush and good comes from anywhere irrespective from where they come from or what they have done. It has a theme of love and affection in the presence of the beautiful Deborah Kerr playing three characters (Edith Hunter, Barbara Wynne and Angela "Johnny" Cannon). How many other films would you see gentleman fight over the same woman yet here it is a lot more deeper which suggests more to the audience, without spoon feeding (which annoys me more about modern films in my era), as I do like to discuss films with my house mate. What I liked most about this film was how remarkable and fresh it was, considering this film was out in the early 40's it could easily pass as a film that was released later, much later. This film, without a doubt, should be comparable as an equal to "the third man", "It's a wonderful life", "The Godfather" or "12 angry men" to name a few. Moviegoers deserve more humbling productions as this and less mundane and mediocrity.Please send suggestions of what gems I should embark on next @ http://www.imdb.com/list/QdM7nPjVErY/Going to my local cinema is hard, there are only two screens there!
