Review of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) by Eric F — 08 Aug 2009

It's hard to take him seriously at first - with his fat, red cheeks and an absurd walrus mustache. He looks like such a caricature because, in fact, he was based on a cartoon: Colonel Blimp, of David Low's political cartoons in The Evening Standard. As we're slowly introduced to him, however, by the prolific writer-director team of the Archers, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, we realize that in every old dog there is a wealth of experience - love, loss, friendship, pride.

When "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" was first released, then Prime Minister Winston Churchill banned the film for overseas release, perceiving the film to hurt England's image by the buffoon military general (this was in 1943, of course, with England fully immersed in the war). Churchill agreed to a completely castrated form, but finally the full presentation received a proper release in 1983. Since then, it's been hailed by American critics as the best film to ever come out of Britain, and even Britain's answer to Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane".

Clive Wynne Candy (Roger Livesey) is the bald mustached British army officer in the beginning, however it's not long before we're taken back decades earlier to a younger and more handsome version. We meet him returning from the Boer war in 1902, in an episode that features a duel with a German officer, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook), and a meeting of Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr), an old friend of Candy. Although Candy loves Edith, Theo has his eyes on her as well and the two marry. After their duel, and despite their longing for the same woman, Candy and Theo become good friends through the next few decades.

Years later, Candy finds Barbara Wynn (also played by Deborah Kerr), a mirror image of Edith, at a World War I hospital. Another Edith appears as Angela Cannon (Deborah Kerr, again) as Candy's driver during World War II. This was one of Kerr's first major film roles, a triple-performance, and it immediately shot her up amongst the ranks of the great actresses working in Britain. She would go on to star in the Archers' acclaimed "Black Narcissus".

Of the many memorable things in the film, there are some remarkable transitions. The flashbacks are initiated by an old Candy wrestling in a pool, and the camera traces to the other end in which a young Candy gracefully exits and dries himself off. We go from the Boer war to World War I with a German helmet mounted alongside the trophy heads of animals from Candy's hunting expeditions.

Although Churchill thought Candy was a buffoon, he's a remarkably sympathetic individual as likable as any other film hero. The ending of the film, in which he recalls his earlier self by looking through a pool, shows the old man as the culmination of an entire lifetime - a national treasure.