Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5810 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-05-13
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Special Edition
• Original language: English, French, German
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 182 minutes

Customer Reviews

Gad! The Critics are Right!
"The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" is a magnificent film!

Fully restored in its Technicolor glory, this movie by Powell and Pressburger (who also brought us "Black Narcissus' and "The Red Shoes") portrays forty years in the life of a British officer, Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey), who in the enthusiasm of youth rushes off to Berlin (against orders) to save the reputation of Britain, which is being maligned by a dastardly double agent. During the adventure, which lands Wynne-Candy in the midst of what promises to be an international incident, he meets a lovely governess (Deborah Kerr in one of three roles in the film). He also meets Theodore Kretschmar-Schuldorff (The magnetic Anton Walbrook--who played the sinister ballet impresario, Lermontoff, in "The Red Shoes") over sabers at dawn. After drawing blood, the two adversaries become friends for life, despite two wars.

Criterion Collection has knocked itself out to produce this beautifully restored DVD. The colors are crisp and clean. The production team has also provided English subtitles for those for whom the accents might prove difficult to understand (although the diction of the actors is splendid). The film comes with a commentary by director Michael Powell and Martin Scorsese, as well as a really informative documentary with Stephen Fry that is more than the self-promoting puffery that accompanies so many DVDs nowadays. The extras present fascinating facts about how Winston Churchill tried to ban the film from being shown in Britain and from being exported. There is also a feature depicting David Low's "Colonel Blimp Cartoons" that usually begin with the walrus-mustached Colonel pontificating: "Gad! Squiffy Harbottle [or some such notable] is right! We have to bring peace to the inhabitants of Lower Waq-Waq Land, even if we have to wipe out every last one of the blighters to get it!"

On one level, the movie is about the inability of some of the twentieth-century British military establishment to abandon the gentlemanly Public School rules of fair play in an era in which the Nazis had not only made up their own rules which they kept changing, but had also thrown away the rule book.

The performances are simply top-drawer, but for my money, Anton Walbrook runs away with the film. Walbrook is such a master of his craft that he can sit motionless in his chair and evoke powerful feelings in the viewer by only a subtle modulation of his voice. Walbrook's performance is both powerful and effortless.

And if "Colonel Blimp" seems a bit old fashioned, well it is! They simply don't make fine movies like this any more.

Superb Powell and Pressburger classic war film in glorious colour
Firstly if you want this or you're into Powell and Pressburger films buy the "Powell and Pressburger Collection" 9 DVD box, which includes this film with all the SE extras, for the same price as this film alone at current bargain prices.

Secondly, as in most Powell and Pressburger films of this era, the colour on display here is absolutely beautiful and the picture quality exemplary with absolutely no sparklies or damage evident. The sound, however, lets it down, being very hissy and crackly, especially at anything like a decent volume on your home cinema system, even more so in quiet passages.

The film and story are brilliant, basically taking in the life of one man, Clive Candy (the superb Roger Livesey in one of his few starring roles), (the Colonel Blimp of the title) concentrating on his wartime soldiering and progression up the ranks from a hot-headed young man to a rotund old man whose failure to adjust from the "officer and gentlemen play by the rules" era renders him redundant in the army's eyes (and in which he's latterly employed as an founding Home Guard training officer). Talking of Home Guard, who should turn up as his batman but John "We're doomed I tell ye, doomed" Laurie in a sort of forerunner of his "Dad's Army" role.

The film begins where it ends, with Candy as a fat old man in the Turkish baths, who in a magic little early scene, having been insulted by a young officer like he used to be, reminisces, going into the baths as a fat old man and emerging as a lithe young one, from which the body of the films flows.

Apparently Winston Churchill (a real life fat, old Colonel Blimp himself) hated the film and it's release was nearly prevented by the British authorities on the ground that it portrayed British soldiers in a bad light as the old-fashioned rule-abiding idiots of the first World War era - a bunch of kids playing at war (which of course they still were to some extent, as opposed to the German Nazis who fought to win by fair means or foul, whatever the cost).

Gay actor Anton Walbrook stays firmly in the closet to provide the opposing love interest for the beautiful Deborah Kerr, who has a Candy-related role in each of the major time-pieces of the film. He gives a sterling performance as Theo, the German officer who is forced into a duel of honour with Candy in a sword fight early on after the latter has insulted half the German nation. The pair later become good friends and remain so for the rest of the film, bumping into each other at the various stages of their lives.

This is one of Powell and Pressburger's best and a brilliant war film to boot - well worth the two and a half hours of watching required.

Finally, apparently until 1983 the film existed only in a "20 minutes-cut" version which removed the looking-back aspect of the original. I'm pleased to say that I don't remember seeing it in that cut form.

Nostalgia for the old ways must be put aside if we're to win, say Powell and Pressburger. Wonder if Churchill ever got it
Churchill was outraged. He was expecting a patriotic war movie full of valor, heroic death, brave British soldiers overcoming all odds to beat the Hun, with Nazis portrayed as the beasts they were. What he saw was a film about a fat, bald, pompous old man with a walrus mustache who can't seem to do anything right. Worse, the only German around is a good German who turns out to be a firm friend. Even worse, the lead character seems to be based on a newspaper cartoon of a blustering old colonel who quickly came to symbolize for the British people the complacency and pigheadedness that had made Britain so unprepared when war with Hitler came. Churchill immediately determined to have the film banned. He might have succeeded but for two things. Some in his government argued that banning the film would only create a backlash. Then there was the matter of World War II, which at last distracted him from his passion for censorship.

And so we have The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the movie I consider the richest of the six amazingly creative films Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made between 1942 and 1948.

It's 1942 and we're in an ornate London steam bath with a group of fat old duffers we come to understand are the aged officers of the Home Guard. War games will begin at midnight and they are preparing themselves. They are led by Major General Clive Wynne-Candy. He won the Victoria Cross in the Boer War and served with distinction in France during WWI. That was long ago. He's filled with pride, certitude, confidence in the rules of war and good food.

A squad of soldiers bursts in led by a young lieutenant who immediately asks which of the towel-wrapped, sweating old men is General Candy. It seems the opposing side in the war game has decided to strike early and arrest all the senior officers of the Home Guard. "You can't do that," bellows the old man. "War starts at midnight!"

What are we to make of this old man? Was Churchill right? An instant later the old man has furiously rushed the young lieutenant and they both go into the pool. After some mighty splashing and thrashing, we see a figure swimming toward the far end, then emerge to have himself wrapped in a towel. Wait a minute. The man is still Clive Candy, but it's forty years earlier and Candy is a young officer. And now Powell and Pressburger are going to show us the young officer, not the newspaper caricature. We're going to learn a lot about Clive Candy in 163 minutes and 40 years. We're going to appreciate his optimism, his gallantry, his sense of honor, and even sympathize a little in his outdated belief that there are such things for gentlemen as the rules of war.

What Churchill missed is how powerfully Powell and Pressburger make their case: That outmoded ideas must be discarded when fighting men as mad and evil as Hitler. That the British are learning that lesson. That belief in British values such as fair play and honor may seem old fashioned, even quaint, but they are core values. That Britain, thanks in part to the character and spirit of men like Clive Wynne-Candy, will prevail no matter how fiercely the winds may now blow...but nostalgia and memories must be put aside.

Roger Livesey had the role of his life as Candy. He brings Candy to life for us with decency, respect and affection. He's excellent both as the young officer and as the old man who lives increasingly with nostalgia. I challenge anyone not to tear up when we last see Candy, an old man, watch a parade of young men marching off to war, knowing that his time has past, but being comforted by his German friend that his values are true. Anton Walbrook plays Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff with great subtlety. Ultimately it is Theo, now a refugee from Hitler, who brings Candy to an understanding that things must change. Deborah Kerr plays three roles, the three women in Candy's life...the woman he loved and lost to Theo, the nurse during WWI whom he met and then married, who has died, and the young enlisted woman who served as his driver when we first met him. Kerr gives each of these women a slightly different personality. She is memorable.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is such a rich and unusual film that whatever anyone writes about it will, I think, be largely inadequate. It needs to be seen. Is it better than Powell and Pressburger's other master films from the Forties? We're talking about The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948). I like them all immensely but my favorite is Blimp.

The Region 1 Criterion release is excellent, sharp and with the full-bodied color Powell loved.It has some excellent special features, a fine commentary by Martin Scorsese and Michael Powell (obviously an old man when they taped it) and an informative printed insert.