The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

Deborah Kerr and Roger Livesy star in this wondrous British Technicolor classic – one of cinema’s greatest studies of ‘Englishness’.

General Clive Wynne-Candy is first found relaxing in faintly complacent and dufferish old age in London during the Second World War, before we flash back to his days as a dashing young officer in 1890s Vienna. What follows is a wondrously rich, witty, sympathetic yet surprisingly critical portrait of a man and the subtle changes in his personality and values that occur with the passing of time; crucially, his fateful encounters with Edith Hunter and Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff teach him that little is fair in love and war.

Though Winston Churchill was famously tempted to suppress the film, it’s now acknowledged as a humanist testament and one of the finest British movies ever made, as deep, dark, delicately nuanced and quietly devastating as an Elgar symphony. And the performances of the three leads may be their best; Eric Livesey, especially, is magnificent.

1943 United Kingdom
Directed by
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Produced by
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Written by
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Featuring
Anton Walbrook, Deborah Kerr, Roger Livesey
Running time
163 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Critics

Julien Allen
UK
Rick Burin
UK
David Cox
UK
Geoff Dyer
UK
James Harrison
UK
Phil Hoad
UK/France
Philip Horne
UK
Peter Hoskin
UK
Clyde Jeavons
UK
Trevor Johnston
UK
Ian Nathan
UK
Michael Newton
Netherlands
Arjun Sajip
UK
Heather Stewart
UK
Adam Woodward
UK

Directors

Paul Bush
UK
Jim McBride
USA

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