The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Plot synopsis:
Major-General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey) is a senior commander in the Home Guard during the Second World War. Before a training exercise, he is "captured" in a Turkish bath by soldiers led by Lieutenant "Spud" Wilson, who has struck pre-emptively. He ignores Candy's outraged protests that "War starts at midnight!" They scuffle and fall into a bathing pool.
An extended flashback ensues.
Boer War
In 1902, Lieutenant Candy is on leave from the Boer War. He has received a letter from Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr), who is working in Berlin. She complains that a German named Kaunitz is spreading anti-British propaganda, and she wants the British embassy to do something about it. When Candy brings this to his superiors' attention, they refuse him permission to intervene, but he decides to act anyway.
In Berlin, Candy and Edith go to a café, where he confronts Kaunitz. Provoked, Candy inadvertently insults the Imperial German Army officer corps. The Germans insist he fight a duel with an officer chosen by lot: Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook). Candy and Theo become friends while recuperating from their wounds in the same nursing home. Edith visits them both regularly and, although it is implied that she has feelings for Clive, she becomes engaged to Theo. Candy is delighted, but soon realises to his consternation that he loves her himself.
First World War
Candy, now a brigadier general, believes that the Allies won the First World War because "right is might". While in France, he meets nurse Barbara Wynne (Kerr again). She bears a striking resemblance to Edith. Back in England, he courts and marries her despite their twenty-year age difference.
Candy tracks Theo down at a prisoner of war camp in England. Candy greets him as if nothing has changed, but Theo snubs him. Later, about to be repatriated to Germany, Theo apologises and accepts an invitation to Clive's house. He remains sceptical that his country will be treated fairly.
Barbara dies between the world wars, and Candy retires in 1935.
Second World War
In 1939, Theo relates to an immigration official how he was estranged from his children when they became Nazis. Before the war, he had refused to move to England when Edith wanted to; by the time he was ready, she had died. Candy vouches for Theo.
Candy reveals to Theo that he loved Edith and only realised it after it was too late. He admits that he never got over it. He shows Theo a portrait of Barbara. Theo then meets Candy's MTC driver, Angela "Johnny" Cannon (Kerr again), personally chosen by the Englishman; Theo is struck by her resemblance to Barbara and Edith.
Candy, restored to the active list, is to give a BBC radio talk regarding the retreat from Dunkirk. Candy plans to say that he would rather lose the war than win it using the methods employed by the Nazis: his talk is cancelled at the last minute. Theo urges his friend to accept the need to fight and win by whatever means are necessary, because the consequences of losing are so dire.
Candy is again retired, but, at Theo's and Angela's urging, he turns his energy to the Home Guard. Candy's energy and connections are instrumental in building up the Home Guard. His house is bombed in the Blitz and is replaced by an emergency water supply cistern. He moves to his club, where he relaxes in a Turkish bath before a training exercise he has arranged.
The film has now come full circle. The brash young lieutenant who captures Candy is in fact Angela's boyfriend, who used her to learn about Candy's plans and location. She tries to warn Candy, but is too late.
Afterward, Theo and Angela find Candy sitting across the street from where his house once stood. He recalls that after being given a severe dressing down by his superior for causing the diplomatic incident, he had declined the man's invitation to dinner, and had often regretted doing so. He tells Angela to invite her boyfriend to dine with him.
Years before, Clive had promised Barbara that he would "never change" until his house is flooded and "this is a lake". Seeing the cistern, he realises that "here is the lake and I still haven't changed". The film ends with Candy saluting the new guard as it passes by.

Tags: whimsical, romantic, humor, satire, murder

Review:
Here, in "Colonel Blimp," based on the stuffy, elitist character created by David Low, director Powell found a unifying style that encompassed the other-worldly vision that is sustained throughout the film's lengthy running time (2 hours, 43 minutes) – a style that is, at once, austere yet elegant; moody but curiously euphoric; hard at its core but sentimental around the edges.As evidenced by the film's title, Pressburger's script does deal in a very generalized way with issues of Life and Death, but he carries his vision into the realm of the abstract, and he does so in circular fashion.
From there, the film completes its flashback "loop" to 1943, where we witness Candy's old-fashioned Victorian adherence to "good sportsmanship" – his single failing as a military tactician and leader – that costs his Home Guard unit a war-games competition.
Made in 1943  by the irreplaceable icons of British film making Powell and Pressburger it displays a pacy breathless brilliance since unparalleled on the big screen.The film follows the life and times of General Wynne-Candy from when he is an idealistic young officer returned on leave from the Boer War through to his retirement as an anachronistic and obdurate Major General.The film is  structured in three acts set in the aftermath of the Boer War, the first world war and the present (at the time of making the film) the height of the 2nd World War. But it is not just an examination of these conflicts.
This particular theme reaches its climax towards the end of the film when Candy is "retired" by the war ministry probably as a result of his outdated approach to strategy for the 2nd World War. Anton Wallbrook then delivers a setpiece speech which starkly outlines the evils of Nazism and the necessity to use any means to defeat it for the sake of freedom and humanity for coming generations.Colonel Blimp with its pristine performances, absorbing plot, dazzling colour photography and economic flawless script easily gives Citizen Kane a good run for its money as the best film of all time..
'The Archers' had such an impressive body of work even a gem can be temporarily out of mind - such was the case with Colonel Blimp while I was catching up with all their other work.There seem to be three performances approaching greatness in this - first of course, that of Livesey as Clive Wynne-Candy throughout his long service as a soldier to old age and 'Blimpishness', a superb portrayal and very memorable; then Anton Walbrook - brilliant in all his scenes as the sympathetic German who finally becomes reconciled to 'his wife's country'; and finally, in three roles, Deborah Kerr, standing for Candy's ideal woman.
Some of the lines must have meant a lot to Emerich Pressburger, particularly when Theo explains why he left Germany so late after the Nazis came to power and the bit when Theo says it must be hard losing your wife abroad and Candy replies "It wasn't abroad, it was Jamaica" which summed up the David Low cartoon character Col Blimp's attitude to the world and particularly the British Empire.
The dinner guests are open and generous, in contrast with Kretschmer-Schuldorff's teutonic gracelessness: "Don't you worry," they tell him, "we'll soon have Germany on her feet again."  Yet another transition takes us through the inter-war years by leafing through Wynne-Candy's scrapbook.Anton Walbrook is billed as the star, playing Kretschmer-Schuldorff, but it is Roger Livesey as Wynne-Candy who unifies the whole film with an inspired performance as the amiable British hero.
Clive Candy (Roger Livesey), a British army officer, wins a Victoria Cross in South Africa, fights a duel in Berlin in 1902, acquires a lifelong friend and his lifelong love for a woman (or women), commands in Flanders in the Great War and brings the experience of a lifetime's service to the Second World War.It is soon apparent that this fine film portrays a Colonel Blimp very different from David Low's jingoistic and hidebound comic strip character.
The two defining moments of the film are both given to Candy's long-time friend, the German uhlan officer, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook).
The story then harks back to 1902 when, as Clive Candy VC, he has just returned from the Boer War and then follows his life as a soldier, concentrating on the times when his path crosses with Kretscmar-Schuldorff's, to the point where he finds he is no longer needed by his country - a crushing blow for such a patriotic Englishman.
Apart from Walbrook, Deborah Kerr is the other link throughout the story, playing three very different young women, one of whom becomes Theo's wife, one Clive's wife and one the older Clive's driver.Add to that a cast which includes as bit-parts such greats as Valentine Dyall, A E Matthews (in the days when he bothered with a script), John Laurie and Felix Aylmer and this is one of my favourite films of all time.When it was made, during World War 2, the film was not allowed to be shown because it had a sympathetic German in a lead role..
A surprisingly relevant and modern film, even more than 50 years after its release, TLADOCB is a sentimental yet cheerful look at the life and times of Clive Candy, British officer.
Throughout the span of the 40 years that are covered, Livesey suffers the losses of loves and homes, the only constant being his friendship with Theo, his German counterpart.This movie might get the viewer reflecting on a life lived, the price of war, and interestingly enough it was made not knowing the outcome of WW2 which makes it all the more profound.
Perhaps he didn't like the notion that long-standing traditions were being called into question--but the filmmakers take great pains to show that every generation has laughed at the stuffiness of the one before; that this was not impudence but inevitability.The film starts--rather confusingly, I confess; I had to watch the beginning again after the end to help make sense of it!--with a war-time exercise: a Regular Army invasion of a London defended by the recently-formed Home Guard.
The enraged major-general attacks the soldier and throws him into the pool, sparking a flashback to reveal him as the young, clean-shaven Roger Livesey, in that very Turkish bath, back after a long bout as a prisoner during the Boer War.What follows is, first, the story of Livesey's own brash initiative to counter anti-English propaganda in Germany, a duel, and the meeting of Livesey and Walbrook, the German officer who will become Livesey's friend, and who rejoices in the name of Theodor Kretschmar-Shuldorff.
She chooses Walbrook, and lives with him in Germany; Livesey returns home, passing his time hunting (this is shown quite cleverly) until the Great War erupts and his soldiering talents are needed once again.The movie takes us through WW1 and its aftermath, through English action and German reaction, through marriages and deaths of family and friends, up to the beginning of the Second World War. Now Walbrook, living in England, is facing internment and is rescued by Livesey--balding, plump, and walrus-mustached, the very image of a Colonel Blimp.
The acting I have no qualm with either, Deborah Kerr and Anton Walbrook really impress, especially Kerr in three roles, but it is Roger Livesey's truly astonishing lead performance that takes centre stage.I never realised that Churchill ordered this film to be banned because he thought it would give the wrong impression of the British fighting man.
It was the most right wing corner of Churchill's own aristocratic class that Low attacked, and to see that a large scale movie was made named for the character (and Roger Livesey is made to look fat, bald, and mustachioed exactly like the cartoon character) must have just been too much for Winnie to accept.The film is a lovely over-the-years view of the death of a military way of thinking.
But like BLIMP, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA is also a cinematic achievement of the first order.It is, simply put, the life story of Clive Wynn-Candy, VC, career officer of the British Army.
a life of service to King and Country through three wars, offered by a curmudgeonly but endearingly human soldier.The main thread that runs through the film is Clive Candy's traditional, upper middle class British outlook; from the beginning he lives by the principles and ideals taught in his youth...
You see the old fat mustachioed blow-hard at the beginning of the film and you dismiss him, but then through an extended movie-length flashback you follow his life from the time he was a brash, insufferable young Army officer himself, through his distinguished service to his country, right up to the day he's humiliated in the Turkish bath.
And this time you look at that wonderful, flawed old man in a very different light.The film is a feast for the eyes in luscious Technicolor, with sumptuous sets, glorious costumes, and the lovely young Deborah Kerr in three -- count 'em, three!
Resisting the temptation to deliver a propaganda film to rally the nation during the dark days of 1942, Powell and Pressubrger directed The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, a highly nuanced character study in which an idealistic soldier cannot accept that the world has passed him by.
Considering when it was made, the film shows a character who grows up from a young soldier into an old Colonel who seems to treat war like a game of cricket instead of a live-or-death struggle.
In1942 in London, along a war training of the Home Guard, the reckless officer Spud Wilson (James McKechnie) arrests General Clive Candy (Roger Livesey) in a club, and he recalls his life since forty years ago.
He meets General Candy again, who is responsible for the Home Guard of London and is introduced to his driver, "Johnny" Cannon (Deborah Kerr)."The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" shows war and life though the years of General Clive Candy.
By going against all the conventions of propaganda cinema of the time, they actually made Theo a likable, honorable German soldier who becomes the most loving friend of Candy.Another very important theme explored in the film is the change that takes place in a character with age.
'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)' was produced at the height of World War Two, and that such an illustrious Technicolor production was completed amid both nightly London bombings and the opposition of Prime Minister Churchill is a testament to the consummate professionalism of The Archers, producer/writer/director team Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
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.
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.
Enjoyed this film starring Roger Livesey, (Clive Candy) who is a general who returned from the Boer War during the First World War and gets himself involved with politics and decides he is going to try and create better relations with German.
This better relations in Germany involves a very pretty young woman named Edith Hunter, (Deborah Kerr) who plays different roles in this film and there are many different situations that Clive Candy experiences as he learns who are his friends and enemies and at the same time he gets deeply involved with a woman who is 20 years younger than he is.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" (1943) has continually been voted as one of the "great films" by many leading critics over the years.
We then go back 40 years, and any hint of satire makes way for a story of romance, friendship, and growing old.During the Boer War in 1902, the young Clive Candy (Roger Livesey) receives a letter from Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr) in Berlin, who warns him that a known rogue named Kaunitz is spreading anti-British propaganda.
Deborah Kerr is also radiant and lovely (was she ever not?) in fulfilling one of the film's most charming conceits -- she plays different women who come in and out of the life of our hero but who all remind him of his first and true love.The movie makes some pretty shocking points about war given that it came out while WWII was raging.
As we see him in later life, Colonel Blimp is fleshed out and given the name of Clive Wynne-Candy retired brigadier general of the British army who saw service in the Boer War, World War I, and God knows how many other posts in the Empire on which the sun never set.
His character also grows and changes with age and his scene with British officials circa 1935 as he's an old and broken man just wanting asylum in the country that he fought against from 1914 to 1918, but where his best friend in the world is located is just brilliant.Deborah Kerr plays three different roles and in those three parts she shows three generations of British womanhood, first as the woman that Walbrook won from Livesey in 1903, then as a nurse on the western front who Livesey eventually marries, and finally as his young driver during World War II.
In the Citadel Film series book on the British cinema, Kerr said that this was her greatest acting challenge up to that point and the way she dealt with it was to pretend she was in three different films in essaying each character.The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp is a fine piece of work and is still enjoyable, but to really appreciate it you would have to know about cartoonist David Low and his creation..
Though The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus get more attention, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is the true masterpiece of the Powell and Pressburger collaboration.The film covers roughly forty years, chartering the transition from the values of the late Victorian period to World War II.
I like to make a point of watching everything the Archers (that's Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger to all you non-film geeks) twice, and I thought I had better give 'The Life and Death Of Colonel Blimp' another go.
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.
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.
Love, war, friendship and loss marks the changing of times down the years as Candy progresses up the ranks and gains more and more experience but yet finds himself losing touch with the world around him.A slow film this one and I must admit that the length of it put me off a little bit because I did look for it to be tighter than it was.
If you want to see gorgeous Technicolor, lavish sets, fine performances (ROGER LIVESEY, DEBORAH KERR (in three roles) and ANTON WALBROOK, then THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP is your ticket.But beware, it is not a perfect film.
As time moves on to the Great War, his manner and appearance change (Roger Livesey's transformation as Candy throughout different eras is one of the extraordinary visual achievements of the film), but so too does his emotional character.
Because Winston Churchill did not like the movie, feeling that it was too generous to the Germans in its positive depiction of the German army officer Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook), it was banned from public showing in Britain until 1945.The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a jolly good show and then some, a remarkable movie in several ways.
The last part of the movie, dovetailed back into after the long flashback of Candy's life, plays a bit like a patriotic wartime film, showing the pluck and readiness of the British people to fight the Nazis.
All this would be mildly interesting (and/or entertaining) except for the fact that the scenes are drawn out for way too long and is done in the style of the typical drawing room comedies of the time.Now a Brigadier General in the First World War, Wynne-Candy ends up meeting a young nurse, Barbara, (Role #2 played by Deborah Kerr) who he eventually marries.
Basically the story is based in World War, and focusing on the life and loves of the extraordinary General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey).
We watch "Colonel Blimp" change in the course of forty years or so from a gentlemanly soldier, full of honorable ideas, to a general of the Home Guard, still full of pizazz and, now, of practicality and generosity too.The "death" referred to in the title is evidently meant by Powell and Pressberger to be that of the original idealistic character, not of the man himself -- Roger Livesy as the officer Clive Candy.