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Old-fashioned epic recounts
the story of a British soldier’s eventful life. Fans of
novelistic cinema who prefer a light and sentimental touch
enjoy this colorful, humanistic, entertaining film.
In
the 1970s, the start of a tribute-screening of
Pressburger and Powells’ newly restored LIFE AND DEATH OF
COLONEL BLIMP – which includes a famous dinner-party scene
set in 1918, in which the Blimpish Clive Candy hopes to
persuade his German friend of Britain’s goodwill towards
the recent enemy – was delayed so that the dinner guests
could finish their desserts at leisure.
Years
later, an escalating disagreement over a Powell-Pressburger
joint appearance at the National Film Theatre was settled
by a diplomatic lunch at L’Etoile
on Charlotte
Street. Indeed, lunch with either of these gallant
gourmets was often surprising: Powell sharing his delight
in finally perfecting a cauliflower soup, or cracking open
a jambon en croute to reveal a welcome message
spelled out in cloves; and Pressburger’s reckless
disregard for calorie-counting in preparing central
European specialities, including a memorable potato cooked
whole in a pound of butter.
Ian
Christie
"Churchill’s
famous opposition to THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL
BLIMP has probably done most to crystallise the image
of Powell and Pressburger’s wartime epic as a subversive
thrust at the military establishment."
Richard Combs, Monthly Film Bulletin
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