Directed Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Starring Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook QFT, Belfast (queensfilmtheatre.com); IFI, Dublin (ifi.ie), 163 min
Proud, self-styled right-wing sociologists the Robsons condemned Michael Powell and Emric Pressburger’s 1943 masterpiece as “a flashy, flabby and costly film, the most disgraceful production that has ever emanated from a British film studio”.
Winston Churchill wanted the production halted due to the script’s sympathetic portrayal of a German officer. Stephen Fry and critic Antony Lane have identified Blimp’s enduring appeal as a function of its Englishness.
In 1902, proud Englishman Clive Wynne-Candy (gravelly Roger Livesey) and dignified German Theo Kretschmar- Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook) use a duel to determine a diplomatic tussle. As older men, they are perplexed by the ungentlemanly conduct of the Nazis and left behind by the younger generation’s refusal to adhere to, oh yes, the rules of engagement.
It’s tempting to see the influence of Pressburger, a Hungarian émigré, on the material. Blimp is not simply a treatise on the English condition but a remembrance of continental things past: of crystal palaces and stately boulevards and old European empires and wars that end with a handshake.
It remains ironic that those right-wing authorities were so appalled by Blimp. Yes, the film showed respect for the German martial tradition. Yes, it dared to depict a senior officer as a blustering geriatric and the armed forces as rather more ramshackle than wartime propaganda might have allowed. But Blimp still stands as a celebration of benign conservatism.
This is an England of politeness, hearty food and respect for your elders. But, being a Powell-Pressburger film, it’s also another England, an otherworldly Albion infused with strange magic. Nobody blinks when Deborah Kerr appears as three different characters over five decades. This is, it seems, not just the land of Elgar; it’s also the land of Merlin and the Green Man.
More poignantly, the film is a testament to the march of time. Twice Blimp and his German chum find themselves out of step, as young go-getter sabres and, later, as old- fashioned duffers.
For many years, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was only seen in a truncated version. This full-length print demonstrates that epics need not involve vast deserts or armies. This is a war film with almost no war in it, and it’s lovely spookiness remains undiminished.
