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David Niven stars as the wounded pilot forced to bail out after the Germans shot up his plane... but he had no parachute!
He awakens on a beach, scarcely believing his survival. Immediately before he bailed, as his plane became engulfed in flames, he asked the young woman station operator to say goodbye to his parents-- and he romanced her, expressing sorrow that he'd never meet the woman behind the beautiful voice.
Soon after his miraculous survival, he does meet her, they fall in love. At this point, we are shown that indeed he perished but the "collector" from heaven was tardy. Niven's character argues that it is unfair for him to be taken because he has fallen in love and the situation has changed.
With such a charming pretense, we enter a make-believe world, brilliantly imagined, created, and filmed. The only film with which to compare it is Cocteau's very different but equally delightful and fantastic, "Orpheus."
This film also is known by the title of, "Stairway to Heaven."
By any title, it is an intelligent, amusing, and brilliant commentary not just upon love, but life.
How rare to see such wisdom, such high feelings shamelessly put forth!
Follow Ups:
*
Although I prefer to think of the Archers as Powell & Pressburger. :-)
When you asked for a description of the film back in January before you rented it, here's what I replied to entice you to view it - and I'm very glad you enjoyed this great classic from P&P in its new edition:
"A description? Isn't being one of the best and best loved of the Archers enough?
[This is] Powell and Pressberger at their peak, which ought to tell you all you need to know about one of the most cinematic duos in movie history.
From Amazon.com's Robert Horton:
*"A Matter of Life and Death is one of the best films by the storied English filmmaking team known as the Archers: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Among other felicities, this 1946 fantasy has one of the most crackling opening ten minutes of any movie you'll ever see: after a deceptively dreamy prologue, we are thrown into the conversation between an airman (David Niven) whose torched plane is about to crash in the English Channel, and an American military radio operator (Kim Hunter) operating the radio on the ground. Their touching exchange, made urgent by his imminent death, is breathtakingly visualized (you have never seen a WWII plane interior quite as vividly as this). What follows is glorious: Niven's death has been missed by an otherworldly collector (Marius Goring)--all that thick English fog, you know--and so he gets to argue his case for life before a heavenly tribunal. The heaven sequences are in pearly black-and-white, the earthly material in stunning Technicolor (the color is the cause of a particularly good in-joke). The Powell-Pressburger brief on behalf of humanity is both romantic and witty, and the wonderful cast is especially enriched by Roger Livesey (the star of Powell and Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp), as a doctor with a camera obscura and an enormous heart."*
"This is a wonderful and inventive film. I love it, although I probably haven't seen in in 15 years - an ommission I plan to remedy very soon, with joy. Niven is excellent in it, while the supporting cast is purely marvelous.
I think the best way to prepare for it is NOT to prepare or read reviews but to watch it and enjoy it with as clean an eye as possible. Like all great movies, it speaks for itself."
And as I said before, the Michael Powell and Archers run of films through the 40s and early 50s is one of the greatest runs of cinematic excellence in movie history. Powell was one of the greatest visual story tellers, and it's a joy to watch his films.
So - have you seen I Know Where I'm Going?
on going through the dynamic duo's oeuvre.
I'm buying Stairway to Heaven next paycheck. I'll increase my row of Archers shelf space.
You have a lot to look forward to...and don't forget Tales Of Hoffman in your traversal, plus Powell's Peeping Tom, the film that essentially ended his career in England. It's still a very unsettling film.
d
Curiously I saw it recently and I found it boring and outdated.
and that may explain some of the massive hostility and replulsion by most of those who saw it in the 60's.
I've seen a few echoes of 'Peeping Tom' in some of the Japanese horror films from the 70's right up to recent years.
J.B.
d
And david was quite a good actor!
requiring the portrayal of emotions and qualities which even at that time were being questioned: bravery, selflessness, total devotion.
He also wrote two books. Very funny.
He was a nice guy.
blowhard like John Wayne wimped out.
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