Sorry, this movie sucks

Excellent but underrated film

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

J. Arthur goes for quantity rather than quality is this interminable life story of a British officer, not a comedy as the comical newspaper character and whimsical incidental music implies, but a contemporary wartime drama, with some lovely swing and German music.The officer falls in love with a woman with extraordinary hats (one with an entire dead bird sprawled down the front) who ends up marrying a German officer in 1902.They later meet in WW1 and in WW2. Despite the title, the soldier is still alive at the end of the film. Product placements – Fry's cocoa and W. H. Smiths (newsagent).

I had the honour of watching The life and death of colonel Blimp and A matter of life and death both today, both films I thoroughly enjoyed. As a 27yr old British lad, it has only been now that I have been exposed to such gems that I wish I watched them earlier. I preferred TLANDOCB than AMOLAD, not to say that either one was an abomination because for me they are both marvellous. The main reason I liked TLANDOCB, for me, was how Roger Livesey played his character very well, such warmth almost satire like of what my perceived opinion of a British officer would had been in those days. Yes it was, in most ways, a satirical of the officer gentry types of that age. Although for me it wasn't all that, there was a lot more. The friendship struck between Clive Candy and Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff gives hope in this world that everyone should not be tarred with the same brush and good comes from anywhere irrespective from where they come from or what they have done. It has a theme of love and affection in the presence of the beautiful Deborah Kerr playing three characters (Edith Hunter, Barbara Wynne and Angela "Johnny" Cannon). How many other films would you see gentleman fight over the same woman yet here it is a lot more deeper which suggests more to the audience, without spoon feeding (which annoys me more about modern films in my era), as I do like to discuss films with my house mate. What I liked most about this film was how remarkable and fresh it was, considering this film was out in the early 40's it could easily pass as a film that was released later, much later. This film, without a doubt, should be comparable as an equal to "the third man", "It's a wonderful life", "The Godfather" or "12 angry men" to name a few. Moviegoers deserve more humbling productions as this and less mundane and mediocrity.Please send suggestions of what gems I should embark on next @ http://www.imdb.com/list/QdM7nPjVErY/Going to my local cinema is hard, there are only two screens there!

Although the days of Colonel Blimp are but a memory in the United Kingdom, The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp is a film that might be misinterpreted and misunderstood on this side of the Atlantic. I'm betting that most younger filmgoers would not be familiar with David Low's famous cartoon caricature of the British reactionary in the Twenties and Thirties. 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. When you see Roger Livesey in old age that was the perfect image of Low's creation.In the newspapers Low's caricature has a bit more acid thrown at him, he's a figure of derision. In the film Livesey is a well meaning fathead who thinks those maxims about fair play and good sportsmanship have a place in a country that is at war with a totally ruthless enemy. It's how the British see themselves and the film as propaganda was designed to knock those illusions out.Livesey delivers a marvelous performance and kudos have to go to the makeup department that producers Powell-Pressburger used in showing the aging of Livesey's character from a young lieutenant who while in Berlin gets into a duel with Anton Walbrook who becomes his lifelong friend despite the different sides their countries are on.Walbrook for me however gives the best performance in the film. 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.

This film is pure magic. It fully deserves to be in any list of the Top films of all time. That it was made during the second world war yet treats its topic with objectivity, humour and humanity places it in the category of true art. The story is engrossing, the characters so real that I find that no time at all seems to have passed between the beginning and the end titles. Roger Livesay characterises the many faces of Colonel Wynn-Candy with immense panache and an authenticity which amazes me. The cast provides the perfect backdrop for "Blimp" to realise that his time has passed, and the rules he considered ran the world are no longer valid. He is one of the iconic characters in cinema history, in the same class as Rick Blaine, Inspector Clouseau and Charles Foster Kane. It is pleasing to see that no-one has had the effrontery to try and re-make this classic. Watch this film.