52 Movies: Week 4 - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) is based on a cartoon figure quite unlike Spiderman or Superman. Colonel Blimp was a widely familiar newspaper ‘funny’, a portly man of strong but not always consistent or coherent views, typically holding forth in the Turkish baths. The film gives this two-dimensional vehicle of satire a name, Clive Wynne-Candy, and imagines a life story for him, stretching from 1902, when he is a young, decorated officer on leave from the Boer War, to 1943, when he is the portly figure of the cartoons, and as head of the Home Guard is about to oversee a large-scale exercise for the defence of London. We first meet him being interrupted from relaxing in the Turkish baths in the basement of his club by an impudent young officer’s “pre-emptive strike” the afternoon before the exercise is due to start.

One of the earlier Technicolor feature films made in Britain, Colonel Blimp is technically superb, amusingly written, and at times movingly acted. In the opening sequence the camera dizzyingly weaves in and around a phalanx of motorcycle messengers carrying the orders for the exercise (“War starts at midnight”). The portrayal of the TT races in George Formby’s breakthrough picture No Limit, much praised at the time, looks static by comparison.

Although it is very plainly a propaganda film, Blimp was controversial when it was made and questions were raised in high places as to whether it was opportune to release it. There seem to have been two sources of concern. One was that the portrayal of the pre-war officers of the professional armed forces as ‘blimpish’, hidebound old duffers was thought likely to be unconstructive in terms of morale. The other was that one of the two axes around which the plot revolves is the colonel’s relationship with a Prussian counterpart, a ‘good German’, who has some of the best lines in the film. Having a good German at all was a step too far for some.

In his Autobiography G. K. Chesterton wrote of British propaganda in the First World War, which included works such as his Crimes of England (in which the main crime of England turns out to have been being far too pro-German prior to 1914):

...to write of the Crimes of England, under that naked title, was at that time liable to misunderstanding; and I believe that in some places the book was banned like a pacifist pamphlet. [. . .] My old friend Masterman, in charge of one Propaganda Department, told me with great pride that his enemies were complaining that no British propaganda was being pushed in Spain or Sweden. At this he crowed aloud with glee; for it meant that propaganda like mine was being absorbed without people even knowing it was propaganda. [. . .] The fools who baited Masterman would have published it with a Union Jack cover and a picture of the British Lion, so that hardly one Spaniard would read it, and no Spaniard would believe it. It was in matters of that sort that the rather subtle individuality of Masterman was so superior to his political surroundings.

The same sort of conflict between proponents of ‘subtle’ and ‘blatant’ propaganda was played out in 1943 at the Ministry of Information (which was, after all, one of the main inspirations for Orwell’s Ministry of Truth). A confidential screening of the final cut allayed enough fears for the film to be cleared for release. Ironically, one crisis in the plot of Blimp comes when, early in the Second World War, Wynne-Candy is due to give a talk to the BBC; not only is the broadcast cancelled under ministry pressure (with J. B. Priestley substituted at the last minute), but Candy is removed from the active list as no longer fit for service — hence his move to the Home Guard.

The film opens in 1943, on the eve of the Home Guard defence exercise, then flashes back to 1902, and from there builds forward into the present again for the climax and denouement — the protagonist’s admission that he is rather a stick-in-the-mud and perhaps new times do require new thinking. Chronologically the oldest point in the plot is that Candy, on leave from the Boer War, is interviewed by The Times. After reading the interview, an English governess in Berlin writes to him asking if he couldn’t come to Germany to counter some of the anti-British lies being spread by the newspapers there. He does so, contrary to official advice, then inadvertently insults the entire officer corps of the German Imperial Army, and to preserve Britain’s honour has to fight a duel with a German officer chosen by lot. The Prussian duel is presented as quaint and somewhat ludicrous, rather than sinister, which seems something of an achievement in the atmosphere of 1943. The scriptwriter, Emeric Pressburger, was himself an immensely anglophile Hungarian refugee, who could combine a nostalgia for pre-Hitlerian Central Europe with a warm but keen eye for English foibles. Candy’s opponent in the duel becomes his friend for life, and before the end of the film ends up a refugee in England.

Roger Livesey, who was in his 30s at the time, plays Candy in his late 20s (for the Boer War), in his early 40s (First World War), and in his mid 60s (Second World War), having to age 40 years over the course of the film. It is a remarkable achievement, skilfully done. His German counterpart, played by the Austrian refugee actor Anton Walbrook (originally Adolf Wohlbrück), has to do the same, but on the whole less successfully — his old man strikes me as much stagier. The leading lady, Deborah Kerr (later to be Anna in The King and I), got top billing, and doesn’t age a day. She plays a different part in each chronological section: first the patriotic and pedantic governess with whom Captain Candy realizes too late he has fallen in love (she has already fallen for the German); then an exhausted First World War nurse, who looks just like Colonel Candy’s old flame; and finally the chirpy, rather working-class driver that General Candy picks from the Army motor pool, from among 700 candidates, for reasons she cannot fathom.

While too subtle for the ‘blatant’ propagandists, the film has a very clear message that it hammers home in various ways. This is simply that Nazism is so evil that no qualms should stand in the way of doing whatever may be possible, however repugnant, to fight against it. A sweet old fuddy-duddy from a bygone age might think “I would rather lose my freedom than sink to such methods to defend it” (and naively think the BBC would let him tell the nation that), but realists knew that flinching from doing the previously unthinkable could only lead to defeat.

The year before Blimp the writer-director team, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, had brought out a very different film — black and white, pared back, natural sound only — about a downed bomber crew in occupied Holland trying to elude German capture: One of Our Aircraft is Missing, which I hope to return to in a later post. That film too had a very simple, central message. To caricature it only very slightly, if at all, it is that civilians in occupied countries loved being bombed, because they could see it hurt the Germans.

Powell and Pressburger went on to their greatest triumph after the war with Black Narcissus, based on a novel by Rumer Godden.

—Paul has been reading the blog since 2008, when Janet drew his attention to a discussion about Brideshead Revisited. He currently trains translators in Brussels.

Comments

[Paul]

I had decided that I would try to watch Yojimbo before Rob G's piece about it went up, to be able to engage meaningfully in the discussion (regretting not being able to do much more than take note of the films Janet and Stu discussed, not having seen them). I have seen Yojimbo, but many years ago on late-night television. I watched the first half an hour two nights ago, then was interrupted and have not been able to get back to it. So hopefully, by the time Rob G's piece does appear, I will have found an opportunity to watch it through completely.

[Janet]

We watched Colonel Blimp a few years ago, but I just barely remember it. Now I want to see it again.

AMDG

[Rob G]

I'll have it in in time for next week, Paul. I ran into some unplanned scheduling problems, but it's about 3/4 done.

[Paul]

I'll have to get a move on then :-/

[Mac]

Colonel Blimp is listed on Netflix but with only the "Save" option, which means it's in limbo and might or might not be available someday. I haven't checked beyond Paul's clips, but I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing were on YouTube. Certainly looks like something I would enjoy.

[Mac]

The dvd is from Criterion Collection, which is about as close to a guarantee of quality as one is likely to find.

[Janet]

I wonder how we saw it? Of course, Netflix cycles things in and out.

AMDG

[Mac]

Right, it may well have been there. Recently they've been moving more out than in, it seems.

[Grumpy]

I had no idea that Colonel Blimp was a movie character

[Paul]

What Alasdair MacIntyre says at 49min50 in this video throws an interesting light both on Blimp and on One of Our Aircraft is Missing.

[Grumpy]

One year in NYC is 55 weeks away from A. MacIntyre

[Mac]

??

[Paul]

Does absence not make the heart grow fonder?

[Grumpy]

I actually heard 45 minutes of glacial horror from him at the Ethics conference - he was talking about the many expressions of free speech which the government ought to ban, such as, criticism of vaccination.

[Grumpy]

the ethics conference in November was on 'Freedom'. Mac was agin it.

[Janet]

That took me aback for a moment until I figured out you weren't talking about our Mac.

AMDG

[Mac]

I'm agin so many things that I didn't reject the idea immediately. But I couldn't figure out why I would have been agin a conference.

[Craig]

I discovered MacIntyre's ND talk on YouTube the other day, and started watching it, but gave up after a few minutes.

I also found the one with DB Hart and J Betz, which I remember Grumpy mentioned here at the time, but I haven't been able to watch it yet.

[Paul]

Well, I'm not sure his point that it is no harm to freedom for pollution, tax evasion, truancy from school, draft dodging, drug dealing, gang violence, and various other activities to be constrained and discouraged by coercion is one I could disagree with.

In the speech on YouTube he doesn't mention banning any form of speech. He says it is important for children to learn to understand what others are saying, not that anybody should be prevented from saying anything. Was there a discussion afterwards that went in a different direction?

His main point is that while punishing wrong-doers is justifiable, long-term investment in public education is far more important in producing good citizens than any legal disincentive to bad citizenship might be.

[Paul]

The video is here, if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaH9wjpam98

[Paul]

Turns out there's a much longer version here, in which he does clearly say that propagating false information about vaccines is ot something people can get away with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHZYI9FnC9g

I take him there to be referring to the doctor who was struck off for doing just that. But yes, a couple of remarks in the full version that is (strangely) not on the conference YouTube channel does show his early inclination to Trotskyism more than anything he has written since the 1980s.

The Q&A session at the end I found very interesting.

[Mac]

Half an hour--maybe I can find time to watch it later today. I did listen to the relevant bit in the video you linked to earlier. Very interesting--I had no idea there had been an argument about bombing civilians that initially involved an actual refusal to do it.

[Mac]

Cross-posted.

[Paul]

One would expect a Thomist in most situations to take the view that since in choosing or rejecting opinions of this kind a person should not be influenced either by a liking or dislike for the one introducing the opinion, but rather by the certainty of truth, he therefore says that we must respect both parties, namely, those whose opinion we follow, and those whose opinion we reject. For both have diligently sought the truth and have aided us in this matter. Yet we must “be persuaded by the more certain,” i.e., we must follow the opinion of those who have attained the truth with greater certitude. (Commentary on the Metaphysics, book 12, lesson 9)

[Grumpy]

well no, I was sitting in the audience and he was giving examples of the many forms of coercion he thinks are wise and prudent in contemporary America, and he specifically mentioned that anti-vaxxers should be severely penalized for expressing their opinions because these opinions are false.

[Grumpy]

I'm quite sure this is not just faulty memory because other people who were present at MacIntyre's talk, who do not have my habitual dislike of the man and his thought, were also horrified by his talk.

[Paul]

I've listened to the relevant parts of the recording of his talk three times now, and he doesn't frame it as a question of free expression at all. He says that the government should ignore the opinions of anti-vaxers and vaccinate their children against their wishes, because not to do so endangers the lives of their own children and of other children. One can take issue with this, but it is not at all the same thing as saying that people should be penalized for expressing an opinion. He does think it was quite right to penalize the doctor who fraudulently claimed to have established a link between vaccines and autism, but again that is a rather different question.

[Mac]

I don't have much of a prejudice either way about Macintyre (a slight tilt toward favorable, I guess), because I've never read him. But the whole question of free speech is a pretty fascinating one. I think there are good reasons...ok, fairly good...arguments in the abstract for suppressing ideas that are truly harmful. The utilitarian idea of a free market of ideas pretty much crumbles in the face of the reality of the way most people's minds operate. But I find it difficult to imagine a scenario in which the ability to suppress harmful ideas would not be abused, most likely to the detriment of the cause in which the suppression is being done.

[Grumpy]

Mac that was the main reason for the horror expressed by everyone I spoke to about MacIntyre's talk. To put what he said into practice would lead directly to the suppression of all freedom of belief, in the contemporary context.

Paul it must have been in the QandA that MacIntyre gave opionions about vaxxing as an example of opinions that should be penalized.

Im not interested in being in a conversation with anyone who is good with MacIntyre's speech.