365+ movies in 365 days: Day 209 - A Matter Of Life And Death

Micheal Powell and Emeric Pressburger are responsible for some of the best movies in British Cinema. Their accomplishments include The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, The Life And Death of Colonel Blimp, 49th Parallel, Peeping Tom and One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing. But their best film, and one of the best movies in all of British cinema, is A Matter Of Life And Death.


Americans will know the film as Stairway To Heaven because the U.S. distributor felt American audiences would not go see a movie with "death" in the title so soon after WWII.


The movie stars David Niven as  Squadron Leader Peter David Carter, an RAF pilot who's plane is shot down. He makes contact with a June (Kim Hunter),  an American WAC radio operator shortly before he bails out of his plane without a parachute, plummeting to certain death.


The next day he awakens washed up on a beach and discovers he somehow survived the fall. He searches out the radio operator and they fall in love.


Unfortunately Peter is missed in the other world, where the daily tally of lost souls does not add up. Peter's conductor (Marius Goring), a Frenchman who lost his head in one of their revolutions, reveals he lost Peter in the thick English fog. He is assigned to go collect Peter and conduct him to the other side. But Peter is in love and won't go. He demands an appeal, something that has never been done before in all of human history.


Peter reveals all this to June and her friend Doctor Frank Reeves (Roger Livesey) who believes Peter is suffering from a brain injury that must be operated on at once. The film also stars Raymond Massey as the prosecutor, an American killed at Concord and Lexington, who has an eternal grudge against the British. Abraham Sofaer is the heavenly judge and Richard Attenborough has a small part as an English pilot. 


The film never reveals whether Peter is hallucinating from his injury or does he actually experience other worldly events. The movie is shot in vivid technicolor except the parts in 'heaven" which are done in black and white, a reversal of films such as The Wizard of Oz.


The film itself is a reversal of the movie Here Comes Mr. Jordan. In that film a prizefighter is taken from a crashing plane too soon, and it was determined that he would have survived, and now a way must be found to restore him to human life. In A Matter Of Life And Death the pilot is taken too late and must fight for his right to keep on living. The filmmakers based the movie on a true story of a pilot who bailed out of his plane without a parachute and survived


The movie is an ode to everything British from it's history to it's language. Yet it was also an attempt to bridge the widening gap the English had with American soldiers in their country. The movie portrays an a British soldier falling in love with a Yank girl, instead of the other way around. The film also represents the struggle for power between America and Great Britain shortly after WWII.


The amazing production design and unique visual effects are impressive even for today's audiences. Powell and Pressburger had no fear in developing new techniques and special effects to tell their story. They capture the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of a tear drop on a rose petal, all in one film. Uniquely the duo were responsible for writing, directing and producing their own movies. They shared film credit for all three activities on one title card. They were not beholden to any studios and made the movies they wanted to make, without interference, which might explain why they are still popular today.

For a long time Americans saw an edited form of the movie. The tile was changed and a scene of a naked shepherd playing a flute amongst a herd of goats was removed for decency reasons. The boy is a pan figure and suggests to Peter that he might be in heaven. There is nothing indecent about the scene but Americans have always been prudes, even back in 1946.


Later the film would be chopped up even more for television broadcasts. It was only in the late 80's that Powell and Pressburger's films began to be truly appreciated and they were restored and screened at film festivals.


A Matter Of Life And Death finally made it's way onto DVD by Sony Classics in 2009. 


Total Film, a British movie magazine ranks A Matter Of Life And Death as the second greatest British film ever made, right after Get Carter.


It is a delightful, yet serious film that asks the question "Does love conqueror all?"


At The Movie House rating **** stars.