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A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
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Overview
User Rating:
Your Rating:
Directors:
Writers:
Release Date:
March 1947 (USA)
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Tagline:
Neither Heaven nor Earth could keep them apart! more
Plot:
A British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court. full summary | add synopsis
Awards:
1 win
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NewsDesk:
(14 articles)
Supernatural 5.13 "The Song Remains the Same" Review
(From TVovermind.com. 5 February 2010, 1:00 AM, PST)
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(From TVovermind.com. 5 February 2010, 1:00 AM, PST)
Mary J. Blige to Re-Record Led Zeppelin's Classic With Supergroup
(From Aceshowbiz. 4 February 2010, 1:39 AM, PST)
User Reviews:
Stunning archery
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Cast
(Complete credited cast)| David Niven | ... | Peter Carter | |
| Kim Hunter | ... | June | |
| Robert Coote | ... | Bob Trubshawe | |
| Kathleen Byron | ... | An Angel | |
| Richard Attenborough | ... | An English Pilot | |
| Bonar Colleano | ... | An American Pilot (also as Bonor Colleano) | |
| Joan Maude | ... | Chief Recorder | |
| Marius Goring | ... | Conductor 71 | |
| Roger Livesey | ... | Doctor Frank Reeves | |
| Robert Atkins | ... | The Vicar | |
| Bob Roberts | ... | Dr. Gaertler | |
| Edwin Max | ... | Dr. McEwen | |
| Betty Potter | ... | Mrs. Tucker | |
| Abraham Sofaer | ... | The Judge / The Surgeon | |
| Raymond Massey | ... | Abraham Farlan |
Additional Details
Also Known As:
Stairway to Heaven (USA)
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MPAA:
Rated PG for thematic elements.
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
104 min
Country:
Color:
Black and White (Dye-Monochrome) |
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Recording)
Certification:
Portugal:M/12 |
USA:PG (1995) |
USA:TV-PG (TV rating) |
USA:Approved (PCA #11724) |
West Germany:16 |
Finland:K-16 |
Spain:T |
UK:U (video rating) (1995) (uncut) |
UK:A (original rating) (cut) |
Ireland:G
Filming Locations:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie under the alternate title "STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN" on April 12, 1955 with David Niven reprising his film role.
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Goofs:
Continuity: Peter walks slowly up a very wet beach, shedding his flying gear and one boot. The camera switches to a long shot showing a line of gear and Peter in completely dry sand, the surf a long way off. Also, his shadow jumps to a different direction, indicating the passage of at least 3 hours. The pile of clothes behind him also differs between the close and the long shots.
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Movie Connections:
Spoofed in "Big Train: (#1.4)" (1998)
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Soundtrack:
Shoo Shoo Baby
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FAQ
Did it really happen?Did they use CGI?
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The opening flourishes left me purring with delight at their inventiveness - the altered version of the Archers' logo, the introductory disclaimer, the way the camera pans over the cosmos. It's strange to think that `It's a Wonderful Life' came out in the same year. No great coincidence: the 1940s was awash with heaven-and-earth films; but the glowing cotton wool nebulas and cutesy angels of the competition look tattered, something best passed over in silence, when placed next to Alfred Junge's vision.
It continues to look great all the way through, as more and more striking ideas are sprung upon us. I'm not a great fan of mixing colour with black and white in general. One of the two visual schemes almost always looks ugly when placed next to the other. Not so here. Powell dissolves colour into monochrome and monochrome into colour as if it's the most natural thing in the world, a mere change of palettes. Both the colour photography and the black and white could stand on their own.
As for the story ... this may be Pressburger's best script, or at least it would have been had the conclusion been a more logical outcome of preceding events. Other than that it's tight, yet with more going on than I can possibly allude to here. Was the heavenly stuff real or imaginary? (Or both? Perhaps Carter dreamt up a fantasy that was, as it so happened, true.) Everyone says we're meant to neither ask nor answer this question, but I don't see why. I'm sure we ARE meant to ask the question. The film even gives us clues as to what the answer is - indeed, the problem is that there are too many clues and they seem at first to be pointing in different directions. The fact that other things ought to occupy our attention as well doesn't mean that this shouldn't occupy us as well. There is, as I've said before, a lot going on.
Consider the scene in which Abraham Farlan (Heaven's prosecuting lawyer) plays a radio broadcast of a cricket match, and contemptuously says, `The voice of England, 1945.' Dr. Reeves (the defence) acknowledges the exhibit with a great deal of embarrassment, and then produces one of his own: a blues song from America, which Farlan listens to as though he's got a lemon in his mouth. Reeves looks smug.
Snobbery? Well, I don't see why it's snobbish to condemn blues music - and that's not what Powell and Pressburger are doing, anyway. As the song is being played, we get a shot of the American soldiers listening to it: several of them nod their heads to the rhythm, perfectly at home. THEY don't find it incomprehensible. There's something valuable about the song and neither Reeves nor Farlan knows what it is. Reeves probably realises as much. All English audiences (and all Australian, Indian, etc. audiences as well) know without being told that there is something of value in the cricket broadcast, too; and that while Reeves understands THAT, he is unable to explain it to Farlan - hence the blues broadcast, which shows that people can understand each other without sharing an understanding of everything else. It's a clever scene.
One last thing. I found David Niven a bit cold, without the charisma he would acquire later in his career; but even so, I don't think a film has grabbed my heart quite so quickly after the action began, as this one did.