I Know Where I'm Going! [Criterion Collection]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

While awaiting access to England's Technicolor cameras for their upcoming super-production Stairway to Heaven, the producer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger dashed off a delightful "personal" project, I Know Where I'm Going. Young middle-class Englishwoman Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is determined to have the finer things in life, and to that end she plans to marry Sir Robert Bellinger (Norman Shelley), a wealthy, middle-aged industrialist whom she does not love. En route to the Island of Mull, where her future husband resides, Joan is stranded in a colorful Scottish seacoast town. Inclement weather keeps her grounded for a week, during which time she falls in love with young, insouciant naval officer Torquil McNeil (Roger Livesey). Ignoring the dictates of her heart (not to mention common sense), Joan stubbornly insists upon heading out to sea towards her marriage of convenience, but the exigencies of Mother Nature finally convince her that her future resides on the Mainland. A winner all the way, I Know Where I'm Going is full of large and small delights, including a wonderful sense of regional detail and endearing, three-dimensional characterizations (even the mercenary heroine is a likeable character). The film is easily one of the best of the Powell-Pressburger films of the 1940s, and arguably the team's all-time best romantic drama. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Audio: PCM Mono
• Screen: Black and White, Pan and Scan
• Subtitle: English

AWARDS

• Telluride Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 1977

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

• Producer:

  Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

• Screenwriter:

  Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

• Cinematographer:

  Erwin Hillier

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Walter Goehr

• Composer (Music Score):

  Allan Gray

• Editor:

  John Seabourne

• Art Director:

  Alfred Junge

• Associate Producer:

  George R. Busby

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Gordon K. McCallum

• Special Effects:

  George Blackwell, Charles Staffell

• Camera Operator:

  Cecil Cooney

REVIEW:

• Michael Powell's and Ermeric Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going was an unexpected movie at the time of its release. The two filmmakers, who usually shared joint credit as writer-producer-directors, had previously delighted audiences (and outraged officialdom) with their unusual films dealing with war-related subjects: 49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and A Canterbury Tale. I Know Where I'm Going was set during the war but takes place in Scotland, far from the fighting; the only sign of the world war being fought is the presence of some men in uniform, the austerity of life, and the fact that the hero (Roger Livesey) has only a short leave home, his first visit in five years. But the real focus of I Know Where I'm Going was how people would live, and approach life, after the war: specifically, whether the heroine (Wendy Hiller) would continue to be motivated by materialism or whether she (and the audience) would learn something better. Powell and Pressburger, who went corporately and creatively under the name of The Archers, had a message to send: that there were more joys to be found in the texture of life than in any material comforts, and that this lesson would be a more vital result of the war than the military victory that was already taken for granted. In many ways, I Know Where I'm Going was the first postwar film, anticipating such American classics as The Best Years of Our Lives, It's a Wonderful Life, and even, on the darker side of life, Crossfire. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi