A Matter of Life and Death
All actors and roles (10)
Short description
A Matter of Life and Death follows Peter Carter, a British Royal Air Force pilot whose bomber is going down during the Second World War. With no usable parachute, he makes radio contact with June, an American operator, and the two fall for each other over the airwaves before he jumps. He survives the fall, which by rights should have killed him; an otherworldly messenger sent to collect him lost his way in the fog, and the error allows Peter and June to meet and begin a romance. When the mistake is discovered, Peter must plead his case before a celestial tribunal that will decide whether he may stay alive, while on Earth doctors fight to save him from a brain injury.
The film was written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the partnership behind The Archers, and it followed their 1943 feature The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, arriving two years later. David Niven leads as Peter, with Kim Hunter as June, Roger Livesey as Doctor Reeves and Marius Goring as the heavenly conductor. Twenty-nine performers are credited.
Released in December 1946, the film is a fantasy romance that moves between wartime England, both real and imagined heavens, and a hospital ward. On IMDb it holds 8 out of 10 from around 28,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.7 from roughly 488 votes. A critics' rating of 9.1 from 38 reviews places it above both audience scores. It earned about 2 million dollars worldwide.
What's left behind the scenes
- It took 3 months and £3,000 to create the enormous escalator connecting our world to the fictional one. It had 106 steps, each 6 meters wide, and was powered by a 12 horsepower engine.
- The first scene filmed was the one where David Niven's character (1910-1983) bathes on the shore. Initially, the idea was for the scene to emerge from an initially black background, but director Michael Powell (1905-1990) didn't like this concept. Then, cinematographer Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) asked him to look at the scene through the camera lens and deliberately exhaled on it, fogging it up for a moment, but the breath evaporated after a few seconds, and the lens cleared. Powell liked this very much, and this technique was used in the film.
- Director Michael Powell saw then-unknown actress Kim Hunter (1922-2002) during a visit to Hollywood in 1945 and immediately decided to cast her as June, largely following the recommendations of Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980), who had recently been auditioning actors for his upcoming film 'Notorious' (1946), and where she had participated in screen tests. The problem was that Hunter herself wasn't visible on screen during these tests; only her voice was heard, as she was simply prompting lines to the actors directly involved in the auditions. Hitchcock assured Powell that he would arrange a personal meeting with Hunter and her agent so that he could decide for himself if she was suitable for the role of David Niven's screen partner. After the very first meeting with Hunter, the director decided that she was indeed perfectly suited for the part.
- The source of inspiration for the situation concerning Peter's health was the semi-autobiographical novel by Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy (1887-1938) 'Round-Trip to Jerusalem' (1937). More detailed information was obtained through one of the directors and screenwriters, Emeric Pressburger (1902-1988), spending time at the British Library and consulting with Michael Powell's brother, who worked as a plastic surgeon in London.
- The mechanisms of the giant escalator made such a racket that all sounds in the corresponding scenes had to be added during post-production.
- The original title translates as "A Question of Life and Death".
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