tomgillespie2002 Legendary directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are best known for their glorious Technicolor achievements. Their impressive careers delivered the likes of The Thief of Bagdad, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman, all sumptuous and sweeping pictures that now feel way ahead of their time. Earlier in their careers, they were also responsible for 'smaller' films set in and around Powell's native Britain (Pressburger was born in Austria-Hungary but died in the country he spent most of his working life in). One such film, from 1945, is I Know Where I'm Going!, a charming little romantic drama set on the Scottish Hebrides.Ambitious and headstrong young Englishwoman Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) has known how her life will pan out ever since she was a little girl. Much to the concern of her father (George Carney), she is to marry wealthy, and much older, industrialist Sir Robert Bellinger, who owns a lavish home on the remote island of Kiloran. When she arrives by boat on a nearby island, the area is so thick with fog that to complete the last leg of her journey would be an impossible and life-threatening task. As a result, Joan is forced to wait for better weather on the Isle of Mull, where she meets handsome young naval officer Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey), who is on shore leave and also trying to make it to Kiloran. The weather doesn't improve, and the more time Joan spends with her new acquaintance, the more torn she becomes between ambition and love.Powell and Pressburger made films in colour prior to 1945, but I Know Where I'm Going! isn't any less visually inspiring due to being shot in black-and-white. Cinematographer Erwin Hillier (who had worked with the directors on A Canterbury Tale) captures the Hebrides as a cold, unforgiving part of the world, lashed by constant rain storms and its inhabitants threatened by a nearby whirlpool. Yet it's also serene, untouched by the modern world, albeit invaded by unwanted rich folk. Of course, it's all a metaphor for Joan's emotions, as she decides between the calmer, gentler lands on which she currently walks or braving the dark, dangerous unknown. She claims to know just where she's going, but does her heart tell her otherwise? Events won't surprise you, but you'll be swept up in the film's flow and sentiment nevertheless. Hiller and Livesey form an attractive couple with plenty of chemistry, and Hillier's camera will have you swooning over the locations.

lasttimeisaw The Archers' (Powell and Pressburger) Black-and-White romance, shot during wartime, just prior to their foray into Technicolor. In the center stage of it is a middle-class English woman Joan Webster (Hiller), accentuated by the titular motto, she is a headstrong city gal, endowed with a limpid mind, and always knows what she wants ever since she is a little girl (real silk stockings). After a succinct prologue traversing through her childhood to adulthood, now at the age of 25, Joan is going to marry a magnate of chemical business, and their wedding will be held in the (fictitious) Isle of Kiloran, but there is a catch, is this affluent but much older fiancé is the right man for her? That is the time-honored dilemma sets to disorient the self-willed soul of Joan, with a little help of a well-timed gale standing between her and the island, ever so close, but cannot reach, nature has unleashed a warning sign of this matrimony. Thus, after traveling from Manchester through sundry methods of transports, Joan is stuck in the Isle of Mull, impatiently waits for the blustering gale to lull, and she meets the local denizens and a tinge of romance troublingly budding between her and Torquil MacNeil (Livesey), a navy officer who plans to spend his furlough on Kiloran as well, a subplot concerns an ancient curse subjected to the laird of Kiloran would serve as a sterling springboard for the pair to realize their true feelings for each other. But, their chemistry, the magic that leaves one's heart palpitating with hankering doesn't make for a leavening feeling of entrancement, albeit Hiller's emotive rendition is pitch- perfect and bursting with niceties. So Joan, portrayed as a self-seeking and reckless woman purported by the modern air of independence, falls for a nondescript character like Torquil (easy- going but blue-blooded) as a contingency when she has learned a lesson from her own mistake of preferring monetary security to a more organic life, the eloquence is rather deficient, conversely it also makes Torquil's choice of Joan, a city girl with glamour, over his long-time friend Catriona Potts (a shimmering Pamela Brown), an expansive huntress, sounds awkwardly hypocritical, the film's ethnographic message certainly hits the right mark, but its sex politics fails to launch in afterthought. Be that as it may, the film is an absolute gas to behold, not the least for its sterling cinematography, elemental and picturesque (makes one wonder what it would look like if it were shot in colors), particularly, the eye-opening, studio-bounded money shots of the monstrous Corryvreckan whirlpool, starkly conjures up its cinematic allure for progeny to ponder about The Archers' studious work ethic and their state-of-the-art craftsmanship.

bkoganbing Although Roger Livesey is usually not your typical leading man he steps out of class here and delivers as a fine performance as the rugged Scot sea captain who makes Wendy Hiller his own. As for Wendy Hiller. I Know Where I'm Going is one of her best films, she delivers a fine performance as a young woman who up to her mid 20s knows exactly what she wants.What she wants to get to a private island in the New Hebrides up in Scotland, privately owned by a titled millionaire who has her as a trophy bride in his declining years. But she gets stuck on one the mainland as the seas get rough and no Scot with a brain in his head is willing to risk any kind of sea craft in a storm. Especially since there's a nasty old whirlpool that's sucked many craft to Davy Jones locker.So Hiller is spending some enforced time in Scotland and while it might not be the green Scotland of Brigadoon the sea coast and the people do have a charm of their own. This is the greatest strength of I Know Where I'm Going, the accurate and colorful depiction of the Scottish fisher folk and their ways.The second are some really hair raising sequences involving Hiller and Livesey when they finally do make an attempt to get to that private island. By that time both of them are having second thoughts.This is one pleasant and charming film, a must for fans of Wendy Hiller. s

accidentaldays Have you ever fallen in love with a movie? In love with a film that speaks to your heart and your sense of whimsy? I have tried to recall what led me to this movie, to no avail. But, ohhh, I am so glad this movie came into my life. Because I have waited for such a movie all my life. It's a simple story: A youngish woman travels far from home to marry a rich man. But choppy waters delay her trip from the mainland to her intended's island. It's the atmosphere that makes it somewhat like a fairytale. Gaelic is spoken here and there. The fog moves in and out. The winds stir up the water and the grasses and trees. You can here the "seels" baying nearby. At a ceilidh, folk music is sung and two young lovers reconnect. In a mansion nearby, new money meets old money and the new money is looked down upon in subtle ways. I guess it was the fog that shrouds the landscape. It obscures the romantic tendencies in almost every character. Sometimes emotions erupt, as when a young girl pleads for a boat journey to be aborted so her lover won't die. So many things to watch for in this movie. Roger Livesey is at his best as the correct and courteous Torquil MacNeil, the master of the island he is renting out to Wendy Hiller's "rich man." As Joan Webster, Hiller, is an upward climber. The old money knows this and she resents it. The class undercurrents are numerous. I fell in love with this movie, perhaps, as the dock. When somber music wafts and fog shrouds the bay and the seafarers retreat to their homes, leaving Joan alone on the dock. When the wind snatches her itinerary into the water, its symbolism is not overdone. Perhaps that is what I like about this movie. Nothing much is overdone. People speak like people. Well, Gaelic people. And the upper crust is as much at home with the lower crust. And outsiders have to earn their way into that society. Poor Joan, she can't see that right away. I fell in love with this movie. I think, if you give it a chance, you will too.