I Know Where I'm Going!

Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller in I Know Where I'm Going!

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going!, from 1945, is a charming romance shot amidst the shadows of World War 2. Wendy Hiller plays a headstrong young Londoner who is travelling to a remote Scottish island to marry a much older captain of industry. In an introductory scene at a swank London restaurant, she informs her befuddled father of the imminent nuptials. The milieu is sophisticated and the tone is tart. Our heroine is being set up by the Archers to be knocked down by love and country manners. She is stranded by a storm in a rustic seaside village where she attracts the attentions of a naval officer on leave. He takes her to a barn dance celebrating a long time union which contrasts nicely with the cosmopolitan opening. Sparks fly.

One of the few things I found unsatisfying about the film was the male lead, Roger Livesey. His performance is workmanlike and not without charm, but he is not a good match for the flint and fire of Hiller. Despite losing twenty pounds for the role, Livesey seems more avuncular than dashing. It is a pity that James Mason, then at his saturnine peak and the first choice for the role, did not play the part because of financial wrangling with the Archers. It must not have been too bitter because he did pair with Helen Mirren in Powell's 1969 film Age of Consent; a nice, but slight effort. In I Know Where I'm Going!, Hiller is incandescent, as is Pamela Brown. I'm more familiar with these ladies when they played Baronesses and High Priestesses in the 60s and 70s, so it is a treat to see them together in their prime. The glowing close-ups of Brown attest to the place she held in Powell's heart. 

The Archers always seem more at ease with fantasy than reality and this film is no exception. Hiller's dream sequences are marvelous, utilizing superimpositions and a surreal sense of sight and sound. On the debit side, the sequences of a boat and its crew in peril are clunky. My father first clued me into the Archers when reminiscing about his college days when he would look forward to each new Archers release. He delighted in their films and waxed enthusiastically about them. He sparked my interest in the cinema, opening a magical world that enthralls me to this day. He would champion films that stood a bit outside the mainstream: Ophuls' The Exile, Huston's Beat the Devil, and Mulligan's The Stalking Moon. His tastes were hardly avant-garde, but he taught me, mostly by example, to develop my own critical faculties and not kowtow to prevailing notions. In time, I was able to return the favor. I was chuffed after I sent him a VHS of History is Made at Night and he told me that he enjoyed it so much, he watched it twice in a row. Powell's work was no longer fashionable when my Dad first mentioned it me in the mid-70s, but critical winds have changed and he is now acknowledged as one of the premier English filmmakers. Dad, I promise I'll get to Oh...Rosalinda!! before I join you behind the veil.