I Know Where I'm Going!

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I Know Where I'm Going!
I Know Where I'm Going! poster
Directed by	Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger
Produced by	Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger
Written by	Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger
Starring	Wendy Hiller Roger Livesey Pamela Brown Finlay Currie Petula Clark
Music by	Allan Gray
Cinematography	Erwin Hillier
Editing by	John Seabourne Sr.
Distributed by	General Film Distributors
Release date(s)	November 16, 1945 (UK) August 9, 1947 (US)
Running time	88 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English Gaelic
Budget	£200,000 (estimated)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

I Know Where I'm Going! is a 1945 romance film by the British-based film-makers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Cast 3 Production 4 Criticism 5 References 5.1 Notes 5.2 Bibliography 5.3 External links 6 DVD reviews 6.1 Region 1 6.2 Region 2

[edit] Synopsis

Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is a young Englishwoman from a safe middle-class background, but with an ambitious, independent spirit. She knows where she's going, or she thinks she does. She travels to the Scottish isles to marry Sir Robert Bellinger, a much older, wealthy industrialist, on the Isle of Kiloran.

When a gale prevents her taking a boat to Kiloran, she is forced to wait it out on the Isle of Mull, among a community of people with values quite foreign to her. There she meets Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey), a handsome naval officer trying to go home for some shore leave. MacNeil, the laird of Kiloran, has leased his island to Bellinger. As the bad weather continues, he takes advantage of the delay to woo Joan, who becomes increasingly unsure about her ambitions.

The film also features Pamela Brown as Catriona Potts, an independently-spirited country woman, Finlay Currie as a dour fisherman and boatman, a cameo from John Laurie, and an early appearance by a 13 year old Petula Clark as Cheril, a precocious little girl.

[edit] Cast

• Wendy Hiller as Joan Webster
• Roger Livesey as Torquil MacNeil
• Pamela Brown as Catriona
• Finlay Currie as Ruairidh Mhór
• George Carney as Mr. Webster
• Nancy Price as Mrs. Crozier
• Catherine Lacey as Mrs. Robinson
• Jean Cadell as the Postmistress
• John Laurie as John Campbell
• Valentine Dyall as Mr. Robinson

[edit] Production

The original story and the whole screenplay were written in less than a week. Pressburger said it just flowed naturally.^[1]

The film was shot in black and white while Powell and Pressburger were waiting for Technicolor film to begin making their next film, A Matter of Life and Death (colour film was in short supply in wartime Britain). It was the second and last collaboration between the co-directors and cinematographer Erwin Hillier (who shot the entire film without using a light meter).^[2]

From various topographical references and a map briefly shown in the film, it is clear that the Isle of Kiloran is based on Colonsay. The name Kiloran was borrowed from one of Colonsay's beaches, Kiloran Bay. The heroine of the film is trying to get to Kiloran (Colonsay), but nobody ever gets there. No footage was shot on Colonsay.

One of the most complex scenes is the small boat battling through the Corryvreckan whirlpool. This was a clever combination of footage shot at Corryvreckan between the Hebridean islands of Scarba and Jura and the Gray Dogs (Bealach a'Choin Ghlais) between Scarba and Lunga.^[3] There are some long distance shots looking down over the area, shot from one of the islands. There are some middle distance and close-up shots that were made from a small boat with a hand-held camera. There were some model shots, done in the tank at the studio. These had gelatin added to the water so that it would hold its shape better and would look better when scaled up. Usually the way that waves break and the size of water drops is a give-away for model shots done in a tank. Then there were also the close-up shots of the people in the boat. These were all done in the studio, with a boat on gimbals being rocked in all directions by some hefty studio hands while other studio hands threw buckets of water at them. These were filmed with the shots made from the boat with the hand-held camera projected behind them.^[4] Even then, there was further trickery where they joined together some of the long and middle distance shots with those made in the tank in a single frame.

Another aspect of production complexity is the fact that Roger Livesey was not able to travel to Scotland as he was performing in a West End play,^[5] so all of his scenes were shot in the studio at Denham and a double was used in all of his scenes shot in Scotland. These shots were then mixed so that the same scene would often have a middle distance shot of the double and then a close up of Livesey or a shot of the double's back and then a shot showing Livesey's face. As noted in the Criterion DVD commentary, this has to have been one of the most successful examples of editing in a performance of a lead character that never got within 500 miles of the location filming!

[edit] Criticism

The film has received accolades from many critics:

• "I've never seen a picture which smelled of the wind and rain in quite this way nor one which so beautifully exploited the kind of scenery people actually live with, rather than the kind which is commercialized as a show place." - Raymond Chandler, Letters.^[6]
• "The cast makes the best possible use of some natural, unforced dialogue, and there is some glorious outdoor photography." - The Times, November 14, 1945
• "[It] has interest and integrity. It deserves to have successors." - The Guardian, November 16, 1945
• "I reached the point of thinking there were no more masterpieces to discover, until I saw I Know Where I'm Going!" - Martin Scorsese^[2]
• The film critic Barry Norman included it among his 100 greatest films of all time.

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

[edit] DVD reviews

[edit] Region 1

[edit] Region 2

• Review by Noel Megahey at DVD Times (UK)
• Review (in french) at DVD Classik (France)

v • d • e Powell and Pressburger The films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger 1930s The Spy in Black • The Lion Has Wings (not Pressburger) 1940s Contraband • An Airman's Letter to His Mother • Forty-Ninth Parallel • One of Our Aircraft is Missing • The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp • The Volunteer • A Canterbury Tale • I Know Where I'm Going! • A Matter of Life and Death • Black Narcissus • The Red Shoes • The Small Back Room 1950s The Elusive Pimpernel • Gone to Earth • The Tales of Hoffmann • Oh... Rosalinda!! • The Battle of the River Plate • Ill Met by Moonlight 1960s Peeping Tom (not Pressburger) • They're a Weird Mob • Age of Consent (not Pressburger) 1970s The Boy Who Turned Yellow