I Know Where I'm Going! (1945) was the first post-war film by the British-based film-makers Powell & Pressburger.

It was shot in black and white while they waited for the Technicolor film to make A Matter of Life and Death, which was in short supply in wartime Britain. The film was the second and last collaboration between Powell & Pressburger and cinematographer Erwin Hillier.

Story

Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is an young Englishwoman from a safe middle-class background, but with a independent spirit. She travels to the Scottish isles to marry Sir Robert Bellinger, a wealthy industrialist lording it over the Isle of Killoran. When bad weather prevents her taking a boat to Killoran, she is forced to wait it out on the Isle of Mull, a community of people with values quite foreign to her. There she meets Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey), a handsome naval officer returned home on shore leave. As the bad weather continues, MacNeil takes advantage of the opportunity to woo Joan, who becomes increasingly unsure about her ambitious marriage plans.

The film also features Pamela Brown as Catriona Potts, an independently-spirited country women, Finlay Currie as a dour fisherman and boatman, and an early appearance by Petula Clark as Cheril, a precocious little girl.

Criticism

"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

"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

References

Pam Cook (2002). I Know Where I'm Going!, Film Classics Series, BFI Publishing, ISBN 0851708145.

External links

• I Know Where I'm Going! at screenonline. Full synopsis and film stills (and clips viewable from UK libraries).
• The Criterion Collection DVD, with a synopsis and critical essay.
• I Know Where I'm Going! Revisited at the Internet Movie Database. A documentary about the people and places in the film.
• Reviews and articles at the Powell & Pressburger Pages