I Know Where I'm Going! - Criterion Collection

Starring:Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, George Carney, Pamela Brown, Walter Hudd, Captain Duncan MacKenzie, Ian Sadler, Finlay Currie, Murdo Morrison, Margot Fitzsimons, Captain C.W.R. Knight, Donald Strachan, John Rae (II), Duncan McIntyre, Jean Cadell, Ivy Milton, Anthony Eustrel, Petula Clark, Alec Faversham, Catherine Lacey
Director: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
Studio: Criterion
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Assured, headstrong Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) knows exactly what she wants and how to get it, until she's stranded in a rough, windswept Scottish village--in sight but out of reach of an island where a rich fiancée, a lavish wedding, and a loveless marriage await. While a raging storm prevents her crossing, a quiet, modest, and penniless Scottish laird named Torquil (Roger Livesey) slowly wins her cheerfully mercenary heart and upsets her carefully arranged plans with messy emotions. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's much-loved romantic drama is a handsome work full of vivid, offbeat characters (Pamela Brown is especially striking as an earthy villager always accompanied by a pack of bloodhounds) living in a world that's part tradition and part myth. Villagers work and celebrate with the simple spirit of common folk ("We're not poor, we just haven't any money," Torquil admonishes the materialist Joan). Powell brings his lively manner and bold visual invention to the creation of his beautiful but harsh primal paradise, culminating in the awesome spectacle of a massive whirlpool that could be the work of the "legend of Corryvreckan" or the stormy embodiment of Joan's hysterical heart. Awash in mystic power of ancient castles and chanted legends, I Know Where I'm Going is one of the most romantic visions of Britain's most magical director. --Sean Axmaker

Description

In Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's stunningly photographed comedy, romance flourishes in an unlikely place-the bleak and moody Scottish Hebrides. Wendy Hiller stars as a headstrong young woman who travels to these remote isles to marry a rich lord. Stranded by stormy weather, she meets a handsome naval officer (Roger Livesey) who threatens to thwart her carefully laid-out life plans.

Customer Reviews:

I Know Where I'm Going.......2007-05-14

Fantastic! I watched the film and immediately began it again. The casting is perfection. Being quite familiar the Western Isles and having a bagpiper for a husband, the film contained everything that I could wish for: Scottish deerhounds, pipers, castles, conversations in the Gaelic, a marvelous ceilidh, and of course the main star ... the Isles themselves! Emeric Pressburger's photography is a cinematic masterpiece ... so evocative and captivating ... it acts as a parallel script ... telling its own story. Don't overlook the Special Features bits!!

I Know where I am Going.......2007-02-18

I wanted to see this movie as my father was one of the pipers in it.I thought it was a nice romantic movie for its time bearing in mind it was made in 1944!!!

Primo chick-flick ... that a guy can enjoy, too.......2007-02-09

Except to one or two outright dismissals, the previous 44 Amazon reviews consist pretty much of raves.

Let me be a contrarian and point out a few things that are less than stellar about this film.

--The opening credits are cutesy enough to send some people into sugar shock.

--The soundtrack is a disgrace. Enrico Caruso warbling into large metal cones in 1905 was captured in higher fidelity than anything on this Criterion edition. If the problem was in the original, Powell and Pressburger were using disgracefully sub-standard technology even for wartime Britain. If the problem is with Criterion, then that outfit should have lived up to its prestigious reputation by either seeking out a better source or using the sort of technology that is routinely used to reveal remarkable fidelity in opera recordings made more than 80 years ago.

--The musical score has been flattened to match the blandest English taste. This is particularly apparent in the folk song that gives the movie its title. The piece is sung at a dirge-like pace by a young girl of little talent who has obviously been told to make it as sweet sounding as possible. The effect is something like Guy Lombardo playing "Satisfaction." An actual Scottish choral group appears briefly in the big party scene. For about five bars they are given a chance to let us know what decently trained voices singing at tempo can do with the music of the islands. It is a pleasing but too brief respite.

--There is a sub-plot, or rather a diversion involving a country twit of the huntin' and shootin' type and his hunting eagle. This is so pointless that I suspect that Powell and Pressburger simply stumbled over a man at the shooting location who happened to have an eagle, so they wrote a part for the bird to display the landscape.

--The central drama of a woman torn between two courses and two men is never established because the man Hiller's character has come to marry never appears. He is heard only as a pompous voice on a radio receiver. Hiller's dramatic conflict must simply be taken on faith.

--The acting style is pure London West End stage stand-and-deliver. Roger Livesey's acting technique consists of standing up very straight, remembering all his lines and delivering them in a relentless, affectless monotone. (How much better the film would have been with an actor such as Robert Donat, who could actually act and offer a convincing Scottish accent, too!) Wendy Hiller, more often than not demonstrates exactly how it was that she could be heard in the most distant seat in any theater.

--The Hebridean scenery and weather are offered as things of romance and grandeur. And I suppose they are, if you live in London or Nebraska. I, on the other hand, live in a part of the world where the scenery is quite similar, except that the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska have mountains that are a LOT taller, the weather can be much worse, and we have trees. I happen to agree with Dr. Johnson and Boswell who famously visited the very sites shown in the movie during the 18th Century. They regarded them as cold, wet and gloomy.

That said, I must now declare my nitpicking to be beside the point. For all its many faults "I Know Where I'm Going" works. I don't for a moment believe in Wendy Hiller's character but I still care for her. Livesey is an absolute stick, but he's a curiously likeable stick. I want to see them form a bond. The gloomy scenery is more than the sum of its parts. There is magic here, that inexpressible but unmistakable something that makes watching a film two hours well spent. Down at the level of basic truth and underlying quality, all those uncritical rave reviews were perfectly right.

This is a film well worth watching.

ONE ADDITIONAL TRIFLING POINT: From time to time previous reviewers have referred to this as a film from 1947. One of the additional features involves an interview with the woman who drove Wendy Hiller to the shooting sites every morning in the dark pre-dawn hours. The trip down the narrow road was more than a little frightening because she could not turn on her headlights in the wartime blackout. In point of fact, the film was shot in 1944 and released in December 1945, something that is specifically stated in the supporting material.

A Magical Masterpiece.......2007-01-18

This is the Powell - Pressburger duo at their finest, a mystical and romantic film unlike anything being produced by Hollywood at the same time. Wendy Hiller gives the performance of her film career (and that's saying something) as the enchanting heroine who trades mercenary good fortune for true love. While that observation sounds trite, there is nothing trite or even ordinary about this deeply leveled accomplishment. The stirring setting is a coastal village where the vicious weather prevents Hiller from traversing the sea to an island where her intended lives. During that time she lives and grows as the very "human" being she already is, and falls in love for the real thing. Hiller communicates the complexities of this character on so many levels it's astonishing, and the development of her romantic entanglements are enchanting.

This Criterion Collection transfer is absolute perfection, and it makes this very old film seem brand new (in content and visuals). As usual, Criterion outdoes itself in the presentation of this classic and the extras offered. Magnificent.

One of the best movies of all time.......2007-01-10

I first saw this movie on TV many years ago, and loved it. So when it came out on DVD, I eagerly bought it and found it just as good as ever. This is a "Chick Flick" that the entire family can enjoy. Of course the plot is an old one(girl wants to marry a old rich man but eventually fall in love with a younger man) but it is superbly done. Unlike the TV version, the DVD has much additional information about the making of the film, a story in itself. Needless to say, my wife also loved this movie(and she does not always agree with me).

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