A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven)

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A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven)

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A Matter of Life and Death (St...

David Niven, Kathleen Byron, Kim Hunter, Richard Attenborough, Robert Coote

A British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court.

Id: 10244247

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A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven) Recent Reviews

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Recent Reviews

A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven) Recent Reviews
  • SirPant
    October 1, 2009
    SirPant
    A really jolly good film that makes me feel proud to be British! David Niven heads a great cast in this odd but fantastic classic that has been fondly borrowed from and blatantly ripped off ever since!
  • harrycaul
    September 21, 2007
    harrycaul
    The most beautiful, imaginative and ambitious fantasy film ever made. Everyone should see it. Originally commissioned to improve Anglo-American relations at the tail end of WWII!
  • YouNeedPeopleLikeMe
    July 26, 2007
    YouNeedPeopleLikeMe
    For a 40s film - this is great.
  • jackamaku
    July 11, 2009
    jackamaku
    David Niven is a WWII pilot who should have died when his plane went down, and has to convince a jury in the afterlife to let him have a pass on death to stay with the new found love of his life. Some fantastic cinematography (of course) and some very inventive set pieces and ah...( read more)ead-of-its-time special effects. Also of note, a great performance by Roger Livesey as the doctor trying to save him.
  • mingsysar
    January 6, 2009
    mingsysar
    The only war film I will ever watch again, apart from The Great Escape. Powell and Pressburger's best film. The ultimate British film in my opinion. I love the whole idea, premise and message behind it. It was initially designed to aid relations between the Americans and the Brit...( read more)ish, but it ended up as a heavenly (in more ways than one) argument as to which of the two nations were better. The outcome doesn't matter though. The romance between Niven's British pilot and Hunter's American communications officer becomes superfluous in the wake of the portrayal of the technicolour real world and the sepia-toned heaven, the fantastic less than angelic characters he meets, the great debate, the typically English humour and I still don't know if it was all in his head, literally, or if it was real. But that all doesn't matter, because this isn't just a film, it's a historical document, it's war propoganda, it's a symbol of the British bulldog spirit, it's an evocation of the golden age of cinema and it's a philosophical treatise on the nature of life and death. Look out for the Attenborough cameo.
  • tevlev67
    October 25, 2009
    tevlev67
    Top banana - what a film - watch it now.
  • notspam555
    May 30, 2009
    notspam555
    A very strange Powell and Pressburger wartime fantasy in color and black and white. Quite unlike any other movie.
  • amouratun
    May 19, 2009
    amouratun
    i love kwon sang woo
  • artisanlunarcat
    May 19, 2009
    artisanlunarcat
    a must see, to be or not to be, only true love can save the pilot that got missed in the fog
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