The plot of "I Know Where I'm Going!" was not a particularly original one even in 1945; it owes something to the earlier American screwball comedy "It Happened One Night". It is essentially that old romantic comedy standby "The Girl is engaged to/married to/in love with Mr Wrong, but meets and ends up with Mr Right". (This plot has also been used in some modern rom-coms such as "Home Sweet Alabama").
The Girl in this case is Joan Webster, a young middle-class Englishwoman with ambitions to rise in the world. Mr Wrong is her fiancé Sir Robert Bellinger, a wealthy industrialist who lives on the Isle of Kiloran in the Scottish Hebrides. Joan travels from her home in Manchester to Kiloran in order to marry him, but owing to bad weather is unable to complete the final leg of her journey, a boat trip to the island. She is therefore forced to wait on the Isle of Mull for the weather to change, and while waiting she meets Torquil MacNeil, a naval officer who turns out to be the Laird of Kiloran. (Sir Robert is only his tenant).
The film has two morals. The first could be summed up as "Man Proposes, God Disposes", or perhaps (given the Scottish setting) as "The best-laid plans o' mice an' men gang aft agley". Joan knows where she's going, or thinks she does, both literally and figuratively. Literally, she knows that she is going to Kiloran. Figuratively, she is an independent young women who knows what she wants from life- to become Lady Bellinger- and is determined to get it. That exclamation mark in the title is perhaps intended to symbolise her determination and her impatience with anyone who might get in her way.
Yet in the end Joan never becomes Lady Bellinger- anyone with a knowledge of cinematic conventions could spot a mile off that Torquil would turn out to be Mr Right- and, indeed, never even gets to Kiloran, although she makes desperate efforts to do so, sensing that the growing mutual attraction between herself and in her Torquil is putting her well-laid plans in jeopardy.
The film's second moral is "money doesn't bring you happiness". Joan is initially portrayed as a selfishly materialistic girl whose only interest in the man she wants to marry lies in the size of his bank account. In her desperation to get to the island she bribes a young boatman to risk his life by putting to sea in bad weather. Her values are contrasted with those of the people of Mull, who are depicted as being poor in terms of material possessions but richer in spirit. Joan's abandonment of Sir Robert in favour of Torquil, who despite his long aristocratic pedigree is far from wealthy, can be seen symbolic of the triumph of traditional spiritual values over modern materialistic ones.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who worked together under the name "The Archers" (little suspecting that that title would later be appropriated by the BBC for their radio soap opera about a farming community), have today become revered figures in the history of the British cinema. Although they shared production, writing and directing credits, it was normally Powell who acted as director and Pressburger who acted as scriptwriter. Some have seen "I Know Where I'm Going!" as one of their best films- Barry Norman, for example, numbered it among his hundred greatest films of all time. I have never, however, regarded it as the equal of films like "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", "A Matter of Life and Death" and "The Red Shoes", and I think there is a reason for this.
There have been directors- Stanley Kubrick and Peter Weir are good examples- who have been able to work equally well within the confines of established genres and outside them. Powell and Pressburger, however, strike me as film-makers who were at their best when trying something completely original in films like the three mentioned above. They were, in my view, never quite as good when working within an established genre. Some might think that "Forty-Ninth Parallel" is an exception, but to my mind that film is much wider in its scope than a traditional wartime thriller. "One of Our Aircraft is Missing" and "The Battle of the River Plate", by contrast, are traditional war films and although they are reasonably good films, especially the first, neither of them display the spark of originality which characterises the work of the Archers at their best.
Similarly, "I Know Where I'm Going!" falls firmly within the established conventions of the romantic comedy and never quite strives for the heights of originality. As a rom-com it has its strengths but also its weaknesses. As with a number of British films from this period dealing with romantic love the overall emotional temperature seems too cool. Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller were both rather older than the supposed ages of the characters they are portraying, and are too emotionally reticent to convince us that they are falling passionately in love, a love so strong that Joan will happily renounce a fortune for its sake. Joan also comes across as rather too impatient and forthright to be entirely sympathetic.
On the plus side there is some striking photography of the Highland scenery- unusually shot on location at a time when most British films were made entirely within the walls of a studio- and a vivid portrait of life in a remote part of Britain which in 1945 would not have been familiar to most English people or, indeed, to many lowland Scots. There are some good performances from the likes of Finlay Currie and Pamela Brown. (I previously knew her best as the elderly mother in "The Road Mender", so I was surprised how attractive she was in her youth). Overall, this is an enjoyable romantic comedy but not, in my view, the masterpiece it is sometimes hailed as. 7/10
The Girl in this case is Joan Webster, a young middle-class Englishwoman with ambitions to rise in the world. Mr Wrong is her fiancé Sir Robert Bellinger, a wealthy industrialist who lives on the Isle of Kiloran in the Scottish Hebrides. Joan travels from her home in Manchester to Kiloran in order to marry him, but owing to bad weather is unable to complete the final leg of her journey, a boat trip to the island. She is therefore forced to wait on the Isle of Mull for the weather to change, and while waiting she meets Torquil MacNeil, a naval officer who turns out to be the Laird of Kiloran. (Sir Robert is only his tenant).
The film has two morals. The first could be summed up as "Man Proposes, God Disposes", or perhaps (given the Scottish setting) as "The best-laid plans o' mice an' men gang aft agley". Joan knows where she's going, or thinks she does, both literally and figuratively. Literally, she knows that she is going to Kiloran. Figuratively, she is an independent young women who knows what she wants from life- to become Lady Bellinger- and is determined to get it. That exclamation mark in the title is perhaps intended to symbolise her determination and her impatience with anyone who might get in her way.
Yet in the end Joan never becomes Lady Bellinger- anyone with a knowledge of cinematic conventions could spot a mile off that Torquil would turn out to be Mr Right- and, indeed, never even gets to Kiloran, although she makes desperate efforts to do so, sensing that the growing mutual attraction between herself and in her Torquil is putting her well-laid plans in jeopardy.
The film's second moral is "money doesn't bring you happiness". Joan is initially portrayed as a selfishly materialistic girl whose only interest in the man she wants to marry lies in the size of his bank account. In her desperation to get to the island she bribes a young boatman to risk his life by putting to sea in bad weather. Her values are contrasted with those of the people of Mull, who are depicted as being poor in terms of material possessions but richer in spirit. Joan's abandonment of Sir Robert in favour of Torquil, who despite his long aristocratic pedigree is far from wealthy, can be seen symbolic of the triumph of traditional spiritual values over modern materialistic ones.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who worked together under the name "The Archers" (little suspecting that that title would later be appropriated by the BBC for their radio soap opera about a farming community), have today become revered figures in the history of the British cinema. Although they shared production, writing and directing credits, it was normally Powell who acted as director and Pressburger who acted as scriptwriter. Some have seen "I Know Where I'm Going!" as one of their best films- Barry Norman, for example, numbered it among his hundred greatest films of all time. I have never, however, regarded it as the equal of films like "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", "A Matter of Life and Death" and "The Red Shoes", and I think there is a reason for this.
There have been directors- Stanley Kubrick and Peter Weir are good examples- who have been able to work equally well within the confines of established genres and outside them. Powell and Pressburger, however, strike me as film-makers who were at their best when trying something completely original in films like the three mentioned above. They were, in my view, never quite as good when working within an established genre. Some might think that "Forty-Ninth Parallel" is an exception, but to my mind that film is much wider in its scope than a traditional wartime thriller. "One of Our Aircraft is Missing" and "The Battle of the River Plate", by contrast, are traditional war films and although they are reasonably good films, especially the first, neither of them display the spark of originality which characterises the work of the Archers at their best.
Similarly, "I Know Where I'm Going!" falls firmly within the established conventions of the romantic comedy and never quite strives for the heights of originality. As a rom-com it has its strengths but also its weaknesses. As with a number of British films from this period dealing with romantic love the overall emotional temperature seems too cool. Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller were both rather older than the supposed ages of the characters they are portraying, and are too emotionally reticent to convince us that they are falling passionately in love, a love so strong that Joan will happily renounce a fortune for its sake. Joan also comes across as rather too impatient and forthright to be entirely sympathetic.
On the plus side there is some striking photography of the Highland scenery- unusually shot on location at a time when most British films were made entirely within the walls of a studio- and a vivid portrait of life in a remote part of Britain which in 1945 would not have been familiar to most English people or, indeed, to many lowland Scots. There are some good performances from the likes of Finlay Currie and Pamela Brown. (I previously knew her best as the elderly mother in "The Road Mender", so I was surprised how attractive she was in her youth). Overall, this is an enjoyable romantic comedy but not, in my view, the masterpiece it is sometimes hailed as. 7/10
