I Know Where I'm Going!

Powell and Pressburger's romance of the Scottish isles has Wendy Hiller as Joan Webster, seeking money and a marriage of advantage to the (unseen) Sir Robert, out on the mysterious isle of Killoran.

Of course, the Scottish climate makes sure she breaks her journey, which is where the dashing laird Torquil (Roger Livesey) comes in, with falcons, fog-bound locations, and sinister family curses.

Perhaps the best scene of all is at the Campbell's wedding anniversary ceildh, where Torquil translates a Gaelic ballad for Joan. This is a black and white vision of a heavenly Scotland which probably never existed, but in Powell's expert direction that doesn't matter. Lovely.

The title "I Know Where I'm Going" refers to a declaration made by the film's heroine, a middle-class English girl (acted by Wendy Hiller) who's determined to get to the top of the social rung by any means legal. She has just become engaged to Sir Robert Bellinger, one of the country's richest industrialists. She knows where she's going all right: To the Scottish isle of Killoran, where her future as Lady Bellinger is to be confirmed in matrimony.

Yet Killoran may as well be the planet Mars. No matter how hard she tries, she just can't get there. At first, it's only the foggy weather that prevents her from ferrying across to Gretna Green. Then the fog is cleared away by gale-force winds. Later though, it's as if the atmosphere itself, something in the old castle legends and superstitions that conspire to keep her away from everything she's wanted. Yet she is stubborn, even bribing a boy to pilot a small boat to Killoran in the midst of a huge squall - a move that proves nearly fatal. She's determined to get "where she is going," but she's turned away once again -- by the elements as well as the realization that she has become emotionally attached to a young naval officer on leave (Roger Livesey).

This is a tightly written and performed effort. There isn't a single wasted motion. The images are memorable too. Pamela Brown, plays the poor huntress Catriona, silhouetted against the gray Northern sky with a shotgun in one hand, the other hand tethered to a leash restraining her dogs as they make their way up a brae; Finley Curray's weather-beaten face in close-up says more about his salty character than his sage dialogue; and there's an amusing cameo by a pre-teen Petula Clark, reading Edmund Spenser at the breakfast table. Just the sort of ironic juxtaposition one might expect from this movie's masterful director, Michael Powell.

It's really "It Happened One Night" -- spoiled girl, on the way to wed her rich fiance, is escorted by a younger man and falls in love with him -- but it's so much more. Powell's and Pressburger's imaginations are boundless. They create characters who are lovable eccentrics, but believable. They shift tone effortlessly from comedy to thriller to travelogue to romance and back again. They employ every resource of cinema, without being showy about it: watch the camera tricks in the first ten minutes alone. They fill the movie with diversions that have little to do with the plot but create a beautifully picaresque atmosphere.

I don't know of any other movie that is so inconsequential on the face of it, yet packs such an enormous emotional wallop. Ostensibly an assembly-line romantic comedy, it's really about spiritual growth, opening yourself to all sorts of new experiences and learning to see things from others' points of view. It's whimsical, but not thin. With its moody photography, wonderful musical score, and numerous coups de cinema, it lingers in your memory months after you've seen it. And the ending is one of the most satisfying in all the movies.

One minor complaint: Hiller is a tad too steely in the beginning, too crisp, too calculating-actress-playing-calculating-character. As she succumbs to the charms of her surroundings and her leading man, though, she's bewitching. And Livesey has one of the most beautiful speaking voices you'll ever hear. Their chemistry is terrific. And when he recites a Celtic poem ending in, "you're the one for me," and looks right at her, it's quite sexy.

There's no other movie quite like it. And I defy anyone to see it on a date and not fall in love with his/her vis-a-vis.

I take this down once a year and watch it as it delights me on so many different levels.

I love the character portrayed by Wendy Hiller, an independent woman, confident of the direction of her life, the wealthy husband she has selected, the wedding just around the corner.

Then her plans start to unravel as an impoverished laird walks into her life and it is never the same again. Roger Livesey is wonderful in this also and the location shooting in Scotland, even though B & W, is breathtaking. The music, particularly "My Nut Brown Maiden" is beautifully done along with the old ceilidh dancing.

Some wonderful bit parts also. Loved Petula Clark as an eccentric child. Trivia lovers: I had read that Roger and Wendy were not physically together throughout the making of this movie. In all of the shots of them together, body doubles and reaction shots were used. I have viewed it in the light of this knowledge and it could be true.

Also, for those of you from across the pond and of an older vintage, Roger Livesey played Doctor Dale for years in the BBC's "Mrs. Dale's Diary".

I gave it a 9 out of 10. Certain movies are just "Satisfying" and this is one of them.

If I could take only one movie with me to a desert island, this would be it. Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey are so vibrant and every scene is a joy to watch.

Part of the chemistry is that Hiller is assertive and on top of everything and Livesey is more vulnerable and searching -- she resists him and he reaches out to her -- I think of Virginia Woolf's line about how the sexiest thing is if a woman is "man-womanly" and a man is "woman-manly."

My favorite moment comes early on, when Hiller says, about the eccentric colonel, "He's an odd one, isn't he," and Livesey responds, "Who isn't." There's so much feeling and humanity in how he says this -- so much depth -- I fall in love with his character and this movie every time.