Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1945 classic, rereleased now as part of the BFI’s nationally touring Powell/Pressburger season, has to be one of the most purely lovable films in British cinema history. There is outright joy in that inspired, forthright title. Surely I’m not the only Powell/Pressburger superfan to have screamed halfway through this statement from Emeric Pressburger about his writing practice, in Kevin Macdonald’s biography: “But if I can help it, I never sit down to write the real script until I know where I’m going and I’ve worked out the rhythm and so on beforehand.” Was that deliberate? I can’t tell.
I Know Where I’m Going! is a movie of romance and myth, comedy and whimsy, but fiercely rooted in reality – and geography. And it is very unusual, maybe entirely unique, in that it is set during wartime but the war is entirely absent and irrelevant, even if the hero is often to be seen wearing his Royal Navy uniform.
