A Matter of Life and Death (1946) (2025)

by James Wallace Harris, 6/16/24

It’s a rare movie I can watch by myself now that I’m old. I’ve developed an affliction where I can’t focus on a movie unless someone is watching it with me. But sometimes I do find a film I can mentally latch onto by myself and stay with until the end. A Matter of Life and Death was one yesterday. And when I do find such a movie, I feel I should write about it.

You can watch A Matter of Life and Death on YouTube. It’s also on Tubi and TCM.

Even though I’m an atheist and assume there will only be existential darkness after death, I’m a sucker for old metaphysical movies about angels, heaven, the personification of death, and fantasies about possible afterlives. Somehow, I’ve never seen A Matter of Life and Death before, a 1946 British film with David Niven and Kim Hunter. This is kind of surprising since A Matter of Life and Death places #20 on BFI’s Best 100 British Films. It’s also #78 on Sight and Sound’s list of The Greatest Films of All Time. This is probably due to spending most of my life watching American movies. In recent years, I have been getting into English films, and this one makes me want to watch even more.

I wouldn’t rate A Matter of Life and Death as high as #20 or even #78 on my list of favorite films, but who knows what I will discover if I give it another spin or two. The movie did make an impressive first impression. I was enchanted by its novel approach to portraying the afterlife, with some very imaginative sets and philosophical twists. I assume A Matter of Life and Death is a reaction to all the deaths in WWII, but not in the same way that American films about angels did in the 1940s.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger wrote, produced, and directed A Matter of Life and Death and were careful not to use the words heaven and angels. They picture the afterlife run with military precision guided by Enlightenment ideals, rather egalitarian, favoring no national or ethnic group. This British version of the afterlife is more intellectual and less sentimental than how Americans present it. They don’t use the word angel, but new arrivals in this afterlife are issued a set of large white wings in clear plastic bags.

However, this heavenly bureaucracy does make a mistake by not promptly escorting Peter Carter (David Niven) to the afterworld when his Avro Lancaster is shot up over Germany. Instead, he survives an impossible to survive death and falls in love with June, an American radio operator in the U.S. Army Air Force.

When Conductor 71 (Marius Goring), this film’s designation for a guiding angel, informs Peter of the mistake and demands he come along to the other side, Peter refuses. The rest of the film is about Peter’s legal battle in an otherworldly court, pleading to continue living on Earth with June. Peter makes a case that it’s heaven’s fault he wasn’t retrieved, and because he got to fall in love before the mistake was corrected, his death should be postponed.

There are four major male parts in this film. Niven is the British pilot and is considered the star. Marius Goring, the angel Conductor 71, is an effeminate Frenchman who had been beheaded during the French Revolution. He’s the go between the other world and Earth, functioning like Clarence, Dudley, and Mr. Jordan from those famous American angel flicks. Then there is Raymond Massey as Abraham Farlan, the prosecutor who believes Peter can’t stay on Earth beyond his allotted time. Finally, there’s Roger Livesey as Dr. Frank Reeves, a brilliant neurologist, who believes Peter is suffering from an earlier concussion and all his talk of the afterlife a delusion.

Roger Livesey, I know from The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. I felt his character Dr. Frank Reeves was far more charming and dashing than David Niven’s, and I wished Livesey had played Peter Carter, Niven’s character. I think I’m hard on old David Niven because I’ve always wanted to see Niven play Dudley in The Bishop’s Wife to see if he could have acted the romantic part. It was just too easy for Cary Grant to play that part, and I’ve been curious if Niven had the acting chops to have pulled it off. (And I would have loved to see if Grant could have pulled off the stuffy bishop’s part.) Now I get to see Niven in a similar metaphysical romantic role, and I was disappointed. Reeves and June reveal far more chemistry than June and Peter. I just didn’t believe June would fall instantly in love with Niven’s Peter. That’s one weakness of this picture, they rushed the falling in love part.

I don’t want to give away too much so I’ll stop talking about the details. I will say A Matter of Life and Death is a cross between Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) and A Guy Name Joe (1943), a couple of my favorite angel films. A Matter of Life and Death is filmed in beautiful technicolor except for the other world scenes, which are in a pearly black and white, the reverse of The Wizard of Oz (1939).

A Matter of Life and Death isn’t as moving as It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) or as charming as The Bishop’s Wife. However, it offers several unique takes on the afterlife that’s not in other films. I really enjoyed the cinematography, and some of the sets and arrangement of extras in heaven remind me of Busby Berkeley productions.

TCM recently had David Byrne as a guest programmer, and he presented A Matter of Life and Death and Wings of Desire as a double feature. I thought that an excellent pairing. Wings of Desire is another of my favorite movies about heaven, metaphysical beings, and angels. Just for grins, here’s a list of all the metaphysical movies that made me feel good about death or the afterlife. It’s a shame that in modern times, angels aren’t always that angelic. Although Michael (1996) and Dogma (1999) were fun.

JWH