Goddamn I love this movie, and I love Roger Livesey and Deborah Kerr and Anton Walbrook. Stumbled upon it on Amazon P.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
Powell and Pressburger, sort of like John Ford and Jean Renoir, capture so much of the damn joy of living in their movies. And no one is more old school British. What I love about their movies is that they are so artful but they don't let the art get in the way of the story or the sheer likeability of the characters.
I noticed something really interesting that I wouldn't have noticed when I watched when I was younger. In one of the opening scenes, when Livesay is giving his "The war doesn't start until midnight!" speech, when he points out that the young soldier hasn't lived yet, the soldier tells him that he hopes that "forty years form now, in 1983..." It hit like a ton of bricks, because now I'm the old guy, almost 40 years beyond being a young man which I was, in 1983.
This is a movie about manners and friendship, and it's pace is slow, but every damn minute is great from the opening credits and goofy motorcycle scene.
And I'm only an hour in on this 2nd full viewing.