I Know Where I'm Going! (1947)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Touches You

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Wendy Hiller plays a character who is swirling around in her own whirlpool, who, like Molly Brown, is determined not to let anybody pull her down. She's engaged to marry a Scottish nobleman, but when she shows up in the sea-side village to catch a boat to the island where this unseen character lives, she must face some facts about herself when blowing gales (gusty sea winds) prevent her from getting to that island which spookily looms way out in the middle of the sea. She falls in love with Roger Livesey, a resident of the village she is stuck in, but his brooding nature (like the Moorish Heathcliff of "Wuthering Heights") haunts both of them. Determined not to betray her promise, she makes an attempt to get to the island but a force of nature greater than themselves threatens to take them both down when he tries to take her to the island himself.This moody darkly filmed atmospheric drama with slight comic overtones is a testament to the creative visions of the production team who take a rather ordinary story and make it unique. Hiller is an interesting actress in the cannon of cinematic history in their fact that in America, her somewhat plain appearance could never have made her a star, but she was a favorite of British filmmakers. Her plucky heroine is possessed with inner beauty that makes her seem much more physically attractive than she actually is and as an actress, she is magic. Many stage performers of less than movie goddess like appearance became stars in the theater but character actresses on screen. Actresses like Hiller were appreciated by serious film viewers because they truly looked "real" and represented who the world really was dominated by.

The plot and entire story can be summed up in about 10 minutes. This is so highly predictable. As Joan, the future Dame Wendy Hiller, appeared too old in 1945 to tackle the part of a young adventuress, who from early childhood knew where she was going, or at least she thought so. Her screen companion in this unbelievably dull film is Roger Livesey. He sounds like he has hot potatoes in his mouth, and his voice resembles Nigel Bruce, foil to Basil Rathbone in the "Sherlock Holmes" films.You know that the constant rough winds will not allow Joan and her fiancée to meet, and you know where this is going. Livesey, as a lieutenant, falling for her.Everyone keeps mentioning Kilcoran. You have no idea where this is and what they're talking about. True love is discovered on the high seas.The supporting characters in this disappointing film are very boring as well. While it is true that money isn't everything, neither is this picture worth the money or anything.

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

Here's a film I would have never ventured to watch had I not come across it by accident on Turner Classic Movies. This woman, Joan Webster, played by Wendy Hiller, is off to Scotland to marry some guy she obviously doesn't know too well. We know this ourselves because she has dinner with her father the night before she's scheduled to leave for the Hebrides. Her father tries to tell her to slow down and think about it but she: "KNOWS WHERE SHE'S GOING." (She doesn't scream it, as implied by the caps. But she might as well have. The setup is movie perfection.) Joan has these directions to the island on which this guy has planned to marry her. She has to take the train from London to East Bumshoe, then another train from Bumshoe to Overloafen, a bus from Overloafen to Pudgydubby, a cab from Pudgyduddy to Shaddycrack, the ferry from there to some other weirdly named town, then the water taxi to yet another Scottish backwater, and finally a private skiff to the island. Unfortunately, when she gets there, it's thick of fog. Swirling, smoky, impenetrable fog. Fog like you won't believe, unless you live in Scotland or Great Britain or Maine, like I do. Or you own a Hollywood fog machine, or work in a Russian spa, or live next door to Sherlock Holmes. You get the point. So she can't get to the island. She has to stay at someone's house with a bunch of other people who are similarly stuck. At this point, we're only about five minutes into the film, which is just more of this movie's magic, because it's here she's dealt the classic "Call to Adventure" of the hero's journey. She meets a man, and not the one she's supposed to marry. The man is Torquil Macneil, played by Roger Livesey; he wears a kilt and speaks in a heavy Scottish brogue, and although he's not exactly the most handsome leading man you ever saw, he does wear a kilt and speak in a heavy Scottish brogue, which makes him, apparently, very hot. Don't get me wrong, he's always the perfect gentleman. It's 1945 for God's sake. Later that day, feeling rather threatened by this charming kilt-wearing Scotsman, she tries once again to get the boat to the island. She's told it's way to foggy but as soon as the wind comes around northwest, the fog will lift and they'll be able to go. That night, Joan, while lying in her bed at the Inn, prays for wind from the northwest. In the morning Joan wakes to find her prayers answered. The fog has cleared. Unfortunately, it's because of a full blown northwest gale, which ends up sticking around for more than a week. She never makes it to the island. This special gem of a movie is the product of one of the most creative collaborations in movie history, that of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They had a gift for storytelling that is almost gone. Very often when you see a film today you're struck by inconsistencies, failures of logic, plot holes, gimmicks, etc. Or you're faced with a movie that just doesn't come together. Not the case with Powell and Pressburger films. Their movies have perfect structure; they engage you, keep moving toward a goal and wrap up all neat and tidy. If you ever see this one on the video rental shelf, grab it and take it home. I guarantee you won't be disappointed, especially if you're trying to score some points in the romance game.