Cheap Stairway To Heaven (A Matter Of Life And Death) (DVD) (David Niven, Kim Hunter, Raymond Massey) (Michael Powell) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Stairway To Heaven (A Matter Of Life And Death)

Long Before Lola
One of the most charming war/romance fables that human imagination devised, executed wonderfully by Michael Powell. Heavenly cast with David Niven and Kim Hunter as the star-crossed lovers,supported by a host of wonderful character actors. Marvelous use of b&w and color for realm changes. Raymond Massey and the wonderful Roger Livesey round out the drama with credibilty in every scene. Contains a heart-stopping argument on the meaning of life, justce and the ultimate arbiter of such. Worth every flight

Looking for Mr. Jordan
While I was watching "Stairway to Heaven",I couldn't help but think of that great movie from a few years earlier, "Here Comes Mr. Jordan". The latter movie was more a romantic comedy while the former comes across as a moral fantasy about fate and the opportunity to change it. <
> <
>We see, right from the beginning, the essentials of "Stairway to Heaven". Two people share a special bonding moment just before one of them is about to die. The opening is well done and enables us to buy into the "love at first brush with death" basis for the romantic focus of the movie. There is a subsequent scene that is brilliantly done in which we sense, for a moment or two, that we are "someplace else". We do get there eventually in order to witness a trial for the ages. You see, one of the parties by-passed fate and now must "pay up". "Not so fast" he says and begins to argue for his continued earthly existence. The special envoy that is sent to "bring him home" ends up having to negotiate and the matter is put before a holy tribunal. <
> <
>If it seems like I'm giving the plot away, don't fear. What I've described can be pretty well forseen as the movie develops. There are a few surprises I've left out although some of them are fairly predictable as well. The excellence in this movie isn't so much the plot as the script and the acting. I'd give a nod to the directing as well. The "trial" gets into some pretty deep stuff and I'm not sure that I absorbed it all the first time around. Not to worry: this is a movie I'll gladly watch again.