There is more than a little of Hollywood '30s screwball romance in the Archer’s wonderful light comedy I Know Where I’m Going! from 1945. Funny and bizarre, in equal parts, the muse here though is pure Powell and Pressburger.
Director Michael Powell revealed in his superb autobiography, A Life in Movies (1985) that the premise derived from a proposal of Emeric Pressburger who suggested a tale about a young woman who is determined to reach an island, but is prevented by a storm. Once the storm clears, she no longer wants to go. Out of this simple, but evocative outline, the Archers carved a tale about a gold-digging middle-class young woman, Joan (Wendy Hiller), who sets out for the Scottish islands to meet her fiancé, one of the most successful industrialists in England. On arriving in the tiny mainland village near her destination, a tiny Isle just off the coast, she finds herself in a very different world where money means little and eccentricity – and resilience – runs at a peak. 'He’s a bit odd," she mutters after meeting one local. This strikes Joan’s companion, a native of the district and a true believer in its special codes, as a little unreasonable: 'Isn’t everyone?"
Joan meets a handsome young Scottish Lord Torquil (played by the now forgotten and still criminally under-rated Roger Livesey). As their romance blossoms, Joan’s values and ambitions are thrown into turmoil, as this special place begins to weave a spell on her. The film’s famous climax – a brilliant special effects sequence where Joan tries to reach her island in the middle of a raging storm, complete with pounding seas and a whirlpool – is one of the great set pieces in Brit cinema. A comedy, a mystery, a love story, an adventure yarn, a fairytale, this terrific film is all this and yet, it’s more.
Like so many films in the Archers' oeuvre, the style of I Know Where I’m Going! is so special its mystique is wickedly difficult to capture in a short review. Watch it and wonder.
