Welcome to Reel Britannia-a very British podcast about very British films....with the occasional hint of professionalism.

Episode 049 - A Matter Of Life And Death (1946)

'You've got a good voice. You've got guts too. It's funny - I've known dozens of girls: I've been in love with some of them, but an American girl whom I've never seen and who I never shall see will hear my last words. That's funny. It's rather sweet.'

Join Scott and Steven for their review of A Matter Of Life And Death, the Powell and Pressburger classic starring David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Marius Goring and Raymond Massey

Returning to England from a bombing run in May 1945, pilot Peter Carter's plane is damaged and his parachute ripped to shreds. He has his crew bail out safely, but figures it is curtains for himself. He gets on the radio, and talks to June, a young American woman working for the U.S. Army Air Forces, and they are quite moved by each other's voices. Then he jumps, preferring this to burning up with his plane. He wakes up in the surf. It was his time to die, but there was a mix-up in heaven. They couldn't find him in all that fog. By the time his "Conductor" catches up with him twenty hours later, Peter and June have met and fallen in love. This changes everything, and since it happened through no fault of his own, Peter figures that heaven owes him a second chance. Heaven agrees to a trial to decide his fate.

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facebook.com/groups/reelbritannia email: [email protected] Thanks for listening Scott and Steven