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After miraculously surviving a jump from his burning plane, RAF pilot Peter Carter (David Niven) encounters the American radio operator (Kim Hunter) to whom he has just delivered his dying wishes, and, face-to-face on a tranquil English beach, the pair fall in love. When a messenger from the hereafter arrives to correct the bureaucratic error that spared his life, Peter must mount a fierce defense for his right to stay on earth—painted by production designer Alfred Junge and cinematographer Jack Cardiff as a rich Technicolor Eden—climbing a wide staircase to stand trial in a starkly beautiful, black-and-white modernist afterlife. Intended to smooth tensions between the wartime allies Britain and America, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s richly humanistic A Matter of Life and Death traverses time and space to make a case for the transcendent value of love.
Original Release
11/01/1946
US Release
12/25/1946
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Cast
Name | Character |
---|
David Niven | Peter Carter |
Kim Hunter | June |
Robert Coote | Bob Trubshaw / Bob |
Kathleen Byron | An Angel |
Richard Attenborough | An English Pilot |
Bonar Colleano | An American Pilot |
Joan Maude | Chief Recorder |
Marius Goring | Conductor 71 |
Roger Livesey | Dr. Frank Reeves / Doctor Reeves |
Robert Atkins | The Vicar |
Directors
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Writers
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
David Niven | Peter Carter |
Kim Hunter | June |
Robert Coote | Bob Trubshaw / Bob |
Kathleen Byron | An Angel |
Richard Attenborough | An English Pilot |
Bonar Colleano | An American Pilot |
Joan Maude | Chief Recorder |
Marius Goring | Conductor 71 |
Roger Livesey | Dr. Frank Reeves / Doctor Reeves |
Robert Atkins | The Vicar |
Bob Roberts | Dr. Gaertler |
Edwin Max | Dr. Mc.Ewen / Dr. McEwen |
Betty Potter | Mrs. Tucker |
Abraham Sofaer | The Judge |
Raymond Massey | Abraham Farlan |
Robert Arden | GI Playing Snout |
Robert Beatty | US Crewman |
Eric Cawthorne | Goatherd |
Tommy Duggan | Patrick Aloyusius Mahoney |
Leslie Dwyer | ARP Warden |
Producers
Name | Role |
---|
Michael Powell | Producer |
Emeric Pressburger | Producer |
George R. Busby | Producer |