Barnes & Noble

Michael Powell, perhaps the greatest of all English directors, could be luridly romantic (Black Narcissus), perversely romantic (Peeping Tom), and even, as in this charming film, good-old-fashioned boy-meets-girl romantic. Wendy Hiller portrays Joan Webster, a modern woman who "knows where she's going" -- to marry a rich man who owns a small island in the Hebrides. Stranded in Scotland by storms on her way to the wedding, she meets Torquil MacNeil (the wonderful Roger Livesey), a soldier on leave from World War II. Soon, headstrong Joan finds herself battling the weather, Torquil, and her own conflicted heart. I Know Where I'm Going! is a capacious romantic comedy that finds room for strands of mysticism, fairy tales, and Powell's quite evident love of the people and landscape of the Scottish Hebrides. Hiller and Livesey are wonderful together: Their love story is believable and engaging, and you'll quickly find yourself rooting for them to end up together. Powell here delivers an artful jolt to the screwball comedy genre -- and the result is a film with a serious heart and levity of spirit. Rachel Saltz

All Movie Guide

While awaiting access to England's Technicolor cameras for their upcoming super-production Stairway to Heaven, the producer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger dashed off a delightful "personal" project, I Know Where I'm Going. Young middle-class Englishwoman Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is determined to have the finer things in life, and to that end she plans to marry Sir Robert Bellinger (Norman Shelley), a wealthy, middle-aged industrialist whom she does not love. En route to the Island of Mull, where her future husband resides, Joan is stranded in a colorful Scottish seacoast town. Inclement weather keeps her grounded for a week, during which time she falls in love with young, insouciant naval officer Torquil McNeil (Roger Livesey). Ignoring the dictates of her heart (not to mention common sense), Joan stubbornly insists upon heading out to sea towards her marriage of convenience, but the exigencies of Mother Nature finally convince her that her future resides on the Mainland. A winner all the way, I Know Where I'm Going is full of large and small delights, including a wonderful sense of regional detail and endearing, three-dimensional characterizations (even the mercenary heroine is a likeable character). The film is easily one of the best of the Powell-Pressburger films of the 1940s, and arguably the team's all-time best romantic drama. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 037429154427
• Source: CRITERION
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1)
• Presentation: B&W, Pan & Scan
• Sound: monaural
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Time: 1:31:00
• Sales Rank: 5,845

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