Based on its awkward title, I’d always assumed …Colonel Blimp was a “zany”(if dark and probably tedious) “anti-war” comedy (a la The Bedsitting Room) about the famous British comic strip character.
Created by a left-wing cartoonist in the 1930s, the walrus-like blowhard “Blimp” spouted nonsensical patriotic cliches, and represented everything right-thinking young Englishmen hated about their “stiff upper lip” Establishment parents.
So to get a sense of what an amazing accomplishment …Colonel Blimp is, imagine Martin Scorsese taking Homer and Marge Simpson and, without a single ironic wink, fashioning a cinematic masterpiece to rival Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage.
Like a Gone with the Wind for guys, ...Colonel Blimp spans decades of conflict and peace, love and loss, success and failure, with the added attraction of sly, dry British humor to provide much needed comic relief.
(It’s been known to make grown men cry.)
