I Know Where I'm Going! Revisited (1994 TV Movie) User Reviews

An evocative documentary about the original film

[robert-temple-1 · 7/10 · 29 April 2017]

This is a half-hour documentary about the film I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING (1945, see my review). It was made by Mark Cousins for BBC Scotland in 1994, which is available for free download on Youtube. This was only his second documentary. Later in his career he would direct many documentaries and important series about the history of the cinema, which appears to be his main passion in life. This, his first film investigating the history of cinema, was prompted by the strong feelings about the film of Nancy Franklin (apparently a pseudonym), an editor of THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE. She had been obsessed by the film since childhood. She says in the film 'it changed my life'. Cousins follows her to the Isle of Mull and other sites in the Western Isles of Scotland, where she visits the original locations of the film. Numerous surviving people who had been associated with the film are interviewed. These include fascinating recollections by Wendy Hiller herself, Petula Clark, who played the little girl in the film, and Erwin Hillier/Hillier, the cinematographer, who supplies most of the interesting technical background information. The man who took his boat into the whirlpool is also interviewed, as well as Wendy Hiller's stand-in, Martin Scorsese and Kevin MacDonald, who is the grandson of the co-writer and co-producer, Emeric Pressburger. Cousins visits the hotel in Tobermory where much of the film was shot, and interviews the proprietor, who tells of all the tourists who come looking for the locations of their favourite film including her hotel, where they stay. Cousins visits the ruined Moy Castle, which featured so prominently in the film, and other key locations. The documentary is all too brief for such a big subject, but it is informative, atmospherically shot, and evokes much of the magic of the place, the people, and the original film.

Return To Mull

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 30 April 2005]

This short documentary takes a backward glance at one of the finest romantic films ever made: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's 1945 classic I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING! Interesting details about the making of the film are related by actresses Dame Wendy Hiller & Petula Clark and cinematographer Erwin Hiller. Filmmaker Martin Scorsese discusses why the movie is important to him.

Stitching the narrative together is New Yorker media critic Nancy Franklin, who explains why the film changed her life and takes the viewer for a fascinating look at the Isle of Mull in the Scottish Inner Hebrides to visit shooting locations and meet a couple of elderly islanders who were involved with the film's production.