From the prestigious Powell and Pressburger team comes a stunningly photographed romantic comedy set on the Scottish Hebrides.
Wendy Hiller stars as a headstrong young woman called Joan Webster who travels from England up to the Western Isles to marry a rich lord. She knows where she’s going, or at least she thinks she does, as she takes the sleeper train north in what has come to be recognized as one of a number of iconic scenes in Powell and Pressburger’s oeuvre.
Stranded by stormy weather on the remote island of Mull, en route to Killoran (a fictitious island based on Colonsay), Joan meets a new world of people, where there is much happiness but little money. The weather features almost as a character in its own right, and one that is against her – with great winds and tempestuous seas meaning she is unable to reach her destination. Marooned on the island, Joan gets to know Torquil, a landowner and naval officer, played by Roger Livesey. The two fall in love and Joan has to decide for herself where and how her life will be lived.
For Powell, I Know Where I’m Going! meant a third visit to the Scottish islands, the setting for his breakthrough films Edge of the World (1937) and Spy in Black (1941), while it marked a more romantic and less realist piece for the pair than previous works.
“I reached the point of thinking there were no more masterpieces to discover, until I saw I Know Where I’m Going!” – Martin Scorsese
