Since it was released in the waning days of World War II, “I Know Where I’m Going!” has played a unique role in the hearts of moviegoers. It isn’t the most celebrated Powell and Pressburger film, nor is it regularly listed on all-time lists. Instead, it’s a movie that tends to be shared moviegoer to moviegoer, like a cherished gift or family treasure. It’s a buried gem that anyone who’s ever seen it wants to tell everyone about.
“I inherited that,” says Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s celebrated long-time editor. “Michael, when he died, left a little furnace burning inside of me. What keeps me going is loving and trying to get other people to love his work.” “I Know Where I’m Going!,” though, stands for the foolhardiness of best laid plans. Powell and Pressburger made it in 1944 while awaiting the Technicolor cameras Lawrence Olivier was using to make “Henry V.” Pressburger is believed to have written it in a matter of days. They pitched it to Ministry of Information, which controlled wartime moviemaking, as an anti-materialistic tale.
The film’s devotees are a passionate tribe. “The Big Sleep” author Raymond Chandler once wrote, “I’ve never seen a picture which smelled of the wind and rain quite this way.” Tilda Swinton, who has a family home on Colonsay, thinks “I Know Where I’m Going!” should be handed out by Scottish diplomats when they travel the globe. “It’s like a confessional,” Swinton says in a video made for the Film Foundation. “You go back to it every few years.