A Matter of Life and Death (film)

A Matter Of Life And Death (film)

A Matter of Life and Death (1946) is a romantic fantasy film created by the British writing-directing-producing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and set in England during the Second World War. It stars David Niven, Roger Livesey, Kim Hunter, Marius Goring and Raymond Massey.

The film was originally released in the United States under the title Stairway to Heaven, which derived from the film's most prominent special effect: a broad escalator linking Earth to the afterlife. Reversing the effect in The Wizard of Oz, the supernatural scenes are in "Technicolor mono-chrome" – a special process developed jointly by Director of Photography Jack Cardiff and Technicolor London – while the natural scenes on Earth are in Technicolor. Photographic dissolves between "Technicolor mono-chrome" (the Other World) and Three-Strip Technicolor (Earth) are used several times during the film.

In 2004, a poll by the magazine Total Film of 25 film critics named A Matter of Life and Death the second greatest British film ever made, behind Get Carter.