This unlikely friendship, tested not by the love for the same woman but more by the tumult of the First World War and then firmly reinforced by the Second, is what forms the unique story of the film, which also serves as a well-rounded portrait of Candy himself. We follow him from his cocksure youth to his heyday as a military commander and finally find him as an old man rendered futile, misunderstood for his righteous views on a war that cannot be won fairly. Powell and Pressburger examine this charmingly, if stubbornly, idealistic man critically but candidly, an effect further achieved by Roger Livesey’s infectiously articulate but utterly poignant performance. Candy loses in love, then finds a wife with a striking resemblance to the woman whom he loved and even as an old man, now growing a walrus moustache on a stiff upper lip once scarred by a friend, he keeps a plucky woman chauffeur who again bears the same identicality. Through these three performances, essayed by Deborah Kerr’s striking presence and angelic beauty, the makers are also able to chart the inevitable course of social and cultural transformation sweeping across Britain, even as its most recognisable figure, Candy himself, remains unchangeable.