The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp Quiz

Answer: War

The dispatch states that an invasion exercise will be taking place in London area and that "war starts at midnight"; the regular army are the attacking force and the Home Guard are the defending force. Platoon commander Lt 'Spud' Wilson, played by James McKechnie, decides to pre-empt the exercise and capture the general when he is least expecting it. Lieutenant Wilson orders his platoon to travel into London to the Piccadilly hotel in which Wynne-Candy and his fellow senior officers are relaxing before the exercise is due to begin. General Wynne-Candy, V.C., played by Roger Livesey, takes umbrage that a junior officer has used his initiative and struck before the exercise has started. Lt Wilson justifies this course of action by stating that he will defend his country and fight the enemy by using any means at his disposal.

A heated argument ensues and the general and the young officer come to blows, both eventually tumbling into the bath spa pool. It is at this point that the film travels back in time to 1902 when the Major-General was a young officer, a Lieutenant, himself.

Answer: Berlin

The German agent, Kaunitz, is attempting to foment trouble between Great Britain and Germany by accusing the British of murdering Boer women and children rather than feeding them. An indignant Candy is refused permission to travel to Germany by his superiors, but he ignores them and travels there where he meets governess Edith Hunter, the first role in the film played by Deborah Kerr.

Whilst confronting Kaunitz in a café-restaurant, Candy inadvertently insults the entire Imperial German Officer Corps!

Answer: False

It is a very colourful mosaic of the British royal coat of arms that can be seen as the two soldiers march into the British Embassy building. The two officers of the Imperial German Officer Corps are visiting the British Embassy to demand satisfaction after Candy's insult. Candy's insult was deemed so severe that every officer in the corps wishes to take part in the duel with Candy; however, the corps is forced to draw lots to pick the officer who will be given the honour of providing Candy's opposition.

The officer chosen is Oberleutnant Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, played by Anton Walbrook. It is agreed that the duel will take place in the gymnasium at the Berlin barracks of the 2nd Regiment of Uhlans, a regiment of lancers.

Answer: He has a cut to his upper lip.

Candy sustains a cut to his upper lip that requires eight stitches. Surprisingly, Candy's wounds are far more severe than they would appear but had not been inflicted during the combat; in fact after his duel he had slipped on some ice and had fallen face first through a window! Theo, on the other hand, has received a cut across his forehead that requires twelve stitches.

Despite their differences, Candy and Kretschmar-Schuldorff become great friends. During their rehabilitation, Edith Hunter falls in love with Theo and they later marry having two sons; sons who will have a devastating effect on his life in later years.

Answer: A display of animal trophies

As each year passes an animal trophy is mounted on a wall in the home of Candy's aunt in London. As each trophy appears the camera closes in on a plaque underneath which carries the trophy's details; where in the world each was taken and the year of its shooting.

As the camera moves around the room we see the heads of lions, tigers, elephants and many small antelopes until eventually, the image settles on Candy's fireplace where we see a German military helmet, a Pickelhaube, with a plaque beneath it which reads, chillingly, 'Hun - Flanders - 1918'.

Answer: A convent

This is where we meet the second of three characters played by Deborah Kerr. It is here at the Convent of the Crown of Thorns on the last night of the Great War, that Candy meets his future wife. Nurse Barbara Wynne is one of sixty-two trained nurses, a West Riding of Yorkshire detachment that had arrived in theatre that very day. Candy is struck by the likeness that she bears to his earlier lost love, Edith. Barbara is twenty years his junior but still they marry and it is after his marriage that the general adopts Barbara's surname, joining it with his own, becoming Clive Wynne-Candy.

Answer: Doughboys

Although this term was still in use during the Second World War, it is most commonly used as the nickname for those United States soldiers that formed the US expeditionary force to Europe during the Great War. It is not clear from exactly where the term originated but it is believed to have come from the coating of fine dust that those serving in Mexico during the Mexican-American war of the 1840s were often covered with or from the names of the type of bricks that were used to build in northern Mexico that were known as 'adobes'.

In the film Brigadier-General Candy runs into a small section of Doughboys with whom he successfully organises some transport to take him to a railway station, the first leg of his journey back to England.

Answer: His dogs

This production is the pair's second appearance on celluloid; Erik and Spangle can be seen running across the drive at the Yorkshire home of Barbara Wynne and again being called from the rear seat of the Wynne-Candy's car as they begin unpacking after arriving home in London. If you watch very closely you can see one of the dogs relieving itself on the staircase of the Wynne-Candy's home! They also appear in the 1940 production 'Contraband', the 1943 offering, 'I Know Where I'm Going' which was released in 1945 and finally 'A Matter of Life and Death' from 1946; with a few notable exceptions, it could almost be said that his dogs had better employment prospects than many actors!

Answer: Derbyshire

Clive and Mrs Wynne-Candy travel to Derbyshire to meet Theo. On his arrival the German prisoners are attending a concert; Wynne-Candy sends a hand written message that is ignored and then tries to make personal contact but is again rebuffed. A year later as Kretschmar-Schuldorff is about to be repatriated he calls from the railway station to apologise for his behaviour in Derbyshire and is invited to dinner at Wynne-Candy's home. Unconvinced by the assurances given by the assembled ministers and senior military figures present at dinner that Germany will be helped to rebuild after the war, a scornful Kretschmar-Schuldorff returns to Germany.

The years pass once again, this being represented by the turning of pages of mementoes and photographs saved in a scrapbook; this continues until Thursday 12th of August 1926 when we see the announcement in the Times newspaper that Barbara Wynne-Candy had passed away and, once again, the passing of the remaining inter-war years are marked by more trophies appearing in Clive Wynne-Candy's home.

Answer: John Laurie

Murdoch was played by John Laurie who first appeared in the film as Candy's driver and batman during the First World War; Candy and Murdoch are standing together talking in a devastated area of battlefield when they receive the news that the war had finally ended. John Laurie was born in Dumfries, Scotland on the 25th of March 1897 and he enjoyed a long and distinguished career in film and later in television; one notable role included that of Jamy, a Scottish officer serving in France with Henry V's army in Laurence Olivier's 1944 production of Shakespeare's 'Henry V'.

In 1968 Laurie became a member of the cast of the hugely popular BBC television comedy 'Dad's Army' playing the role of dour funeral director James Fraser, a role that continued until the programme came to an end in 1977.

Answer: Adolf Hitler

During the twenty years since Wynne-Candy and Kretschmar-Schuldorff have seen each other, Edith, Theo's wife, has passed away; even more tragically, he had lost both his sons to the Nazi Party. "They are both good Nazis; as far as any Nazi can be called good" a sullen Theo tells the British official.

When asked by the official why he hadn't left Germany earlier than he did, Theo retorted that "It took you British five years to realise that something was wrong" - a statement that the official and the police officer present found impossible to disagree with. Still unconvinced that Theo is a genuine refugee, the official asks if he knows any British person well enough that they can vouch for him.

When asked whether or not he knows General Clive Wynne-Candy, Theo replies that he does and that he had sent him a letter but had not heard from him.

At that moment the General arrives and tells the official that he knows Theo, has done for forty years and will vouch for Theo's integrity and stand surety for him.

Answer: As a photographic model

Angela Cannon's character is the third, and final, played by Deborah Kerr in this film. Chosen from seven hundred other girls to be his driver by Wynne-Candy himself, she bore a striking resemblance to both Edith Hunter in Berlin and to his wife Barbara (not surprisingly!) and it was during the scene in which Theo is being driven home after having dinner with Wynne-Candy, that he also recognises the similarities between Cannon and his own deceased wife Edith.

Answer: The evacuation and aftermath of Dunkirk

The radio programme is scheduled to begin at 21:20hrs in Studio Five. On his arrival at the BBC centre and just prior to when the programme is due to start, Wynne-Candy is called in to the production office where he is informed that his part in the programme had been cancelled and that it is to be replaced with a talk being presented by the author JB Priestley. Wynne-Candy is clearly frustrated by this and begins to lose his composure however he realises that the order to cancel has come down from a far higher authority so he resigns himself and apologises for his outburst.

There is even more bad news awaiting him on his return home where he receives a letter from the War Department informing him that he is being retired.

Answer: Mata-Hari

Angela is devastated to learn that her boyfriend plans to embarrass her beloved General with his plan to strike early in the military exercise by capturing General Candy and his staff by adopting what Wilson considers to be the tactics of his enemy and not playing fairly. Carson and Lieutenant Wilson meet at a roadside café where he reveals his plan to her and, during a brief fracas, Carson pushes Wilson over knocking him unconscious.

After regaining consciousness, Wilson and his platoon chase Carson who is racing towards London in the General's staff car in an attempt to warn Wynne-Candy of their plans before they can get there. Margarethe Zelle, the woman known as Mata-Hari, was a Dutch-born spy executed by the French in 1917 after she had been captured spying for the Germans.

Answer: An emergency water tank

The final scene of the film finds Wynne-Candy, now a senior commander in the Home Guard, in a contemplative mood gazing across the site on which his home once stood and where he shared many happy years with his wife Barbara before her death. He remembers a promise that he had made to Barbara, inasmuch as he would only change when water, a flood or a lake, occupied the land on which their family home had once stood. Gazing into the water contained within the tank, Wynne-Candy realises that this is now the water or lake in question and that a new chapter in his life can begin; as Wynne-Candy turns to salute passing troops, it is at this point that the pictures fade and this epic tale ends.