The 1946 British film "Stairway to Heaven" (British title: "A Matter of Life or Death") was made to rejuvenate Anglo-American friendship by reminding Americans of the World War II alliance. Britain was trying to obtain U.S. foreign aid to rebuild after suffering substantial wartime damage. The film was made before the Marshall Plan came along to provide such aid. In the 1940s, many Americans still viewed Britain suspiciously as imperialistic and the center of world financial domination. The film is a fantasy characteristic of the period. Scenes on Earth are in color; scenes in Heaven are in black and white. The jury selection scene here points to British interest in American population diversity. Although the U.S. had severely limited immigration in the 1920s, there was a substantial immigrant and second-generation population. In contrast, in Britain in the 1940s, there was a much more homogeneous population and immigrants - to the extent there were immigrants - were largely from Ireland. The excerpt here is from the jury selection scene in Heaven and highlights U.S. diversity. The prosecutor is an American patriot from the Revolutionary War era. A plot summary, largely from IMDB.COM, follows: Returning to England from a bombing run in May 1945, flyer Peter Carter's plane is damaged and his parachute ripped to shreds. He has his crew bail out safely, but figures it is curtains for himself. He gets on the radio, and talks to June, a young American woman working for the RAF, and they are quite moved by each other's voices. Then he jumps, preferring this to burning up with his plane. He wakes up in the surf. It was his time to die, but there was a mixup in Heaven. They couldn't find him in all that Channel fog. By the time his "Conductor" catches up with him 20 hours later, Peter and June have met and fallen in love. This changes everything, and since it happened through no fault of his own, Peter figures that Heaven owes him a second chance. Heaven agrees to a trial to decide his fate. The film leaves it ambiguous as to whether the conductor and trial are hallucinations cause by a brain injury or are "real." The trial takes place during Peter's Earthly brain surgery.
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