The Layered Propaganda of Colonel Blimp

A wise mid-century war film offers more lessons than its surface might suggests

Today it’s hard to imagine an everyday newspaper comic yielding a nuanced and devastatingly poignant film adaptation. Can you picture Family Circus, with its quirky look at the darnedest things kids say, transformed into a moving meditation on childhood writ large, or Marmaduke—essentially, a comic about the travails of owning a big awkward dog—inspirin…