Stairway to Heaven (Rank; Universal-International)* might be an exceptionally good picture if it didn't strain so desperately to be a great one. It is an imaginative, beautifully Technicolored, British-made fantasy that often trips over its own lofty pretensions.
The British-boy-meets-American-girl story is told with winning charm. David Niven is the British airman who finds himself falling in a burning plane. By radio, he shouts amorous-poetic speeches (he is certain they are his dying words) to a pretty WAC (Kim Hunter) on the landing field. Then he jumps—without parachute. Incredibly, he picks himself up...