A Matter of Life and Death (film) afterward. David Niven was a fan of chess. Peter and June play chess while they await Dr Reeves. Then Conductor 71 "borrows" a chess book Peter has accidentally knocked off the table, Alekhine's "My Best Games of Chess". After the trial is won, Conductor 71 throws the book from the stairway; June finds it in his jacket pocket "to serve the 'was it a hallucination or did it really happen?' motif of the film", according to Mig Greengard. He also noted, "Lots of chess in movies past and present, but I can't recall another prominent appearance of a real chess
A Matter of Life and Death (film) book". Ian Christie wrote, "the chess plot may also be of more significance than at first appears. The Conductor tries to tempt Peter by offering him the opportunity to pit his skill against the great chess masters; and he 'borrows' Alekhine's famous book, only to return it in an extraordinary transitional shot which introduces the final sequence of Peter waking up in hospital. As a token of Peter's life, the book tumbles from one photographic world to another within the same shot". The film was twice adapted for the American CBS Radio series "Lux Radio Theatre", both with the title