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 (album) Legacy" being considered. According to Gers, "sometimes a title will just leap out at you as the obvious choice, but it didn't this time for some reason", so the band decided on "A Matter of Life and Death", which, according to McBrain, was amongst "two or three ideas which we were kicking around". Neither Gers or McBrain can remember who came up with the title, which they state was thought up by either Harris, Rod Smallwood (the band's manager) or "Drew" (an engineer at Sarm West Studios). The album cover was created by Tim Bradstreet, an American artist, best known