Michael Powell

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Considered by many to be the finest British film ever made, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is a stirring masterpiece like no other. Roger Livesey dynamically embodies outmoded English militarism as the indelible General Clive Candy, who barely survives four decades of tumultuous British history, 1902 to 1942, only to see the world change irrevocably before his eyes. Anton Walbrook and Deborah Kerr provide unforgettable support, he as a German enemy turned lifelong friend of Candy’s and she as young women of three consecutive generations—a socially committed governess, a sweet-souled war nurse, and a modern-thinking army driver—who inspire him. Colonel Blimp is both moving and slyly satirical, an incomparable film about war, love, aging, and obsolescence, shot in gorgeous Technicolor.Read More »

Synopsis:
In the early years of World War II, a German U-boat (U-37) sinks Allied shipping in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and then tries to evade Canadian Military Forces seeking to destroy it by sailing up to Hudson Bay. The U-boat’s fanatical Nazi Captain sends some members of his crew to look for food and other supplies at a Hudson Bay Company outpost. No sooner than the shore party (lead by Lieutenant Hirth) reaches the shore, the U-boat is spotted and sunk by the Canadian Armed Forces, leaving the six members of the shore party stranded in Canada. The Nazi Lieutenant then starts to plan his crew’s return to the Fatherland. He needs to reach the neutral U.S., or be captured. Along the way, they meet a variety of characters, each with their own views on the war and nationalism. In this movie, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger show their ideas of why the U.S. should join the Allied fight against the Nazis.Read More »

In his autobiography Michael Powell described Contraband as “all pure corn, but corn served up by professionals, and it worked” . This is perhaps how audiences have most often approached Contraband, as a slight piece of British World War II propaganda with entertaining asides of comedy and romance; charming and well-made but little more. Beyond this a rating as a minor imitation of Powell’s great rival Hitchcock might be bestowed, even if for little reason other than its concern with spies. But unlike Hitchcock, the cool observer, Powell was always a hot-headed rebel, and as such his views on war, whether between nations or the sexes, are more unconventional.Read More »

Synopsis:
‘When a German U-Boat captain is sent on a spying mission to the North of Scotland during World War One, he finds more than he bargained for in his contact, the local schoolmistress.’
– Ian HarriesRead More »

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After miraculously surviving a jump from his burning plane, RAF pilot Peter Carter (David Niven) encounters the American radio operator (Kim Hunter) to whom he has just delivered his dying wishes, and, face-to-face on a tranquil English beach, the pair fall in love. When a messenger from the hereafter arrives to correct the bureaucratic error that spared his life, Peter must mount a fierce defense for his right to stay on earth—painted by production designer Alfred Junge and cinematographer Jack Cardiff as a rich Technicolor Eden—climbing a wide staircase to stand trial in a starkly beautiful, black-and-white modernist afterlife. Intended to smooth tensions between the wartime allies Britain and America, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s richly humanistic A Matter of Life and Death traverses time and space to make a case for the transcendent value of love.Read More »

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A young Englishwoman goes to the Hebrides to marry her older, wealthier fiancé. When the weather keeps them separated on different islands, she begins to have second thoughts.Read More »

Screen legend Jennifer Jones (Portrait of Jennie) stars as the young, beguiling Hazel Woodus in 1897 Shropshire, England. More than the people around her, she loves and understands the wild animals of the countryside, especially her pet fox. Whenever she has problems, she turns to the book of spells and charms left to her by her gypsy mother. When dashing local squire Jack Reddin (David Farrar, Hour of Glory) begins to pursue Hazel—despite her marriage to Baptist minister Edward Marston (Cyril Cusack, Fahrenheit 451)—a struggle for her body and soul ensues.Read More »

Vienna 1955 – a city under occupation by the four Allied powers. Through the chaos Dr. Falke moves gracefully – an elegant man-about-town and friend to the highest echelon of power. He is decidedly less graceful, however, when he is deposited by a friend at the top of a giant Soviet statue, rather the worse for drink and dressed up as a giant bat.
Falke swears revenge…Read More »

Director Michael Powell, actor John Laurie and assistant Sydney Streeter return to the isle of Foula, on which they made the film The Edge of the World over forty years earlier.

Michael Powell always considered The Edge of the World to be his first truly personal film, even to the extent of keeping the rights to it. However, after its initial trade screening in 1937, the film was cut by seven minutes for a general release length of 74 minutes. In 1940, when it was re-released, the film was cut by a further twelve minutes, and for decades this was the only version available.Read More »