I Know Where I'm Going! (Criterion #94).
1945 The Rank Organisation & Janus Films.
Starring: Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, Pamela Brown, Finlay Currie, George Carney, Nancy Price
Directors: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Available from Amazon.
From her infant days, Joan Webster (Hiller) always possessed an independent spirit, and always knew where she was going, or at least she thought so. As an adult, she leaves home in Manchester, planning to travel to the Hebrides to marry the very wealthy and much older industrialist Sir Robery Bellinger (voiced by Norman Shelley), settling down on the island of Kiloran. Bad weather keeps her stuck for a week on the Isle of Mull, and Joan waits in a small community of people whose values are foreign to her.
During the wait, Joan meets a naval officer named Torquil MacNeil (Livesey), who is also trying to make his way to Kiloran for shore leave. Over the next few days, she falls for MacNeil, but she still doesn't want her original plan to go to waste. Joan unsuccessfully tries to sail to Kiloran, but Torquil, who invited himself aboard after hearing that she was making the trip, manages to bring the boat back into a safe harbor. Only then does Joan learn that her future does not lie in a marriage of convenience on a small island, but it resides on the mainland with Torquil.
Highly recommended.
Showing posts with label powell and pressburger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label powell and pressburger. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
The Small Back Room
The Small Back Room [U.S. title: Hour of Glory] (Criterion #441).
1949 London Films, StudioCanal & Janus Films.
Starring: David Farrar, Kathleen Byron, Jack Hawkins, Cyril Cusack, Milton Rosmer
Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Buy The Small Back Room from Amazon.
Powell & Pressburger's first project for London Films. The Archers were released from their contracts from the Rank Organisation just after the completion of The Red Shoes, which the studio didn't think was going to be a hit.
Sammy Rice (Farrar) is a scientists employed with a special "back room" team of fellow eggheads during World War II, working on solving a problem with booby-trapped devices being dropped out of Nazi bombers, notably a children's toy that's really a dangerous bomb. Rice is a brilliant worker, but he has an artificial leg causing him chronic pain which he tries to drown with large quantities of alcohol, and the problem with the bottle is starting to interfere with his relationship with his girlfriend Susan (Byron).
Rice starts having disagreements with his superiors when a businessman named Waring (Hawkins) and his partner Professor Mair (Rosmer) begin lobbying the Army to invest in a new weapon that Rice feels is both ineffective and dangerous.
Recommended film.
1949 London Films, StudioCanal & Janus Films.
Starring: David Farrar, Kathleen Byron, Jack Hawkins, Cyril Cusack, Milton Rosmer
Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Buy The Small Back Room from Amazon.
Powell & Pressburger's first project for London Films. The Archers were released from their contracts from the Rank Organisation just after the completion of The Red Shoes, which the studio didn't think was going to be a hit.
Sammy Rice (Farrar) is a scientists employed with a special "back room" team of fellow eggheads during World War II, working on solving a problem with booby-trapped devices being dropped out of Nazi bombers, notably a children's toy that's really a dangerous bomb. Rice is a brilliant worker, but he has an artificial leg causing him chronic pain which he tries to drown with large quantities of alcohol, and the problem with the bottle is starting to interfere with his relationship with his girlfriend Susan (Byron).
Rice starts having disagreements with his superiors when a businessman named Waring (Hawkins) and his partner Professor Mair (Rosmer) begin lobbying the Army to invest in a new weapon that Rice feels is both ineffective and dangerous.
Recommended film.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Peeping Tom
Peeping Tom (Criterion #58). 1960 Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors & Janus Films.
Starring: Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley
Director: Michael Powell
Buy Peeping Tom at Amazon.
Michael Powell of the Archers goes solo to bring you the middle chapter of what British film critic David Pine dubbed the "Sadian Trilogy"; three Anglo-Amalgamated films that had an emphasis on sadism. Horrors of the Black Museum and Circus of Horrors were the other two movies.
Mark Lewis (Boehm) is an aspiring filmmaker who works part time taking lurid pictires of women. He is also a shy young man who rarely socializes outside of the office, while leaning part of his father's home and acting as the landlord. Mark also has another interesting hobby: murdering women and filming their deaths. The movie opens with Mark finding and killing a prostitute, then watching the footage back at home.
A family lives downstairs from Mark, and he becomes taken by Helen (Massey). They become very close, and Mark eventually reveals to Helen that his father (Powell in an uncredited cameo) used to put his son in very uncomfortable situations, and he would film them, studying the films which would make his reputation as a psychologist. Later on, Mark arranges with a stand-in actress, Vivian (Shearer), to make a film after the set is closed for the night. He kills Vivian and stuffs her in a prop trunk, where it is discovered by the film crew. The police link the two murders, and after interviewing everyone, become suspicious of Mark, who always has his camera running while claiming he's making a "documentary".
How long can Mark keep up his grisly experiments in studying the deaths of women that he kills, and will Helen unwittingly become one of his future film "stars"?
Peeping Tom is a classic British horror film. Highly recommended.
Starring: Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley
Director: Michael Powell
Buy Peeping Tom at Amazon.
Michael Powell of the Archers goes solo to bring you the middle chapter of what British film critic David Pine dubbed the "Sadian Trilogy"; three Anglo-Amalgamated films that had an emphasis on sadism. Horrors of the Black Museum and Circus of Horrors were the other two movies.
Mark Lewis (Boehm) is an aspiring filmmaker who works part time taking lurid pictires of women. He is also a shy young man who rarely socializes outside of the office, while leaning part of his father's home and acting as the landlord. Mark also has another interesting hobby: murdering women and filming their deaths. The movie opens with Mark finding and killing a prostitute, then watching the footage back at home.
A family lives downstairs from Mark, and he becomes taken by Helen (Massey). They become very close, and Mark eventually reveals to Helen that his father (Powell in an uncredited cameo) used to put his son in very uncomfortable situations, and he would film them, studying the films which would make his reputation as a psychologist. Later on, Mark arranges with a stand-in actress, Vivian (Shearer), to make a film after the set is closed for the night. He kills Vivian and stuffs her in a prop trunk, where it is discovered by the film crew. The police link the two murders, and after interviewing everyone, become suspicious of Mark, who always has his camera running while claiming he's making a "documentary".
How long can Mark keep up his grisly experiments in studying the deaths of women that he kills, and will Helen unwittingly become one of his future film "stars"?
Peeping Tom is a classic British horror film. Highly recommended.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Red Shoes
The Red Shoes (Criterion #44). 1948 The Rank Organisation & Janus Films.
Starring: Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring
Directors: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Buy The Red Shoes at Amazon.
Arguably Powell and Pressburger's most famous work, The Red Shoes is a Technicolor masterpiece of an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's (that's me!!) story of the same name, where a selfish girl acquires a pair of red shoes and finds that they're controlling her life the moment she starts to dance and can't stop.
Struggling composer Julian Craster (Goring) attends a performance of the Lermontov Ballet Company, where he recognizes his own music being used without his permission during a production of "Hearts of Fire". Julian protests to the company director Boris Lermontov (Walbrook), who hires him to compose the music for his next ballet, a version of "The Red Shoes". Boris also hires the attractive new dancer Victoria Page (Shearer) to perform, and Victoria is quickly cast into the starring role after the original lead ballerina announces her plans to wed, which hurts Boris.
"The Red Shoes" ballet, shown in a fifteen minute sequence, is a smash hit, and Victoria becomes a star overnight. Boris, though, finds out that she and Julian are madly in love, which prompts him to fire Julian fron the production, and Victoria goes with him. Boris allows Victoria to dance when and where she pleases, except for any future productions of "The Red Shoes", which he owns the rights to, as well as owning Julian's score. As long as Boris is working, he will not allow anyone else to produce it.
Meanwhile, Julian's compositions have made him a worldwide success, and he and Victoria are happily married. Boris runs into Victoria in Paris, and he invites her to perform one engagement of "The Red Shoes" in Monaco. Julian cancels one of his own performances to talk Victoria into coming back home with him, but she is torn over what she wants to do. Julian leaves, and right before her first appearance onstage, Victoria (wearing the red shoes) rushes out of the theater towards the train station. Julian sees her and rushes to meet her, but she jumps from a balcony and into the path of an approaching train. Before being taken away in the ambulance, a dying Victoria asks Julian to remove her red shoes, just like the end of the ballet. At the theater, a devastated Boris addresses the audience to tell them that Victoria would not be performing that night, "nor indeed any other night". The show still goes on, with a spotlight on the empty space that was intended for Victoria.
An interesting movie, which is also a favorite of Martin Scorsese, who, to my knowledge, has never directed a movie about ballet. Highly recommended.
Starring: Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring
Directors: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Buy The Red Shoes at Amazon.
Arguably Powell and Pressburger's most famous work, The Red Shoes is a Technicolor masterpiece of an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's (that's me!!) story of the same name, where a selfish girl acquires a pair of red shoes and finds that they're controlling her life the moment she starts to dance and can't stop.
Struggling composer Julian Craster (Goring) attends a performance of the Lermontov Ballet Company, where he recognizes his own music being used without his permission during a production of "Hearts of Fire". Julian protests to the company director Boris Lermontov (Walbrook), who hires him to compose the music for his next ballet, a version of "The Red Shoes". Boris also hires the attractive new dancer Victoria Page (Shearer) to perform, and Victoria is quickly cast into the starring role after the original lead ballerina announces her plans to wed, which hurts Boris.
"The Red Shoes" ballet, shown in a fifteen minute sequence, is a smash hit, and Victoria becomes a star overnight. Boris, though, finds out that she and Julian are madly in love, which prompts him to fire Julian fron the production, and Victoria goes with him. Boris allows Victoria to dance when and where she pleases, except for any future productions of "The Red Shoes", which he owns the rights to, as well as owning Julian's score. As long as Boris is working, he will not allow anyone else to produce it.
Meanwhile, Julian's compositions have made him a worldwide success, and he and Victoria are happily married. Boris runs into Victoria in Paris, and he invites her to perform one engagement of "The Red Shoes" in Monaco. Julian cancels one of his own performances to talk Victoria into coming back home with him, but she is torn over what she wants to do. Julian leaves, and right before her first appearance onstage, Victoria (wearing the red shoes) rushes out of the theater towards the train station. Julian sees her and rushes to meet her, but she jumps from a balcony and into the path of an approaching train. Before being taken away in the ambulance, a dying Victoria asks Julian to remove her red shoes, just like the end of the ballet. At the theater, a devastated Boris addresses the audience to tell them that Victoria would not be performing that night, "nor indeed any other night". The show still goes on, with a spotlight on the empty space that was intended for Victoria.
An interesting movie, which is also a favorite of Martin Scorsese, who, to my knowledge, has never directed a movie about ballet. Highly recommended.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
49th Parallel
49th Parallel (Criterion #376). 1941 Janus Films & General Film Distributors Ltd.
Starring: Eric Portman, Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Raymond Lovell, Raymond Massey
Co-written by Emeric Pressburger
Director: Michael Powell
Buy 49th Parallel at Amazon.
A propaganda film made during World War II. Michael Powell was originally asked by the British government to make a film about mine-sweeping. Powell had other ideas: making a movie to sway opinions in the United States, which was still neutral at the time, in hopes of "scaring the pants off the Americans". 49th Parallel was the end product, but it took the attack on Pearl Harbor to finally bring the U.S. into the war. Powell teamed up with his fellow Archer, writer Emeric Pressburger, and after getting approval from the British and Canadian governments, started work in 1940.
The Royal Canadian Air Force sinks a German U-boat in Hudson Bay. The survivors attempt to evade capture by traveling across Canada to the still-neutral United States. Nazi lieutenants Hirth (Portman) and Kuhnecke (Lovell) lead their fellow survivors, and meet an eclectic range of people, including Johnny, a French-Canadian trapper strictly from commercial (Olivier), some pacifictic German Hutterite farmers (led by Anton Walbrook), and an eccentric English teacher (Howard), who gets wounded, but is still able to help capture one of the sailors.
Hirth ends up encountering an AWOL Canadian soldier Andy Brock (Massey) on a freight train, but he fails to gain entrance to the U.S. when Brock alerts the officials that he isn't listed on the manifest.
The film's title is taken from the 49th parallel, which also serves as much of the U.S.-Canadian border. No scenes in the movie take place anywhere near that frontier, and the only border scene in the movie takes place near Niagara Falls (slowly I turn...), located further south of the 49th parallel line.
A fine effort from The Archers. Olivier is also particularly effective in this one, almost to the point of ridiculousness. Recommended.
Starring: Eric Portman, Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Raymond Lovell, Raymond Massey
Co-written by Emeric Pressburger
Director: Michael Powell
Buy 49th Parallel at Amazon.
A propaganda film made during World War II. Michael Powell was originally asked by the British government to make a film about mine-sweeping. Powell had other ideas: making a movie to sway opinions in the United States, which was still neutral at the time, in hopes of "scaring the pants off the Americans". 49th Parallel was the end product, but it took the attack on Pearl Harbor to finally bring the U.S. into the war. Powell teamed up with his fellow Archer, writer Emeric Pressburger, and after getting approval from the British and Canadian governments, started work in 1940.
The Royal Canadian Air Force sinks a German U-boat in Hudson Bay. The survivors attempt to evade capture by traveling across Canada to the still-neutral United States. Nazi lieutenants Hirth (Portman) and Kuhnecke (Lovell) lead their fellow survivors, and meet an eclectic range of people, including Johnny, a French-Canadian trapper strictly from commercial (Olivier), some pacifictic German Hutterite farmers (led by Anton Walbrook), and an eccentric English teacher (Howard), who gets wounded, but is still able to help capture one of the sailors.
Hirth ends up encountering an AWOL Canadian soldier Andy Brock (Massey) on a freight train, but he fails to gain entrance to the U.S. when Brock alerts the officials that he isn't listed on the manifest.
The film's title is taken from the 49th parallel, which also serves as much of the U.S.-Canadian border. No scenes in the movie take place anywhere near that frontier, and the only border scene in the movie takes place near Niagara Falls (slowly I turn...), located further south of the 49th parallel line.
A fine effort from The Archers. Olivier is also particularly effective in this one, almost to the point of ridiculousness. Recommended.
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