Powell, Michael

Classic British Thrillers (The Phantom Light / Red Ensign / The Upturned Glass)

THE PHANTOM LIGHT (1935)Michael Powell directed this creepy quota quickie before his success with the Academy Award® winning BLACK NARCISSUS and THE RED SHOES and the cult classic PEEPING TOM.The disappearance of two lighthouse keepers stationed on the desolate coast of Wales is linked to the specter of a rogue beacon that lures freight ships to their destruction on the rocks. Gordon Harker (Alfred Hitchcock s THE RING) and Binnie Hale (LOVE FROM A STRANGER) star as bickering sleuths who must solve the mystery of The Phantom Light or become its next victims!RED ENSIGN (1935)This fact-based expose of corruption and sabotage in the British shipping industry is another early work from acclaimed director Michael Powell.With England s commercial fleet in decline idealistic shipbuilder David Barr (THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME s Leslie Banks) conceives a radical new design to revolutionize the industry. Denied capital to proceed by his firm s board of directors Barr funds the project himself attracting the support of a beautiful heiress and the attention of a ruthless rival who will stop at nothing even murder to obtain Barr s top secret design.THE UPTURNED GLASS (1947)Before he was a multiple Academy Award® nominee James Mason (LOLITA) starred as a surgeon turned sleuth in this absorbing revenge thriller.After sparing the eyesight of a young patient Dr. Michael Joyce falls in love with the girl s grateful mother Emma Wright (Rosamund John) whose husband has been absent for years. When her man returns unexpectedly Emma reluctantly ends the affair only to be killed in a mysterious fall. Using his surgical skills to trace the killer Michael begins his own investigation but has no intention of handing the murderer over to the police.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSICS UPC: 030306786094 Manufacturer No: DVD7860

I Know Where I'm Going! - Criterion Collection

Assured, headstrong Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) knows exactly what she wants and how to get it, until she's stranded in a rough, windswept Scottish village--in sight but out of reach of an island where a rich fiancée, a lavish wedding, and a loveless marriage await. While a raging storm prevents her crossing, a quiet, modest, and penniless Scottish laird named Torquil (Roger Livesey) slowly wins her cheerfully mercenary heart and upsets her carefully arranged plans with messy emotions. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's much-loved romantic drama is a handsome work full of vivid, offbeat characters (Pamela Brown is especially striking as an earthy villager always accompanied by a pack of bloodhounds) living in a world that's part tradition and part myth. Villagers work and celebrate with the simple spirit of common folk ("We're not poor, we just haven't any money," Torquil admonishes the materialist Joan). Powell brings his lively manner and bold visual invention to the creation of his beautiful but harsh primal paradise, culminating in the awesome spectacle of a massive whirlpool that could be the work of the "legend of Corryvreckan" or the stormy embodiment of Joan's hysterical heart. Awash in mystic power of ancient castles and chanted legends, I Know Where I'm Going is one of the most romantic visions of Britain's most magical director. --Sean Axmaker

In Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's stunningly photographed comedy, romance flourishes in an unlikely place-the bleak and moody Scottish Hebrides. Wendy Hiller stars as a headstrong young woman who travels to these remote isles to marry a rich lord. Stranded by stormy weather, she meets a handsome naval officer (Roger Livesey) who threatens to thwart her carefully laid-out life plans.

The Tales of Hoffmann - Criterion Collection

Jacques Offenbach died with his masterpiece not quite finished, and that has made The Tales of Hoffmann a predestined victim for adapters who have dropped some numbers, inserted others, altered the plot, fiddled with the casting, and changed the order of scenes. It has survived and kept its essential identity through many adaptations because its music is so witty and compelling, its imagination so vivid and varied, its story of the poet Hoffmann's unhappy loves so intriguing they can transcend such tinkering.

A critical performing edition prepared by musicologist Michael Kaye has made it possible to come close to Offenbach's original intentions after more than a century of misunderstanding, and major companies have begun to use that edition, but so far no universally satisfying production of it has reached video. An Opera de Lyon production, using Kaye's research but with a radically untraditional staging, has won wholehearted approval from some fans but unequivocal rejection from more.

As adaptations go, this 1951 film is the best compromise currently available on video and will always be a classic in its own right, even when a more faithful treatment becomes available. It drops some of Offenbach's music and includes some that is spurious, and it changes the plot (Hoffman's beloved Stella is made a dancer--Moira Shearer--not a singer). But at least it treats the story with affection, imagination, and technical expertise. The music presents only highlights of the score, but it is in the hands of a great conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham. The movie is essentially the work of the same team that produced The Red Shoes (directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger); it has the same kind of imaginative appeal and its technical resourcefulness is still exciting, still on the cutting edge despite its age. I expect eventually to add a more faithful Tales of Hoffmann to my video collection, but I will never stop enjoying this one. --Joe McLellan

In Jacques Offenbach's fantasy opera, the poet E.T.A. Hoffmann dreams of three women - a mechanical performing doll, a bejeweled siren who steals his reflection, and the consumptive daughter of a famous composer - all of whom break his heart in different

Black Narcissus - Criterion Collection

Appropriately enough for a picture named for a flower, Black Narcissus exists in a color-drenched, hothouse atmosphere. The setting is a nunnery in the Himalayas, where sister Deborah Kerr has her hands full with an envious nun (the remarkable Kathleen Byron) and a sardonic Englishman (David Farrar). Director Michael Powell and screenwriter Emeric Pressburger, the team responsible for the mid-forties masterpieces A Stairway to Heaven and The Red Shoes, decided to shoot Black Narcissus entirely in the studio, so they could create their own controlled, slightly unreal world. The choice paid off, as both art director Alfred Junge and cinematographer Jack Cardiff won Oscars for their blazing Technicolor work. The climactic sequence--a murder attempt on the cliffs of the cloister--bears special attention, as Powell "set" the sequence to a preexisting musical track, staging it as though it were a piece of visual choreography. Adding a bit of behind-the-scenes tension to the production was the fact that Kerr was the director's ex-mistress, and Byron his current one. "It was a situation not uncommon in show business, I was told," he later wrote, "but it was new to me." --Robert Horton

Plagued by uncertainties and worldly desires, five Protestant missionary nuns, led by Deborah Kerr's Sister Clodagh, struggle to establish a school in the desolate Himalayas. All the elements of cinematic arts are perfectly fused in Powell and Pressburger's fascinating study of the age-old conflict between the spirit and the flesh, set against the grandeur of the snowcapped peaks of Kanchenjunga. Criterion is proud to present Black Narcissus in a new Special Edition.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion Collection

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's first Technicolor masterpiece, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), transcends its narrow wartime propaganda to portray in warm-hearted detail the life and loves of one extraordinary man. The film's clever narrative structure first presents us with the imposingly rotund General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey in his greatest screen performance), a blustering old duffer who seems the epitome of stuffy, outmoded values. But traveling backwards 40 years we see a different man altogether: the young and dashing officer "Sugar" Candy. Through a series of affecting relationships with three women (all played to perfection by Deborah Kerr) and his touching lifelong friendship with a German officer (Anton Wallbrook), we see Candy's life unfold and come to understand how difficult it is for him to adapt his sense of military honor to modern notions of "total war." Notoriously, this is the film that Winston Churchill tried to have banned, and indeed its sympathetic portrayal of a German officer was contentious in 1943, though one suspects that Churchill's own blimpishness was a factor too. --Mark Walker

Thief of Bagdad (1940)

Often hailed as the greatest fantasy film ever made, The Thief of Bagdad (1940) was producer Alexander Korda's crowning achievement. Deservedly winning Academy Awards for art direction, color cinematography, and special effects, this Arabian Nights adventure appeals to all ages with its fantastical tale of Abu (Sabu), the little thief who befriends the prince of Bagdad (John Justin) and foils the nefarious plans of the evil grand vizier (Conrad Veidt), who seizes control of Bagdad and covets the princess of Basra (Joan Duprez). From its gorgeous, epic-scale sets to flying horses, magic carpets, and, best of all, Rex Ingram's towering jinni of the bottle, this Thief has all the magic of the tales that inspired it, and vibrant Technicolor brings it all to life in dazzling style. Six esteemed directors worked on this infamously troubled production, but the final result exceeded all expectations, becoming an instant classic that endures to this day. --Jeff Shannon

A Canterbury Tale - Criterion Collection

One of the most beloved of all British films, A Canterbury Tale marks yet another occasion to celebrate the Criterion Collection's growing DVD legacy of Powell and Pressburger classics. Originally conceived as good-natured propaganda to support the British-American alliance of World War II, the film became something truly special in the hands of the Archers (a.k.a. writer/director/producers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger). Taking its literary cues from Chaucer's titular classic, it begins with a prologue that harkens back to Chaucer's time before match-cutting to present-day August of 1943, with the night-time arrival of U.S. Army Sgt. Bob Johnson (played with folksy charm by John Sweet, an actual American GI) on the shadowy platform of Canterbury station in the magically rural county of Kent (where Powell was born and raised). He is soon joined by two fellow train passengers: Alison Smith (Sheila Sim), a brashly independent recruit in the British Woman's Land Army; and Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price), a sergeant in the royal Army, and before long they're tracking clues to find "the glue man," a mysterious figure who's been pouring "the sticky stuff" on unsuspecting women as the midnight hour approaches. Their investigation leads to Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman), a village squire whose local slide-shows celebrate life in an idyllic rural England threatened by wartime change. As Graham Fuller writes in an observant mini-essay that accompanies this DVD, is this a whodunit? Historical documentary? War film? Rustic comedy? It's all these and so much more: As photographed in glorious black and white by Erwin Hiller (faithfully preserved by one of Criterion's finest high-definition digital transfers), A Canterbury Tale has an elusive, magical quality that encompasses its trio of Canterbury "pilgrims" and translates into a an elusive, spiritually uplifting sense of elation that has made it an all-time favorite among film lovers around the world. --Jeff Shannon

On the DVDs
In addition to one of the most crisply detailed black-and-white transfers you're ever likely to see, disc 1 of A Canterbury Tale includes a feature-length commentary by film historian Ian Christie, author of the now out-of-print Arrows of Desire (the definitive study of Powell & Pressburger films) and a foremost authority on British films in general. Disc 2 is loaded with Canterbury extras, including a pleasant reminiscence by actress Sheila Sim; a documentary about John Sweet (who is seen visiting Canterbury in 2000, for the first time since filming A Canterbury Tale in 1943); and a charming new documentary that follows contemporary Canterbury "pilgrims" as they revisit locations used in the film. There's also "Listen to Britain," a seven-minute video-installation piece inspired by A Canterbury Tale by artist Victor Burgin (and programmed to loop from start to finish and back again, as it did in museums); and the original "Listen to Britain," by Humphrey Jennings--a classic wartime documentary from the classic era of British non-fiction film that celebrates the sights, and especially the sounds, of rural England in the early 1940s. All in all, these are excellent features that place A Canterbury Tale in evocative historical context. --Jeff Shannon

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's beloved classic is a profoundly personal journey to Powell's bucolic birthplace of Kent England. Set amidst the tumult of the Second World War yet with a rhythm as delicate as a lullaby the film follows three modern-day incarnations of Chaucer's pilgrims -- a melancholy "landgirl" a plainspoken American GI and a resourceful British sergeant -- who are waylaid in the English countryside and forced to solve a bizarre village crime en route to the mythical town. Building to a majestic climax that ranks as one of the filmmaking duo's finest achievements the dazzling A Canterbury Tale has acquired a following passionate enough to qualify as a pilgrimage all its own.System Requirements:Running Time 124 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 715515018920 Manufacturer No: CC1639DDVD

49th Parallel - Criterion Collection

During World War II, Michael Powell and his writer-producer partner Emeric Pressberger were enlisted to make films in support of the British war effort. While many of their contemporaries turned out routine thrillers, Powell and Pressberger created inventive dramas with a patriotic purpose. The 1941 adventure The 49th Parallel, about a small German U-boat crew stranded in Canada off Hudson's Bay, is a prime example of wartime propaganda turned into rousing entertainment with smart writing, engaging characters, and creative cinema. As the Germans traverse the length of Canada, attempting to outrun authorities while seeking a passage to the still-neutral United States, they encounter a wide array of citizens from all walks of life, including French Canadian trapper Laurence Olivier (with a perhaps overenthusiastic accent), Hutterites Anton Walbrook and Glynis Johns, intellectual aesthete Leslie Howard, and two-fisted AWOL soldier Raymond Massey. As the Nietzschian sermons of Nazi leader Hirth (Eric Portman) fall on deaf ears, his party dwindles in number as the people of Canada rise up to stop his escape, not so much with violence as with pure defiance. The rhetoric isn't subtle--the film was designed to both strengthen ties to Canada and encourage America's entrance into the war--but the vivid location shooting provides a marvelous travelogue of Canada's landscapes and natural beauty and a loving portrait of the rich culture north of the 49th parallel. The picture earned Emeric Pressberger an Academy Award for his original story. This movie is also known as The Invaders. --Sean Axmaker

At once a compelling piece of anti-isolationist propaganda and a quick-witted wartime thriller 49th Parallel is a classic early work from the inimitable British filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. When a Nazi U-boat crew headed by the ruthless Eric Portman is stranded in Canada during the thick of World War II the men evade capture by hiding out in a series of rural communities before trying to cross the border into the still-neutral United States. Both soul-stirring and delightfully entertaining 49th Parallel features a colorful cavalcade of characters played by larger-than-life actors Laurence Olivier Raymond Massey Anton Walbrook and Leslie Howard. System Requirements:Run Time: 107 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE UPC: 715515022422 Manufacturer No: CC1683DDVD

Battle of the River Plate [Region 2]

Contraband

Michael Powell uses the inky darkness of the London blackout as the memorable setting for this romantic wartime espionage thriller. Conrad Veidt, the severe hawk-faced German actor best known for playing villains (including the evil vizier in the Powell-directed portions of The Thief of Bagdad), enjoys a rare heroic turn as the no-nonsense captain of a neutral Danish freighter pulled into a British port. When two of his passengers sneak off one night, he follows the headstrong Mrs. Sorensen (Valerie Hobson) in hopes of meeting up with her fellow truant. Instead he runs into a nest of Nazis: his delinquent passengers are in reality British spies, and he's caught in the web of intrigue. Clearly a wartime propaganda piece, this witty, fast-paced thriller concocted by Powell and screenwriter Emeric Pressburger makes the most of its nocturnal setting. The charming nightclub hopping turns into a kidnapping and a daring escape (the resourceful captain navigates his way through London by the stars), and concludes with a brawl that joins the Danes with a group of plucky Brits--Allies in action! Spiced with genial humor (provided by Claude Rains look-alike Hay Petrie, who plays the dual roles of the first mate, Skold, and his two-fisted restaurateur cousin) and a refreshingly mature angle on romantic sparring, this joins The Lady Vanishes as one of the best and most elegant of the British wartime thrillers. --Sean Axmaker