The Archers (Powell & Pressburger): S/D

"Pity?"

"Pity when you get home and people ask you what you've seen in England and you say, 'I saw a movie in Salisbury... and I made a pilgrimage to Canterbury and saw another one.'"

"You've got me all wrong. I know that in Canterbury I have to look out for a cathedral."

"Do look out for it. It's just behind the movie theater, you can't miss it."

sorry

I loved A Canterbury Tale but I've only seen it once & long ago so cannot be too helpful about it. I'm not sure that there is anything profound underlying its mysticism but it is quintessentially English and beautifully done. I need to see this film again, it's the only major Archers film I haven't seen several times and I suspect it'd be at least my second favourite.

A Matter of Life and Death, Peeping Tom (not Pressburger, from memorty) and Black Narcissus all excellent, but I've never managed to get much enthusiasm up for Colonel Blimp despite it probably being regarded as among their best (if not their best?).

I admire it most for its beautiful, and somewhat eerie evocation of a centuries-old way of English life.

I saw Jack Cardiff a few weeks ago, and he told some great stories. And apparently Michael Powell loved almost every suggestion that he got from people. "Wonderful! Let's do it!" or something to that effect - he said exactly the same phrase every time.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002153/

Anyway, no, that wasn't a death tribute - that was the prelude to his Honorary Oscar. (Which, IIRC, is the only honorary one ever awarded to a technician.)

am hoping A Canterbury Tale gets a repeat shortly (the ch4 matinees seem to repeat on a yearly basis - things are turning up again now that i watched this time last year, The Spy In Black being one of them).

Red Shoes was on in the last month or so too but i think i was helping hopkins move house.

monday 19th 13:15: the elusive pimpernel
tuesday 20th 13:00: a canterbury tale
thursday 22nd 13:20: ill met by moonlight

Destroy: Powell's autobiography, rivaled only by Isaac Asimov's in length and tediousness.

The Pressburger bio that came out several years back was pretty good though. Maybe the guy who wrote it was his nephew or grandson?

And has anybody seen any of Powell's quota quickies? I have this strange memory of being in a hotel and a movie called something like Rynox came on the television and then it said "Directed by Michael Powell," but I had to go out so I didn't watch it. The beginning was nothing special.

http://telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/08/13/bfdvds13.xml&menuId=564&sSheet=/arts/2005/08/13/ixfilmmain.html

The Powell & Pressburger Box Set:
Battle of the River Plate;
A Canterbury Tale;
49th Parallel;
I Know Where I'm Going;
Ill Met by Moonlight;
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp;
The Red Shoes;
A Matter of Life and Death;
They're a Weird Mob
Granada Ventures, DVD (9 discs), £17.99; only in HMV

18 quid is a good deal.
"only in HMV"?

I saw A Canterbury Tale last year, then went to Canterbury with the Vicar and Rener! It was a bit like, in the film.

I seem to have had half an eye on I Know Where I'm Going so many times.

A Matter Of Life and Death will always be the central picture for me.

including the HMV website (where it's still 40 quid). i guess this is an instore deal or the website's old. (or the guardian and the times were both wrong)

I saw a (WWII?) lifeboat movie that was shot by Jack Cardiff once that was pretty interesting- google tells me it was called Western Approaches.

Is it only £17.99 if you pick it up "in store"? I'm not familiar with HMV as I'm not from the UK. But damn, I want this.

No, the radio subplot involves her fiancé. Checking up on this led me to discover that Petula Clark has a small role in the movie.

not even then according to starry who popped out at lunchtime. appears both papers were incorrect.

Next Sunday is The Red Shoes and the TCM premiere of- they said it couldn't be shown on television - Peeping Tom.

have seen Peeping Tom at least twice on english tv, last time was as recently as May.

However, Matter Of Life & Death is flawless. Wonderful in every way. I liked Peeping Tom but still, it pales next to most Hitchcock.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033627/

Saturday 29th

9:00 pm
In Which We Serve
Classic drama starring Noel Coward and John Mills. Adrift at sea after their Royal Navy destroyer is attacked and sunk, the surviving crew members recount their stories in flashback. [1942, b&w][S]

10:50 pm
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Powell and Pressburger's masterpiece of British cinema chronicles the extraordinary life story of British army officer Clive Candy, beginning with his early career in the Boer War. [1943][S]

Sunday 30th

7:00 pm
The Colditz Story
John Mills stars in the true story of the notorious German POW establishment and the officers who tried to escape from it. [1955, b&w][S]

8:35 pm
A Bridge Too Far
Star-studded epic war film recounting Operation Market Garden, the daring Allied plan to parachute 35,000 troops into occupied Holland to capture a strategic line of bridges. [1977]

Monday 1st May

7:20 pm
The Man Who Never Was
Spring 1943. As the Allies plan to invade Europe through Sicily they must deceive the enemy into expecting the attack elsewhere. Two British officers propose a daring and ingenious plan. [1956]

(which is a nice little selection. needs more submarines though)

I saw Powell's The Edge of the World on Tuesday. Utterly brilliant, utterly beautiful. Shot almost entirely on location in an almost Mass Observation style but with a Thomas Hardy-esque plot. Like all of his movies he puts the emphasis where you least expect: landscape and the everyday, rather than melodrama. See it.

has ne1 read MP's autobiog? was he a ballet fan way back, ie in the teens and twenties?

I wouldn't know- I only got to page six hundred.

Watching Black Narcissus again, I'd forgotten that every inch was shot in England.

And I know it's a melodrama, but nearly everything about Sister Ruth (esp in the last half) is indeed WAY TOO MUCH.

[image of Lou Reed and VU here]
You know it's just too much

Watching Black Narcissus again, I'd forgotten that every inch was shot in England.
They didn't have to go far to get to the Army Navy store to get the Black Narcissus.

Nor the sausages to eat.

i'd forgotten BN is cheap cologne too!

You obviously didn't read the RIP Deborah Kerr thread too carefully.

i seldom read entire threads carefully.

At this point, me neither.

Guy who played three roles in Canterbury- Narrator/Lantern Show Brit/Village Idiot - was British character actor Esmond Knight, who had been blinded in the war, and also played the Old General in Black Narcissus, of which Powell said something like "he thoroughly enjoyed playing the Rajah, but I don't think he was a very convincing one."

And he's still alive. And he was in I, Claudius. Sweet.

My info says he passed in 1987, after appearing in Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.

Hm, I didn't know Jack Cardiff worked on a Rambo movie.

Ah, I misread his IMDB entry. ah well.

"You can't hurry an elm!"

"I give it 'til the rains break."

Esmond White and Jean Simmons were both in both Blank Narcissus and Sir Larry's Hamlet, the fight over the use over the latter becoming almost a Pinewood-Denham "frontier war," according to Powell.

I have an advance Criterion 2-disc Thief of Bagdad, and I'm not sure I've ever looked forward to spending 8-10 hours with a set before.

I can't be objective about <i>A Canterbury Tale</i>; it's a brilliant film which manages to be simultaneously comforting and unsettling - and Kubrick obviously thought so too, since the bird/Spitfire cut at the beginning is definitely "hello <i>2001</i>."

And Eric Portman as the glue-pourer really was the business; sad that he's largely forgotten now as an actor, or remembered only for his appearance in <i>The Prisoner</i>, since I never saw him give a performance which was anything less than arresting, even if the film itself wasn't much cop.

I have an advance Criterion 2-disc Thief of Bagdad, and I'm not sure I've ever looked forward to spending 8-10 hours with a set before.

-- Dr Morbius, Friday, May 9, 2008 2:00 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

awesome. report back!

Just watched A Canterbury Tale again. That scene on the hill with Allison and the Glue Man ("Glorious, isn't it?") might be my favorite Archers moment (from what I've seen).

canterbury tale is amazing.

Blimey. That 10-film DVD boxed set is now only £9.99 from HMV with free delivery!

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;-1;-1;-1&sku=389105

9-film, rather.

Ordered that quick sharp.

just got the thief of baghdad in the mail today, surprise review copy! WOOHOO!!

The Small Back Room from Criterion next week, very underappreciated, esp the two leads.

Radio 4 had a programme about the book's author, Nigel Balchin, recently. It prompted me to buy The Small Back Room, but I haven't read it yet.

I'd like to read it, Powell second-guessed how they did the adaptation.

what does that sentence mean?

new set from sony — kind of random 2-film collection with "a matter of life and death" and "age of consent."

i'd never seen either before... just watched the former last night. pretty great. the opening scene with them meeting over the radio as david niven's plane is going down really won my heart...

It's a pretty fine movie, cept the whole trial thing is weird. Best understood in terms of US-UK postwar vibe apparently (ie, changing of the Imperial Assholes guard).

Age of Consent benefits from Helen Mirren, a Lolita who can act better than Sue Lyon!

I've had Age of Consent sitting in my queue for a week. Netflix is showing signs of holiday wear.

ya the trial kind of stopped me in my tracks a bit--at least stopped it from becoming a major revelation, especially the way it kind of abruptly ends

definitely makes an interesting companion piece to a canterbury tale.

Age of Consent[ tonight!

big screen or home?

don't get too excited...

peeping tom on tonight though, 12:05, itv. (this being the uk)

The DVD, after a loooong wait.

I Know Where I'm Going still my favorite.

big fan of that one.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/martin-scorsese-the-movie-that-plays-in-my-heart-1685003.html

did not know or had forgotten that jim mcbride was at college with marty.

Need to read that thru properly when I'm at home. OTM about Moira Shearer for real.

Interesting article, thx for link.

I read elsewhere that the restored version of The Red Shoes is out on dvd and blu-ray in June; given the work done on the print it sounds like the blu-ray will be even better than that of Black Narcissus.

he pretty much says "i was coked off my nuts first time i met mickey p."

xpost

the one i most want to see is 'a canterbury tale'. tbh the dvd i have of 'the red shoes' is already amazing. but the 'canterbury' one isn't, and that's on criterion now.

Still probably my favourite, Canterbury Tale. Also Sheila Sim is uber-radiant in that one. But it's probably their funniest and most inscrutable flick.

the one i most want to see is 'a canterbury tale'. tbh the dvd i have of 'the red shoes' is already amazing. but the 'canterbury' one isn't, and that's on criterion now.

― FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson), Friday, May 15, 2009 8:35 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

are you saying the criterion canterbury isn't good, or that there's a different version where you are?

There has been a different, cheapo one available in the UK.

ahh. crit cant is great.

My order for blu-ray of The Red Shoes just shipped from hmv.com - hopefully will be here before the weekend...

is it the new cleaned up version?

Yes, it's the restored version as shown at Cannes this year. According to the press blurb it's exclusively available from HMV, I don't know if this will remain the case.

bizarre!

ah. found it on the hmv.com site, which completely crashed firefox. apparently it comes out on monday, so you won't have it in time for the weekend i'm 'fraid.

Lots of things crashing firefox lately.

ya, this is supposedly the hot new 3.5 too

Well, I got their confirmation that it has shipped - hopefully, this is the same as Amazon and means it's actually in the post so there's a chance (assumming teh Royal Mail do their thing properly).

Hmm, firefox ok on mine on that site (3.0.10 on XP). Weird.

i'm your biggest fan i'll follow you until you love me - Roger Roger Livesey
Baby there's no other superstar you know that i'll be - Roger Roger Livesey

Don't believe I waited this long to watch A Matter of Life and Death. What a gorgeous movie. Think I'll watch another one later, Black Narcissus maybe?

AMoLAD is stupendous, I've been yearning for it to get released on blu-ray.

Have you seen Black Narcissus before? Beautiful and very unsettling at the same time.

Nope, never seen it. Think that's my evening sorted.

also, early Jean Simmons role

Yr in for a treat - would be interested to hear your thoughts once you've seen it. Timely viewing as well given Jean Simmons's passing last week (you got there before me Morbs!). She's captivating in it.

I'll report back!

Black Narcissus: Wow. Going to have to collect my thoughts on it a bit, but wow.

Kathleen Byron died just over a week ago too, strangely.

Or rather, no she didn't. That was last year. Me and my speedy wikipedia scans.

Apparently Esmond Knight is no longer with us as well.

Jesus christ that Red Shoes restoration!

July:

http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/release_images/2764/44_BD_box_348x490.jpg http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/release_images/2758/93_BD_box_348x490.jpg

BN cover is superb

as always thank god for criterion or i'd only be buying action films on blu-ray

both covers, but especially r.s., are awful

both covers, but especially r.s., are terrific

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_of_Our_Aircraft_Is_Missing

on film four tomorrow at 15:10. it isn't, for some reason, in the big box set of archers films that is available (but is on film4 every couple of months and is only £4 on dvd anyway)

both covers, but especially r.s., are awful

― by another name (amateurist), Friday, April 16, 2010 1:43 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

both covers, but especially r.s., are terrific

― Ward Fowler, Friday, April 16, 2010 2:02 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

Amazing covers: wish I could get prints of them.

Trying to remember what Jack Cardiff said was the thing he shot that he loved for the ending of Black Narcissus that ended up on the cutting room floor.

This reminds me: I have been curious about this book http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QQ0B1MX1L._SS500_.jpg for a while, but it seems crazy expensive on Amazon. Is it worth shelling out for, anyone?

Don't know that book. Here is the info on the lost scene: http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/47_BN/LostScene.html.

more criterion covers here: http://grainedit.com/2009/12/08/criterion-collection-dvd-covers/

£18 here: http://www.faber.co.uk/work/arrows-of-desire/9780571162710/

the ian christie book is great.

watched A Canterbury Tale again, also watched the extras on the second disc. Both Sheila Sim and John Sweet come across as lovely people - Sim being very regretful about the treatment of the Village Idiot character, and Sweet talking about his realization that he wasn't cut out to be an actor, and his return to teaching. At the end he says that he feels like his main contribution was that he made his students like themselves a bit more.

o hi black narcissus and red shoes blu rays

how r u today

JEALOUS

just watched 'i know where i'm going!' last night, i love that 12-year-old petula clark has a bit part in it

saw Edge of the World fairly recently--surprisingly good! fun to see Powell and his wife on screen, though that frame story is a bit pointless.

I've been planning on watching "I know where I'm going" this week, donna. Is it as terrific as I've heard it is?

The story in Edge of the World is nicely sparse and mythical, gives the movie drive and structure and you can't have a ghost town without having ghosts.

cant wait to see i know wher eim going again sometime

kinda want to go blu for these new ones...

go blu or go home imo

still rocking a CRT tv tho... does that work?

no point

i like the crt... more authentic graininess

you can't have a ghost town without having ghosts.

Yes, you're right: it's not pointless, though it kind of spoils the suspense of John Laurie's final scenes. That probably doesn't matter since thematically he can't leave the island anyway, but the frame story has an stiffness to it. Anyway, I really just wanted to say that if you're a P&P fan and haven't seen it, it's very good. And it anticipates the awesome IKWIG in many ways.

I know what you're saying - Powell could have done it as a straight documentary, almost. But like I say I'm a sucker for his myth-making - like all myths, it doesn't quite make sense in the end.

Discuss: The prpriety of seeing an iteration of a film that looks different from the way its makers could've ever seen it.

aka shd we read joyce on a kindle?

michael powell did laserdisc commentaries. reckon he'd be chill with blu-ray.

I'm just asking, as I've never seen a BluRay.

also I don't remember ppl saying "It's never looked like this" re laserdisc the way they do with BR.

Similar to Jeffrey Wells' vote for scrubbing ALL grain from old movies on video?

i've seen it in shops. looks better than dvd, but not *that* better. when my dvd breaks i'll get one, now that the cost has come down.

i haven't heard people say blu-ray falsifies the movie, but do see a lot of debate out there. everyone says 'the red shoes' looks amazing and they can;t all be shills.

Most film-makers I think probably want/ed their films to look as well as they possibly could. As long as technology doesn't fuck with what's meant to be in the frame then I don't have much issue with it.

Can't imagine P&P not wanting e.g. The Red Shoes to look as luminous and vivid as technology wd allow.

Part of the point of these blu-ray reissues is that they are better able to recreate the experience of watching a film (ie. better resolution, colour depth, contrast, visible film grain etc etc) than any previous home video system. Def. a sight closer to the original intent than some shitty VHS or TV viewing.

yeah, they look MORE like the original film, not less

VHS on the other hand was a travesty

the question is more valid, kinda, when it comes to TV on bluray, like the recent star treks that look SO much more spotless and gleaming than anyone could have ever experienced them, save for maybe the editor, back in tha day

xpost to Noodle Vague
oh wait, I think we're talking about totally different things! By "frame story" I simply meant the prologue with Andrew Gray piloting a yacht with two English people on it (played by Powell and his wife, Frankie) to the island. I didn't mean the story Powell wrote to flesh out the original evacuation of the island story---is that what you thought I meant? At any rate, I totally agree about myth-making and almost totally agree with Powell's own extremely negative stance on documentaries.

All that said, there's actually a bit in the prologue that I love. Powell's character asks Andrew what Hirta (the island's name) means. Andrew says very portentously "it means...death." Cut to an ominous shot of an eagle hunting a lamb. Just before it can kill the lamb, the eagle is shot by Powell.

ha okay I'd forgotten that bit. I get ya now. Still fits into the ghost story theme I guess tho, and I like that "tourists stepping onto sacred ground" kind of feeling.

Like he's building layers to make it easier for City folk to get into the story.

i've only seen a couple of BR discs projected onto a living room wall but they do look really, really good - seems like the perfect home video format for the archers, tati, etc (until the next thing comes along in 2020 or whatever)

cunga i loved IKWIG! - the location shots alone are like damn

xp
Yeah, your initial response made me rethink things and while it is a little tacked-on (and forgettable, ha!) it still has some nice footage and that hunting bit. And I agree it makes sense thematically and narratively in the way you're suggesting. Also in retrospect it adds to the tragedy that Andrew is reduced to piloting around some English swell's yacht after leaving Hirta.

Donna, you should see Edge of the World if you haven't--the location shooting might even be superior to IKWIG's at times. Maybe not superior, but wilder and very beautiful.

The eagle sequence is a fore-runner of the hawk-into-Spitfire shot at the beginning of A Canterbury Tale if I'm remembering right.

This thread is making me want a fancy TV btw

I have to confess I ordered RS and BN despite not owning either a bluray player (yet) or a fancy TV. In my defense, they were 50% off and uh... :/

vibing out to 'the spy in black'

conrad veidt seems like a suitable case for some kind of treatment - biography, biopic - v. interesting figure - get on it, nrq!

The Spy in Black is excellent. Also look for Contraband from around the same time (also with Veidt).

Veidt's also pretty much my favorite actor ever.

Given the one-a-year drip feed of hi-def reissues, I finally ponied up and bought the 11-disc dvd box set so I can fill in the gaps of what I've seen in the meantime. Watched A Canterbury Tale last night, enjoyed it enormously for many of the reasons people have noted upthread. Another standout scene for me was Colpeper's speech during his presentation about the old pilgrims' road:

"When you lie flat on your back and rest, and watch the clouds sailing, as I often do, you're so close to those other people, that you can hear the thrumming of the hoofs of their horses, and the sound of the wheels on the road, and their laughter and talk, and the music of the instruments they carried. And when I turn the bend in the road, where they too saw the towers of Canterbury, I feel I've only to turn my head, to see them on the road behind me."

beautiful.

Been running these boxset discs as Sunday-afternoon-specials, which has always been the best time for filmic drama imo. Last week's was I Know Where I'm Going!, another that I'd never seen, and was absolutely delighted again. My wife made a point that their films are often actually very strange in many regards, but because they are so well made, acted and written one just accepts this.

On a Powell related note, "Peeping Tom" is out on blu-ray next week (and is getting some stupendous reviews). Currently only on Region-B locked issue from Optimum, but I'd be surprised if Criterion don't issue it too in the near future.

just saw 'the red shoes', not even on blu, but the new dvd

just astonishing in every way

must see 'hoffman'

ya man.

I watched Hoffmann before going to bed and when I closed my eyes I saw nothing but bright saturated colors.

tales of albert hofmann

hadn't noticed before how when vicky and the composer meet after getting their new jobs, it's looks very obviously like a stage set, but at the end, it's the spot she falls from and it's a real location... moira shearer apparently hadn't acted before? she's so affecting in this.

beautiful too.

gonna sit down with the fam and watch a bunch of P&P movies today.

<3 powell's red hair obsession

>gonna sit down with the fam and watch a bunch of P&P movies today.

Best idea I've heard this week.

has anyone seen his episodes of the 1960s series 'espionage'? it's on dvd but not to rent

fopp adverts in papers today have the 9dvd box set for £9

£18 today

anyone seen this early German sound film co-written by Pressbuger? (dir R Siodmak)

http://germanyinnyc.org/index.php?section=catevent&cat_evt_id=1880&cat_id=9

Newly restored Col. Blimp begins run in NYC today; Scorsese introduces tonight, Thelma Schoonmaker tomorrow.

http://www.filmforum.org/films/blimp.html

so fuckin jealous

You going, Morbius? Don't think I can.

this would come along in the midst of the year-end/in-review shitstorm, of course. It's for 2 weeks, I guess I'll try during Thanksgiving break.

(Scorsese sold out online)

plus i'm sure he'll be speaking on the DVD, plus his Britfilm doc.

Finally getting around to watching Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff. Very good so far. Wish I had bought a copy of Magic Hour when I had the chance.

Wish i had DVRed some other things that night like Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

Don't think I've ever seen anything he directed, not even Sons and Lovers.

The documentary does not mention his relationship with Sophia Loren.

That Cardiff documentary was great, I was really happy to happen across it on TCM one evening when nothing more interesting was going on.

how's The 49th Parallel?

awesome, as you might expect.

trivia: that was actually their most popular film in britain on original release! (If you don't count korda's thief of bagdad.)

I can believe it, based on what I've read.

I barely remember it now, but here's what I said when CC released it.

eric portman is great as a nazi. and it has laurence olivier as a french-canadian fur trapper. do you need a higher recommendation?

A critical roundup marking the Criterion BluRay and the new 4K digital restoration of Black Narcissus, which I would see at Film Forum if I didn't know there'll be shitheads laughing all the way through.

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-powell-and-pressburgers-black-narcissus

laughing because of the colonial (and other) stereotypes?

one glare from kathleen byron shld silence the gigglers:

http://www.independent.co.uk/migration_catalog/article5119886.ece/ALTERNATES/w460/kathleen-byron.jpeg

There is a hardcore group of under-35s in NYC who go to old films simply to laugh condescendingly at them. For any reason.

The resto of Colonel Blimp is out on disc in March I think.

xp I think I've told this here before. I went to see All That Heaven Allows and throughout people were laughing at some of the (non-funny) dialog. Some woman shouted out, "This is not a comedy! Why don't you all go home and watch television!" Which shut everyone up for the rest of the movie. Later, there's a shocking scene at which point she adds, "Not so funny now is it?!"

Haha. Bravo!

hero

<333

that is a fantastic story, fit and working again (wld happily buy a volume of ppl's cinema-going stories, anecdotes etc)

in a nice piece of synchronicity, i'm planning to spend the weekend w/ a sirk collection before lending it to a friend - looking at the set, i realised i'd never seen Magnificent Obsession, and can always re-watch All That Heaven Allows (my favourite)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Cjv755LkaIE#!

^Scorsese on Col Blimp restoration

print looked fabulous

Thanks. Near the end it sounded like he said that "The Great Lebowski" contributed to the restoration.

A little of John Sweet goes a long way, and the last third dawdles, but what an atmosphere A Canterbury Tale evokes, no? It's like Thomas Hardy shot by Altman.

Saw Gone to Earth tonight, with Thelma Schoonmaker introducing it; not exactly a masterpiece but the cinematography is incredible, and Jennifer Jones is quite good. The introduction included some very depressing stories about Jones' marriage to David Selznick, and apparently Jones and Cyril Cusack almost ran away together after they finished the film.

Schoonmaker mentioned (in her response to a question of mine) that there was some Who's Who book in which Powell claimed that his favorite hobby was "leaning on gates."

foxy! foxy!

i enjoyed this quite a bit, some of it is almost too much to take but that's OK w/ me.

i've never seen the selznick-edited version, am curious about that.

Contraband is def the Archers film for your discerning bondage enthusiast.

Forgot to mention, my main thought while watching Gone to Earth was "this must be Kate Bush's favorite movie."

watched the Life and Death of Colonel Blimp at the weekend... i have a question...

Theo blanks him in the POW camp. why? pride?

but then he calls him from the railway station and goes and has dinner with him. seems friendly enough.

but then seems to mock him to his compatriots on the train back to germany.

why the flip-flopping?

Feels he can't let on to his countrymen that he has an English friend.

um, i guess. but wouldn't the phone call and the invitation have tipped off the other germans? he also seemed a bit sniffy at the dinner party itself (that said, the other guests did seem a bit haughty themselves).

i think he's violently conflicted--torn between anger at what has been to done to his country and loyalty to his friend. i do think this is one aspect of the film that seems a bit miscalculated. one reason this has never been my favorite archer film even though it is completely enthralling front to back.

i should clarify: he's pissed off by the reparations exacted by the victors of WWI, and the way col. blimp and his buddies seem oblivious to that. i think we're supposed to see this partly through Theo's eyes, to recognize the casual cruelty of the English officers' jovial tone.

that is of course a political statement -- a hint that britain (and france etc) might be partially responsible for the route Germany took in the 20 years after WWI. I think maybe this was one of several things that angered Churchill et al at the time of the film's held-up release.

makes sense. i guess he was very nationalistic, at least until the nazis destroyed that (and his family). but, like you say, it does seem a bit odd.

canterbury tales next (working through that 11 dvd box, mingled in with japanese film backlog (6 left, must buy more), ST:TOS and Office series 8. i think there are only 3 in there that i haven't already seen but i'm enjoying revisiting them all anyway)

plenty of weirdo nationalism in Canterbury Tale too

canterbury tale is nothing if not weird. i wouldn't call the species of nationalism in it particularly weird, though. it's founded on a notion of the countryside--or at least provincial life--as being the backbone of English national character. ian christie has a great article about that film in an edited volume of essays on Powell.

it's about 5 films in one for one thing (i think markS made this point YEARS ago)

and the way there are kids playing in a boat on a lake without adult supervision is a bit o_O to us these days (see also ealing comedies with kids playing in bombed out houses or building sites. and swallows and amazons.)

i love that part of it. the kids have the run of the town.

the ending (or the last act) of that film consistently makes me cry like a baby btw.

Reading Herzog on Herzog at the moment and he points out how great war-ravaged cities are for kids:

It might sound bizarre to people today, but things like our discovery of the arms cache made for a wonderful childhood. Everyone thinks that growing up in the ruins of the cities was a terrible experience, and for the parents who lost absolutely everything I have no doubt that it was. But for the children it truly was the most marvellous of times. Kids in the cities took over whole bombed-out blocks and would declare the remnants of buildings their own to play in where great adventures were acted out. You really do not have to commiserate with these kids. Everyone I know who spent their early childhood in the ruins of post-war Germany raves about that time. It was anarchy in the best sense of the word. There were no ruling fathers around and no rules to follow. We had to invent everything from scratch

i wouldn't call the species of nationalism in it particularly weird, though

riffing on (almost literally) "blood and soil" in a WWII "propaganda movie" is, if not weird, all kinds of interesting to me

glue and soil

Reading Herzog on Herzog at the moment and he points out how great war-ravaged cities are for kids:

John Boorman's film "Hope and Glory" gets this across pretty well, if I recall.

glue and soil

― Ward Fowler, Friday, April 11, 2014 6:56 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"glue"

a 12ft hayrick on a cart with a boy stood on top of it.

more bombed out buildings.

more endings than lotr3.

oh, and charles hawtrey is the railway station attendant.

Slowly working through the box set. Ill met, river plate and today They're a Weird Mob which was strange in a similar way to Canterbury tale in that it wasn't really one type of film but several.

Also, not many real actors, they seem like amateurs.

Is the blind chap who is in nearly all their films in those. Having trouble remember his name, suppose I should just scroll up, Evelyn Knight or something?

Close, Esmond Knight.

IMDb days no. Black NARC next though and he's in that. Will keep an eye out.

(Says)

Will keep an eye out.
*groans*

Is anyone aware of any really strong essays on The Thief of Bagdad? I need some supplementary material to give to my class when I show the film at the end of October.

there's this one from Criterion

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/496-the-thief-of-bagdad-arabian-fantasies

Excited about the Tales of Hoffmann restoration:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/tales-hoffmann-exclusive-materials-making-powell-pressburger-masterpiece

Nice!

nice indeed, but still waiting for bluebeard's castle :)

Spotted this in Marylebone when I was down in London at the weekend:

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa362/Andrew_Littlefield/P1010457_zpsd79f9259.jpg

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/17/english-heritage-blue-plaque-archers-scorsese

nice!

a few of these guys' movies are my favorite things ever

canterbury tale
small back room
matter of life and death
49th parallel (particularly the last reel)

Yeah, those are all aces. Particularly enjoyed Small Back Room.

yeah, it's a really heady mix of tones--like six movies in one! sometimes with their movies i just want to stand up and fucking clap at various points. they have everything; visual inventiveness, narrative ingenuity, juicy acting, sex, suspense, literate dialogue, political smarts...

uh forgot emotion

last time i watched matter of life and death, went to the theater alone. started crying about four seconds into the movie, took me minutes to stop. the whole first few minutes are harrowing. what a way to start a movie.

well actually i guess it was after the stuff about the universe and once we see david niven resigning himself to dying

agreed. I watched the opening on YouTube and immediately bought the DVD a few years ago. I really need to see 49th Parallel again--I went in not expecting much and became totally absorbed in it pretty quickly.

hey i wrote about The Small Back Room and never linked it.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/the-small-back-room

as a person who struggles with a lot of Great Music, Oh... Rosalinda!! and Tales of Hoffmann could never be among my favorites, tho I apprec the bursting color and visual rhythms.

as a person who struggles with a lot of Great Music

That explains why you defend Bob Dylan.

oh you

I watched "the edge of the world" on mubi recently... what a weird film! some utterly mindboggling camerawork and directorial touches but major narrative disconnect in the editing and a story that went nowhere fast
worth it for the images and the scenery tho. moving paintings.

the weirdness and tensions in that film feel fully Archers-esque to me but it does have a loveable documentary/soap opera confusion

I've liked every film I've seen except Peeping Tom (don't remember why -- for once the tonal clashes didn't work?) but am rarely tempted to rewatch. Never having seen'em in a theater hasn't helped.

eric h, i don't know who you are, but you sure are grumpy

Peeping Tom is Powell alone

Pepping Tom is great (for years it was possibly the only Powell-related thing I had seen) and really quite a diff thing altogether.

a masterpiece indeed

fuck i need to rewatch all of these. i tried getting my ex to watch black narcissus unsuccessfully for TWO YEARS

I bought BN Blu-ray for my sister and her husband two Christmases ago. And there it lies.

even more frustrating as we watch the red shoes together and he loved it

watched*

when you visit for the holidays distract them and steal it. I'd love it.

well, I'm going to demand it back for me, they aren't going to watch it til the daughter is out of the house or at least in adolescent exile.

Or in a nunnery.

Peeping Tom is on TCM in a couple of hours btw.

It doesn't have the Pressburger or production magic of the others and I used to resist the overly obvious symbolism, if that's the right way to describe it, and the fish out of water, Peter Lorre on the skids German accent, but I eventually got past the film professor arguments and found my own reasons to like it, which turned out to be mostly the same anyway.

karl bohm's accent was real if that's what yr'e referring to

Hah, yeah I know. I've seen the Fassbinder picture with the sunburn, Martha.

He's great in Fox and His Friends.

"Happy bersssday."

I've tried to watch Small Back Room twice now and got utterly confused both times about 40 minutes in. I should stop drinking.

I watched it again this weekend and loved it. It might help not to drink during the scene when the protagonist isn't drying out.

I also rewatched Peeping Tom. There is something to letting the lead show all his cards from the start; the actor's pretty obvious though.

*uring the scene when the protagonist IS drying out

That guy is so great in Small Back Room and Black Narcissus. Was he ever in anything else of note? Am I blanking?

also in their Gone to Earth

seems to have retired from the screen in the early '60s

peeping tom is great but in such a different register from the Archers classics!

Just watched A Canterbury Tale for the first time – so wonderful.

I do wonder where that was filmed, because it looked idyllic.

(The start, obviously)

Have you seen this, Koogs?

http://gu.com/p/3hzz5

I would love to see the documentary about the John Sweet/Sheila Sim reunion in 2000, but I'm not sure it's worth paying 20+ bucks for a used copy of the DVD for that. Maybe in the next Criterion half-off sale.

canterbury tale is my favorite film many days

I am on my last day (I think) of recovering from flu. "I Know Where I'm Going is playing. Uneventful, yes, but so bizarrely charming.

I have a ridiculous crush on young Roger Livesey.

Local public broadcasting is doing an Archers cavalcade. So far Black Narcissus, I Know Where I'm Going and tonight A Matter of Life and Death. Next tuesday The Red Shoes. I've never seen them, and wow, they're amazing. A Matter of Life and Death is one of the best films I've ever seen. Such sad beauty. And the story seems as if it could really have been a short or midlength, but then stretched out in the best way, with inventive and/or moody episodes tangentially related to plot. The Camera Obscura scene, and the whole thing with the soldiers rehearsing Midsummers Night Dream, for some reason. Oh, I want to see it again soon.

Saw A Canterbury Tale for the first time yesterday. As always with Archers films, I found it extremely moving, and it had me a bit tearful a couple of times. I also came out angry for our current times. So many of the constitutive elements of the film - the countryside, tradition, Christianity (albeit in its more mystical aspects), childhood and innocence, the village, the pub - are also seem to be the constitutive elements of the vision many vexatious and enraged people have of this country today. Yet all the crucial elements are lost - the humour, the cheerfulness, the characteristic P&P view of humanity as a whole - from the notes:

The character played by John Sweet had been born and brought up in the lumber business in Oregon, and Emeric had written the scene in Kent to show how two craftsmen understand each other's methods, even though they are from opposite sides of the earth.

Also, they do English rudeness and the English manner very well.

As always they manage to portray a far wider spectrum of cheerfulness than i've seen in other films, or depicted much at all in fact. Then there's the curious mixture of whimsy and mysticism and all together it means the film just glows. The delivery of miracles, and the manner in which they're delivered is not a common subject for a film!

Although reading a brief note by Michael Powell on the film suggests this wasn't the intention, it's hard not to feel Colpeper and the cinema organist Gibbs exist only loosely between this world and realms outside it, with fairly strong suggestions that Gibbs is already dead, and Colpeper a strange sort of demi-urge, existing across time on the Pilgrim's Road. A Puck-like figure, though not especially puckish with his administrative aspect and gently done but unpleasant misogyny. A very strange figure. How wonderful their films are.

rewatched it myself last Sunday, i could watch it once a week i think

Colpeper is the knot at the heart of the movie, i can never work out how i feel about him (or how he feels about Alison). there's something in P&P's worldview that i probably disagree with pretty profoundly, or agree with v reluctantly - they were certainly no fans of what the Atlee gov stood for iirc, and i still itch at the blood & soil overtones in Canterbury Tale. but as you say, what's happening and what it says about a sense of place is infinitely richer than 2017 jingoism and fake nostalgia.

Yeah the countryside/tradition thing is difficult. From what I understand they sit in an extended 20th C version of that late 19th C congeries of holiness/spiritism/mysticism/countryside esp South East and South West/common humanity/volkism/folkish stuff expressed by a wide set of in some other ways disparate people - W Morris, Chesterton (ledge to thread!), Machen, Warlock, Belloc (who I find supremely unpleasant), John Ireland.

That can be approached with wry amusement, which nevertheless has the capacity for revelation (the US Seargent John Sweet is representative), and which does take some of the toxicity away, but only conditionally on the right personalities and circumstances being present really.

The other way to redeem things slightly is to emphasise the other history of the countryside so effectively erased at the moment - anti-enclosure, non-conformist, pro-liberty etc.

and try an dial down the merrie england crap.

Colpeper is really difficult I agree. He's the retarding mechanism that prevents everyone leaving and so allows the delivery of miracles, or the receptivity for them to be delivered (yes, Alison's lover's father is waiting for her in Canterbury, but this period of rediscovering the land why she had stayed before was necessary, otherwise the moths win!). To this extent he reminds me of one of the famous 'problems' in Lear, the passage where Edgar leads Gloucester to Dover. It doesn't make sense in terms of the time scheme and movement of the play, but it's a necessary... catharsis, that's probably not the right word.

I was think he had that puckish/faery aspect, but of course he is also a petty tyrant, and as you say downright sinister or peculiar towards Alison.

Like most of the rest of the Archers films it feels like it will be one that I keep returning to as well.

Watched the Red Shoes last night with a friend and we were both absolutely delighted the entire time. Thinking of snagging the Korean DVD of Gone to Earth from Amazon and watching that; already love Canterbury Tale and I Know Where I'm Going... picking Gone to Earth next because that's my favorite David Sylvian album.

I feel like Black Narcissus might be closest in vibe to the red shoes but they're all golden

Read the Michael Powell autobiography - well, have stalled near the end for some reason, but will finish it soon. Probably should have posted here as I went through as there was a load of interesting stuff in there.

Incidentally, he's in the boat with his future wife Frankie at the beginning of The Edge of the World here. It's a little perplexing how someone who is somewhat underwhelming and slightly peevish there managed to have relationships with such extraordinary women - his marriage to Frankie, then a London model - very nearly didn't happen due to his and Deborah Kerr's infatuation for each other, and he had Pamela Brown (ah me) had a very intense relationship once he was married, but one that was unconsummated, as the only time they tried they fell into the fire grate laughing.

I remember enjoying reading that very much, though iirc he's pretty negative about my beloved A Canterbury Tale and even says the critics were right to dislike it? I have the second volume but have never gotten around to reading it. I'd be curious to read the Peeping Tom years and I've never known how he ended up with Thelma Schoonmaker. On the other hand I feel like a lot of the best material in the first book is about the silent era; his affection for that time and regret at its passing has always stuck with me despite my being a bad cinephile who can only rarely work up to watching a silent

i’ll have to check but i think that’s right - iirc he says he understands why they didn’t like it and also felt it was unsatisfactory in terms of plot. He felt the glue man - intended to be a portrait of a typical “english loony” who remains unsaved by god wasn’t well understood by the americans, or anyone else for that matter (see conversation upthread).

clearly has a great fondness for it tho.

and yes i had the same experience when he was writing about silent films, the lighting and faces and need to capture drama visually - watched Kevin Brownlow’s restores version of Abel Gance’s Napoléon as a consequence and felt MP’s enthusiasm towards silent film meant i enjoyed it more.

Also found it interesting, perhaps slightly unexpected, that the film maker he seems to rate highest and from a fairly early stage is Buñuel. “The only director who could make two people sitting silently at a table together compelling.”

will seek out the second volume - like you keen to read about the whole Peeping Tom saga, which clearly made him feel very bitter about Britain.

This is the truly excellent South Bank Show docu from 1986. It keeps getting taken down from You Tube so rip it and watch it at all speed

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2xkg6m

(the story MP tells of how he and Pressburger got together is amazing)

This is a really great David Thomson article about how he invited Powell to teach at Dartmouth, and how he met Thelma
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/cinema-a-genius-without-a-job-1575433.html

that's lovely. Thanks for posting

yes thank you Stevie! Imagine studying film at Dartmouth of all places and then meeting Michael Powell and Lillian Gish

meant to ask if anyone has read the Kevin Macdonald bio of Pressburger mentioned in that piece? Thinking about Powell's take on ACT--and yes it's a weird film to be sure--makes me wonder what his partner would have thought. A repressed hobbyist who harasses women to police their sexual behavior and prevent them from intruding into the sacred space of his geeky interests is far more typical than someone as confidently masculine as Powell might have realized.

That's a lovely article as NN say, thanks for posting Stevie. And the South Bank Show is really good too, thanks picesx. It's a miracle of compression as well; it seems to manage to cover an awful lot that's in the book and does it with Powellian wit and imagination as well. Gives him room to speak and breathe.

repeating what others have said... that south bank show was brilliant. thank you for posting that.

Belated thanks for the David Thomson link. Just rewatched two films on Mubi over the past few days, Peeping Tom and The Small Back Room and was keen to watch a third, The Tales of Hoffmann, but unfortunately my download was bad and I only got a half hour in before it went kaput. The Small Back Room confirmed itself as a personal favorite and am finally warming to Peeping Tom after all these years. It helped a little to think of Karlheinz Boehm’s character Mark as some kind of reincarnation of Peter Lorre’s character in M. Also noticed some kind of connection or visual rhyme across time between the clock in the darkroom in the later film and the one in the paranoid drinking sequence in the earlier one.

Tales of Hoffmann showing soon in Astoria, Redd

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/05/thelma-schoonmaker-a-matter-of-life-and-death-scorsese-powell-and-pressburger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyLocMuwCYw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig4OiBwD43I

Recently learned that George Romero’s favorite movie is The Tales of Hoffmann and Wayne Shorter’s is The Red Shoes.

4K premiere run of A Matter of Life and Death begins in NYC on Friday

Oh yeah, saw that

Hadn't remembered that Kathleen Byron is in it.

James, you asked my opinion of TSBR in another thread, so --

I thought it was really good, though I'm partial to Powell/Pressburger and am pretty blind to any faults they may have. (Still couldn't finish Tales of Hoffman, though.) I really liked its relatively unmelodramatic take on alcoholism -- Sammy keeping the bottle front and center and not hiding (from) it. Great German-expressionism dream sequence. I thought David Farrar and Kathleen Byron were great in Black Narcissus and liked that Powell put them in the leads in very different roles. The thermos-bomb plot is a bit thin and nonsensical from most angles, but ultimately it does make sense that the Defense Ministry would want to know how they're built even if the advice to the public wouldn't change -- "hey, don't touch that, call the local Home Guard."

Filmstruck showing all the powburgers on streaming

Trying to remember if I’ve ever seen Farrar or Bryson in anything but those two films plus Bryson in AMOLAD.

Okay, Farrar is in another Archers film, Gone To Earth that I’ve never seen. Forgot that Bryson was in Saving Private Ryan and never realized she was in The Elephant Man.

Wonder if I am the only one who clicks through credits on Mubi.

i always think this thread is about the soap opera thing

Ah, see that I already had this discussion about Farrar with Morbius three years ago

Still don’t really like the, um, somewhat heavy-handed nature of the trial scene, which I guess was the motivation for the production of the film, but everything else in AMOLAD is aces.

saw COLONEL BLIMP for the first time and loved it. the methods deployed to show the passage of time in this film were marvelous and drolly comic, excepting the flipping of the memory book (where the last few pages are black.)

starting off with a valiant soldier type walking in on a seemingly pompous visual buffoon and then going back to deconstruct this buffoon and build him up again into an honorable if flawed figure is quite something. the casting of Deborah Kerr in the three roles could seem like a stunt elsewhere but it doesn't overplay its hand and her separate performances are subtly different enough that it doesn't come off like cheap magic realism. Livesey and Walbrook are both very funny and very touching together. The empathy for all the characters is itself quite moving, and the ending is perfect.

i saw the red shoes for the first time a few weeks ago (it's the first film i've seen from them, the directors poll made me antsy about the gaps in my knowledge). it's... completely magnificent

picking Gone to Earth next because that's my favorite David Sylvian album.

lol i almost did this for the exact same reason

naah pick off the klassiks

P&P and Fassbinder were two top 10'ers I was thrilled made it as high as they did.

A Canterbury Tale and I Know Where I'm Going are two must views.

I'm probably going to buy all the P&Ps on Criterion.

Black Narcissus remains one of my top five favorite films of all time.

I'm hoping that A Matter of Life and Death with get a Criterion blu-ray release this summer... seems likely!

for sure, they just ran a 4K at Film Forum in NY

Theo walking away from Clive in the POW camp, as Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture starts up, killed me on last rewatch.

oh that is fantastic news!
though I suppose I wouldn't otherwise have ever seen Age of Consent if it hadn't been paired with AMOLAD on the DVD

you can't go wrong with any of the classic Archers. I might recommend a b&w one if you've just seen Red Shoes or Blimp, so Eric otm

Age of Consent!

Wild, huh? Here's Kehr on the set: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/movies/homevideo/06dvds.html

reading that made me want to rewatch the opening to AMOLAD immediately

I need to watch it again. Parts of it reminded me of the Lubitsch Heaven Can Wait, which was too aw-shucks for me.

if you mean AMOLAD, it does drag in the final act with the big trial (Heaven Can Wait is a bit slow too, especially for Lubitsch), but I love the set up and everything that happens on Earth. And Livesey's camera obscura is quintessential P&P visual bravura: http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/1075290/Matter-Of-Life-And-Death-A-Movie-Clip-Camera-Obscura.html. Also fun to see Marius Goring in such a different role from Red Shoes.

if you meant Age of Consent... I don't remember much of it

I watched Criterion's blu-ray of AMOLAD last night and it is absolutely stunning--the upgrade really brings home what a visual achievement it is. What I said in my previous post about the trial still stands, but the rest is pure joy.

I've only watched the first 20 minutes, but there's also an odd but compelling special feature, a 1986 episode of the South Bank Show, that functions as something of a miniature adaptation of A Life in Movies.

enjoyed Black Narcissus but didn't like The Red Shoes as much

The Small Back Room was on tv over the weekend. I've not watched it yet and can't remember if I've seen it before.

If you saw it I think you would have remembered it.

The Small Back Room is the next film of theirs I'm planning to watch

yes, then read my archived review.

NYers: The Small Back Room is showing at the Film Forum on August 26, part of Marty Scorsese & Jay Cocks' double feature festival (paired w/ the '26 silent The Magician)

half an hour into SBR and it's still not ringing any bells.

saw The Red Shoes again. the hyper-stylization annoyed me at first, but I was more drawn in seeing it again. the climactic ballet sequence was beautiful

watched The Small Back Room today. I liked your review Morbs

Thanks. As I still own the Bluray, I may not make the NYC screening (tho I need to see that silent), but we'll see.

don't have anything to add to the discussion about A Canterbury Tale except to say that I just saw it now for the first time and enjoyed it

liked hearing the Toccata and Fugue in the cathedral near the end

I rewatched A Matter of Life and Death and had no memory that the first person Niven meets after his bailout is a nude shepherd boy (cut for US release btw).

My favorite detail of that great first Niven-Kim Hunter scene is that he's cracking bad jokes while he's using his last moments to quote every poet he can think of. "Andy Marvell, what a marvel!"

My only caveats are that all that US vs UK stuff in the celestial trial is just weird now (apparently the film office asked them to make a film about Yank-Brit unity), and

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

you can see Roger Livesey's death coming from his second scene.

Bbc2 have been showing a few of these as matinees (and a bunch of other decent b&w films as well *)

Life and death today
River plate on Saturday
Blimp on Monday

(* Wooden horse, 633 squadron, triple cross, Odette, man who never was)

nude shepherd boy, hmm

haven't seen it yet

The number of nude shepherd boys I was exposed to my fully clothed boy life astonishes me to this day.

lol

(apparently the film office asked them to make a film about Yank-Brit unity)

really liked Peeping Tom

Talking Pictures TV
Thu 16 Apr 2020
02:20
The Wild Heart 1952. Drama.
Directed by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger. Stars Jennifer Jones, David Farrar & Cyril Cusack. Hazel, a child of nature, turns to a book of spells and charms when she has problems.

(this, is turns out, is Gone To Earth, which is one i haven't seen)

A different cut of Gone to Earth iirc. It's been on Talking Pictures before so there's a good chance it'll be on at a more reasonable time in the future. Haven't watched it right thru either.

Consequently, Selznick had the film re-edited and some extra scenes shot in Hollywood under director Rouben Mamoulian to make the version known as The Wild Heart (1952). Selznick's changes were mostly additions to the film: a prologue; scenes explaining things, often literally, by putting labels or inscriptions on them; and more close-ups of his wife, Jennifer Jones.

There's a bit more, but spoilers so I left it out.

the accents in that film are both charming and all over the place

watching The Battle Of The River Plate on bbc2. they are issuing commands on the boat using a bugle, different tunes for different commands.

Kathleen Byron's birthday today.

Well, had a chance to see -- for the first time even -- the restored Red Shoes just now at the local Alamo as a one off. Hell of a thing.

:)

Every time I watch it, it gets better

and for a while it was my least favorite P&P.

That’d be 49th Parallel for me (a perfectly good movie)

Oh! Right. Olivier.

Saw Thelma Schoonmaker talk Powell at the BFI yesterday - she showed a few clips, including one from an adaptation of Bartok's Bluebeard, upcoming on blu and BFI Player, which Powell did for a German company after Peeping Tom and which looks absolutely stunning, a real Mario Bava/Hammer horror colour palette and fascinating to see them reach for the same sumptousness of their big productions on a shoestring budget.

There's also a book out, an exhibition (Scorsese loaned the Red Shoes!) and of course they're showing tons of their movies, including a lot of early quota quickies.

RYNOX?

What?

It's showing on 10 Nov https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=rynoxhotelsplendide

RYNOX was the quota quickie you always seemed to hear about, believe it was thought lost until the nineties. I seem to recall it popping up on television once while I was in a hotel but I didn’t have the time or sense to watch it.

I think it's on the bfiplayer too, if that's available outside the UK?

I see a streaming channel called BFI Player Classics which has some kind of more limited selection.

Dunno if a VPN will work with this? https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-rynox-1932-online

https://mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/cutting-edge-thelma-schoonmaker-on-powell-and-pressburger-scene-by-scene

thanks for that James, good read. also alerted me to the fact that a restored I Know Where I'm Going is on at the NFT today. fortunately it's sold out. i say fortunately, because i really i ought to be doing a load of work, and a 12:30 showing of one of my all time favourite films would not have been conducive.

On the bonus features to Bluebeard's Castle there's a short piece about him making a prototype of Earthsea
https://www.murrayewing.co.uk/mewsings/2011/01/23/michael-powells-wizard-of-earthsea/

Really hope Gone To Earth will get a bluray soon.

It had one on Kino Lorber that seemed to quickly go out of print!

I guessing the BFI will do it eventually, but Bluebeard's Castle must have been a higher priority because it was so rarely seen

Major retrospective on now at MoMA.

So far I’ve seen two.

Really hope Gone To Earth will get a bluray soon.

Jerry is no gentleman

I’ve seen Black Narcissus and Gone to Earth in nitrate. The latter was David O. Selznik’s own print, while the former is probably the best theatrical viewing experience of my entire life. It looked absolutely resplendent in a way that digital and even safety film cannot replicate

The latter was retitled and recut by Selznick, with additional new footage by Rouben Mamoulian, I think

*The Wild Earth*

Heh, that’s way all caps is just easier

Watched the Small Back Room, and while it had potential, the romance and the thriller aspects were both somehow underplayed? The bomb defusing scene felt like it dragged to me, and the protagonist is such an absolute manchild it make it hard to buy the romance aspect. I think the only relatable part might be the depiction of alcoholism, and EVEN THEN.. the scene with his delireum didn't feel real to me, given his seeming prolonged abstinence from the hard stuff. Oh well.

The book's good, as I recall

Movie is good too.

But you don't need to take my word for it: https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/the-small-back-room-dvd/

it's definitely on the minor list for me—I still haven't gotten around to The Tales of Hoffmann, but otherwise SBR would be bottom of my personal P&P rankings—though I remember the defusing scene being the brilliant high point

Xpost - bills review is why I went to see it in the first place! It wasn’t like, awful, but I was pretty underwhelmed.

Did you like BLACK NARCISSUS?

Never seen it :0

Anyone seen the Scorsese-narrated (but not directed) doc yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sSeQgxj0rg

Yes

I saw it at MoMA but it is also streaming on MUBI UK & Ireland

It’s good. It tells a story you may already know but still packs a little bit of a punch.

This review is a wee bit harsh at times but basically OTM. https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/made-in-england-the-films-of-powell-pressburger-review/

Thought it was a reasonable choice to keep close to Marty’s POV.

Thoroughly enjoyed it, but I would say make sure you watch all the key movies before seeing it as it's pretty spoilerish

Good point!

Some of the bigger scenes in BLACK NARCISSUS, of course I’d seen many times before but having seen the doc immediately beforehand lessened any residual shock or surprise even more. Which wasn’t really a problem, there was plenty of other stuff to focus on.

Yeah. But I think it would be sad to have the end of Red Shoes, Life and Death and the plot of Blimp all revealed before seeing these fantastic movies!

Totally

Basically always good to go in knowing as little as possible.

I remember certain films where I was the man who knew too much going in and I then had to watch extra times before I could enjoy them properly.

One thing that still managed to shock and cause laughter was the first sight of David Farrar riding that tiny Bhotiya pony/Bhutia horse, bare-legged and in earth-color shorts, like some kind of cover boy UPS man mystery date.

One thing I recently learned from a commentary track was that Kim Hunter had been recommended to Powell by Alfred Hitchcock. Prior to AMoLaD she was a contract player who had mostly only been in screen tests and only then offscreen, feeding lines to the other actors. While Mickey was in the US to fetch her he ran into Kathleen Byron, who he convinced to move back to the UK to appear in that film and of course the two others.

Of course when I was a kid I only knew Kim Hunter as Zira.

Seems like there are some other minor roles in her filmography before that so maybe this was just another Mickey print the legend exaggeration, simliar to him claiming that "Poppa" Percy Day had worked with Méliès and that the famous rocket in the moon's eye image was his.

The latter did work with Abel Gance on NAPOLEON though.
https://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/2011/07/walter-percy-day-master-of-matte.html

Some people seem to like Emeric’s novel THE GLASS PEARLS.

Is “Blimp” worth seeing on a big screen? I saw ‘Tales of Hoffmann’ a couple of weeks ago, which I think does merit the big screen.

Definitely, and I’ve been meaning to type that in now for the past two days.

It’s very long and sweeping and in Technicolor. I don’t know how you would sit through it on a small screen in this day and age

Trying to decide whether I can make A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH.

Think I saw it a few years back at the Film Forum.

Xpost Looks kind of interesting - had no idea he was a novelist as well until I saw the doco. What struck me watching the doco was how all these quintessentially British movies of the 40s were made by Hungarian emigre Pressburger and Powell who got his break working for an American studio in France. I guess the experimental side of their movies is not so British...

No

In the commentary track to THE SMALL BACK ROOM, Charles Barr talks about the prominence of drinking coffee in this film, as well as in BLACK NARCISSUS, as opposed to the traditional British drink of tea, and then goes into a riff about Powell being a gourmet and both of them having Continental tastes.

Don’t think I’d ever heard Pressburger speak until I saw the doc.

No Taster’s Choice Freeze-dried for The Archers

https://cinemacats.com/the-small-back-room-1949/

This 111 minute DCP version of GONE TO EARTH has clearly been restored since the 82 minute WILD AT HEART version they showed seven years ago.

Sorry, THE WILD HEART

Reminds me that I geeked out and listened to an audio adaptation of BLACK NARCISSUS with Cyril Cusack’s daughter Sinéad as Sister Clodagh.

Xpost Looks kind of interesting - had no idea he was a novelist as well until I saw the doco. What struck me watching the doco was how all these quintessentially British movies of the 40s were made by Hungarian emigre Pressburger and Powell who got his break working for an American studio in France. I guess the experimental side of their movies is not so British...

Kinda but you also have to take into account that when the Archers were working the UK as a film industry was much more open to foreign talent, there was a lot of give and take with the continent and elsewhere. The Kordas, Cavalcanti, René Clair...

my other half has read Pressburger's novel and says it is very good

my other half has read Pressburger's novel and says it is very good

oops so interesting I had to post it twice!

it was a kindle-daily-deal a month or so ago (but only kindle, it didn't filter down to the kobo-friendly stores)

Kinda but you also have to take into account that when the Archers were working the UK as a film industry was much more open to foreign talent, there was a lot of give and take with the continent and elsewhere. The Kordas, Cavalcanti, René Clair...

Think Pressburger may have actually written more than one novel

Xpost Yes good point, and I guess also that not all the films of their imperial phase were so quintessentially English - I can imagine The Red Shoes as a late 40s French movie. Can't really see A Canterbury Tales transposed to Rouen or wherever though!

Parts of ACT aren't so very far from e.g. Vigo

been a long time since I've seen it, but perhaps Clouzot's Le Corbeau?

Got my eye on GONE TO EARTH and THE ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL this weekend

Guess there is also a version of this series in LA right now.

These BFI notes linked by MoMA are pretty good.

Although sometimes the story changes a bit. Here Powell is quoted as saying the germ of the idea of BLIMP was from Emeric, but elsewhere he says the suggestion came from David Lean.

been a long time since I've seen it, but perhaps Clouzot's Le Corbeau?

also a very distinctively weird movie that I liked, in many ways they both directors were at odds with over-censorious arseholes from right-wing/fascist regimes, but still managed to make a great movie

https://www.shropshirestar.com/entertainment/2016/04/04/pontesbury-woman-talks-about-her-familys-time-on-film/

Because I saw GONE TO EARTH yesterday.

Today was THE ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL