POLL: Best Powell and Pressburger Film.

This is toooooo hard. So I'm using my standard poll "pick one without thinking too hard" technique and going with Canterbury Tale, although picking a B&W P&P feels slightly wrong. But Canterbury Tale is incredibly evocative of a place that mightn't ever have really existed. It's also, maybe, the strangest of all their films, and I think that sense that there are other things going on that aren't transparent keeps me returning to it. It's my default "favourite". But I wouldn't want to claim it was better than Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus or The Red Shoes.

Also, as I've said before, there are some ideas in CT that are alarmingly "Blood and Soil" sounding. But I kinda like the idea of a propaganda film that barely even mentions the Enemy.

This is toooooo hard

You said it, brother

Aghh. Colonel Blimp, I think, but I still need to see A Canterbury Tale and Black Narcissus. I think I wrote on the happiness-in-movies thread about those 10 minutes or so in Colonel Blimp after the duel is over and Theo and Clive have become friends, and everything is working in the way that Clive feels it should. It makes his gradual slide into irrelevance all the more heartbreaking.

But man, it's hard to vote against a lot of these.

Canterbury Tale for too many personal reasons and the way it internalises the concept of "the enemy." The total ambiguity of the Eric Portman character is crucial.

Naturally Kubrick must have watched it before making 2001.

I'd speculate that Patrick McGoohan was a fan too.

haven't seen them all, but it's blimp for me. so warm, so enjoyable.
and deborah kerr.

Yes - Portman's Number 2 in the "Free For All" episode of The Prisoner was more or less based on his glue-squirting squire character.

Powell & Pressburger are pretty badly served on DVD at the moment. I've been waiting for nice editions for a long time.

The Criterion editions are great!

A Matter of Life and Death for me.

A Canterbury Tale for me too, though there are lots I haven't seen.

It always seems to get the most attention here, and I wonder whether this is indicative of a shift towards it more generally, or just says something about ILE.

I'll second A Matter of Life and Death

I haven't seen three ones yet that I want to see (Colonel Blimp, A Matter of Life and Death, and Canterbury Tale), but as it stands it would be between 3 listed: Black Narcissus, Red Shoes, or Tales of Hoffmann.

The former two are better films overall, but I'm voting Hoffmann, because it's a personal fave (and probably won't win anyway). The "Barcarolle" scenes (the breathtaking Ludmilla Tcherina dueting with her reflection in the gondola) and the rest of the second segment of the film are simply stunning.

I've seen 9 of these and must go with 'I Know Where I'm Going!' Deceptively simple romanticism.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

well this was popular.

it shows what a recent DVD re;ease will do for a weird problem film like Canterbury Tale.

How did I miss this poll? Anyway, 'I know ehere I'm going' for me. This is one of the bargains of the year.

I finally saw "I Know Where I'm Going" yesterday. Strange film, really.

fantastically, blissfully

Yes, but I'm glad the whole course of gender relations has come on a bit since 1945.

I would like to spend some time on a remote Scottish island, I will say.

Watched A Canterbury Tale tonight. I was never bored, but it lacked energy. I found the rural drolleries more funny and natural in I Know Where I'm Going. Part of my problem lies with the John Sweet performance, which is intentionally broad; it's like Eddie Bracken wandered out of Hail the Conquering Hero.

i watched my first powell and pressburger film last night, the red shoes and it caught me off-guard. the sets and the dancing, obviously, and maybe some of the performances. also, the movement of the film. the weird high drama contrasted with workaday group dynamics. it seemed not very conventional but maybe it was just following conventions i'm unfamiliar with (lol great britain?).

they were pretty unique

we should re-do this poll btw

yeah they were and yeah we shd

Funny, just saw my first tonight! Colonel Blimp. Loved it, although wow it's long. (That said, I can't imagine the shorter version that apparently loses the flashback element...)

Watching and reading the DVD extras on A Canterbury Tale made me appreciate John Sweet a bit more - he comes across as an incredibly nice person, who was fully aware that he wasn't up to the acting standards of everyone else (he was a GI who had acted in a few plays). There's an interview with him, sitting in the cafe they filmed in Canterbury, where he talks about eventually giving up on acting and going back to teaching, saying that he feels like if nothing else, his students came out of his classes liking themselves a little more. Apparently he gave all his money from the movie to the NAACP.

He's one swell fella.

col. blimp imo

Watching and reading the DVD extras on A Canterbury Tale made me appreciate John Sweet a bit more - he comes across as an incredibly nice person, who was fully aware that he wasn't up to the acting standards of everyone else (he was a GI who had acted in a few plays). There's an interview with him, sitting in the cafe they filmed in Canterbury, where he talks about eventually giving up on acting and going back to teaching, saying that he feels like if nothing else, his students came out of his classes liking themselves a little more. Apparently he gave all his money from the movie to the NAACP.

― JoeStork, Saturday, October 8, 2011 8:40 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah that guy is awesome. my favorite P&P film btw.

and i think he's fine in the film. his sort of earnest bumpkin affect works for the film.

it's my favorite too. a weird, wondrous sort of film.

Thanks to Morbius for mentioning this favorably a few times, it's a gem. There's a fair amount to take in with the busy opening, train and party sequences and all the landscapes. A shame there's only old dvd copies (mine seems to have some cheese burned into the box).

(Powell solo) Age Of Consent - Nice film. James Mason looking pretty great at 60, Helen Mirren in an early role (in her interview she seemed to say this was her first screen role but she has a few earlier credits). Powell was annoyed that critics didn't praise the dog acting, but the dog secretly sliding back into its collar was one of my favorite bits; he thought the paintings were a disappointment but I quite liked them. Worth picking up, the Indicator bluray is all region.

Just watched Edge Of The World, very good. But where to go (with or without Pressburger) next? I've also seen Age Of Consent, Peeping Tom, A Canterbury Tale, A Matter of Life and Death, I Know Where I'm Going, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Tales of Hoffmann.

Among the most readily available are Oh Rosalinda, Phantom Light, Thief Of Bagdad, Small Black Room, The Spy In Black, Gone To Earth, Ill Met By Moonlight and 49th Parallel.

Thief Of Bagdad, Small Back Room, and 49th Parallel all essential.

Thankyou.

Edge Of The World BFI bluray contains Powell's "home videos" of Foula (the island they filmed on), with commentary; a documentary he made about Foula decades later; and a new documentary about St Kilda (the real island the story was based upon), mostly made from an old film from the 20s. The rock climbing the farmers did is incredible.

Gone to Earth has some beautiful technicolor countryside and is entertaining in a sort of mystifying way, plus it's got a nice pagan through line.

I'll probably get them all eventually but less keen on some of the war films and not sure about Luna De Miel/Honeymoon (which is on bluray)

"A Canterbury Tale" is on Talking Pictures at the moment. Hadn't noticed before Sheila Sim's resemblance to the young Margaret Thatcher!

just need 5 minutes to decide whether that's an FP or not

LOL, a very English looking young woman.

she doesn't have the evil behind her eyes that was in Thatcher from birth

ok i found a publicity still from The Guinea Pig where she looks a bit Thatchery, guess i'll let this one slide

Such a strange film, although some of the gender politics look a bit iffy nowadays tbh

It would probably be bad if an 80-year-old film didn't seem at least a little iffy w/r/t gender, but I also think ACT is remarkably prescient (or maybe just perceptive) about it. A repressed, lonely man whose sense of self is built on his obscure, boyish intellectual passion lashes out against the incursion of women into his formerly monastic space, attempting to gate-keep his hobby through disturbing, misogynistic acts of symbolic sexual violence.

All of that is handled with surprising grace of course; Peeping Tom is a ways off yet. I suppose one could complain that P&P are too sympathetic to Colpeper, or you might think they write his "confession" as a true and fair accounting of the events. But as Powell points out in his autobio, Colpeper throws "sticky stuff" at the women (iirc he even makes fun of the Intro to Freud-level subtlety of the symbolism)--the glue-throwing is clearly about his own frustrated desires and perceived exclusion from the world of sex and romance, an exclusion he tried but failed to turn into a noble cause.

Alison's treatment and "forgiveness" of him is entirely her own too. She's essentially the protagonist of the movie and she's far from a one-dimensional product of patriarchy

I really like it. In a way it's one of the strangest films I've ever seen.

Enjoyed 49th Parallel. That french guy wasn't bathing in dough, was he? Are all war films by Powell so nice?

There's an american bluray of The Wild Heart (Gone To Earth) and I'm just going to have faith the UK will get one soon enough.

Can't believe Colonel Blimp only got one vote in this poll.

Canterbury Tale, Black Narcissus and Red Shoes all better than Blimp imo, A Matter of Life and Death a shade over-valued tho

I've seen six of these, I would have picked Black Narcissus. The earlier films are too starchy and the later films overcooked.

I still think the run from Col. Blimp to Small Back Room is the best extended run of films by one creator or creative team ever made.

There's a few others I might argue were equally sure-footed but yeah

The three I like more than Blimp aren't much better than Blimp, nothing in it at all really

Sorry Halfway there I FPed you for heresy

I like the sweet and humane side of Powell and Pressburger better than the dark perverse side, so while I admire Black Narcissus and Red Shoes from an aesthetic standpoint I don't love them as I do Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going and A Matter of Life and Death.

I would vote for Colonel Blimp any time, partly because it appeals to my squishily sentimental nature, partly because the performances and the scope of it are so extraordinary, and partly because it has so many individual scenes that are preserved in my mind as Great Moments in Cinema - the main ones being Anton Walbrook's monologue in the immigration office and the device where the wall fills up with heads.

Colonel Blimp would be my vote too. It's one of my absolute favourite films. I watch it once a year or so, and it always amazes me with its warmth and sadness, and the brilliance of the three main actors.

I Know Where I'm Going! and Black Narcissus are up there too. I'm not super fond of The Red Shoes outside of the central dance sequence.

they've got The Tales Of Hoffmann on mubi right now. I've never been able to get into that so I re-watched A Canterbury Tale instead last night. Colonel Blimp is a movie I can re-watch a hundred times.

xp would you want a version of Gone to Earth that wasn't overcooked?

Mubi UK?

I'm not sure I voted in this one. Back then my vote would've been The Red Shoes but now I'm sure it'd be I Know Where I'm Going or The Life and Death of Col. Blimp. (Or still The Red Shoes.)

Haven't seen Gone to Earth. Black Narcissus has a judicious amount of melodrama, Red Shoes goes way overboard. The earlier films I recall having too much stiff-upper-lip "I say, I say" business. Not Powell's fault that that was the time and place he was born in, but he doesn't overcome it either.
I recall that my father saw Moira Shearer dance the Red Shoes Ballet in London in the 40s.

Sister Clodagh, we may proceed with our plans at Mopu. It will be called Saint Faith.

yeah Mubi UK

Interesting thing that came up recently was Jimmie Rodgers being a big consumer of the scent Black Narcissus.

A rainy morning prompted me to watch A Canterbury Tale. What a strange, beautiful film. I'd agree that John Sweet is too broad but his wide-eyedness, gauche and wooden at the start, is perfect by the end: he's brilliant with the kids, in the cathedral and in the final scenes in the cafe. I haven't really got my head around Colpeper yet. He's a cipher in lots of ways but also the stained glass window of the film (however grubby. I guess it's not a huge leap from 'Colpeper' to 'Peeper'.). Sheila Sim is wonderful.

I've been walking chunks of the Pilgrim's Way over the last few years. I was in a tiny church in a small Hampshire village. I assumed I was alone but as I stood gaping in the doorway a hidden voice murmured 'are you a pilgrim?'. I'm wondering if I'll ever make it to Canterbury but that's quite the question to be asked with all eternity watching on. I'm still shuttling back and forth between yes and no.

lol

Orson on Powell and Pressburger pic.twitter.com/GLuPiq5khm

— John Frankensteiner (@JFrankensteiner) May 7, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6N8ADDDs0k

a matter of life and death is insane (this is a compliment). the set designs, the special effects, the flamboyant french angel, naked boy tending goats on a beach, giant camera obscura, david niven's face, doctor racing around on a motorcycle, ping pong, time freezes, giant escalator through the universe, the detour into a court proceeding about the character of british people vs american people. not what i was expecting at all.

OTM. But what was it that you did expect exactly?

idk, something a little more traditionally classy/romantic/understated?

Have you seen other films by The Archers before?

I watched The Red Shoes last week and it wasn't quite as insane as I'd been hoping.

I've heard that complaint before, but to me it's a perfectly balanced work. Almost a concerto in that regard.

A Matter of Life and Death, tho, is of course bugfuck insane

Peeping Tom too.

I Know Where I'm Going! is in the classic/romantic vein, more toned down than later Archers productions; to me it's the foundational text for every one of those Wacky Hugh Grant English Comedies in mid '90s theaters.

i've seen a number of them:
peeping tom - multiple times, classic obv
black narcissus - saw a long time ago but remember being impressed, probably due for a rewatch
colonel blimp - just watched a few months ago, excellent, more traditional than a matter of life and death but more effective narratively
i know where i'm going - watched sometime in the past few years, did not make an impession

i started the red shoes at some point but was not in the mood for it and never went back to it

I Know Where I'm Going! is in the classic/romantic vein, more toned down than later Archers productions; to me it's the foundational text for every one of those Wacky Hugh Grant English Comedies in mid '90s theaters.

Watched A Castle for Christmas last year, which is like a transatlantic pop-trash version of I Know. Was trying to puzzle out whether it was deliberate, got nowhere.

I'd disagree about the Grant films just bcz I know is still a pretty weird landscape, curses, dogs, eagles, whirlpools film, to the point where the romance keeps fading into the background for me.

Yeah it's a long way from Hugh Grant.

A Canterbury Tale really is something special.

I'd disagree about the Grant films just bcz I know is still a pretty weird landscape, curses, dogs, eagles, whirlpools film, to the point where the romance keeps fading into the background for me.

― woof, Wednesday, February 7, 2024 3:49 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah it's a long way from Hugh Grant.

― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.), Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Well, yeah, I meant the template, not the narrative complications. Hugh Grant would never muss his hair.

The Red Shoes is their best and one of the best movies ever made.

Did anyone else read the memoir by Leo Marx, non-Bletchley Park WWII cryptographer and screenwriter of Peeping Tom?

Leo Marks, sorry

*Not* the author of *The Machine in the Garden* presumably?

Although it's a bit all over the shop - formally, tonally - A Canterbury Tale is the one I think about most often.

a canterbury tale is my fav by a fair margin

Same, there's nothing else like it

I’ve never not fallen asleep during the first 20 minutes of Canterbury Tales despite multiple viewings over my lifetime – but I finally made it to the end today and was relieved to find out that it is, in fact, a pretty tedious film – for the first hour anyway. Then somehow the second hour felt really powerful for reasons I can’t quantify at all. Magic, I guess?