Black Narcissus is a 1947 Technicolor erotic drama film by the British writer-producer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on the 1939 novel by Rumer Godden. The title Black Narcissus refers to the perfume Narcisse noir (Caron) and its effects on others; it also alludes to narcissism.
Black Narcissus is a psychological drama about the emotional tensions of jealousy and lust within a convent of nuns in an isolated valley in the Himalayas. The cast features Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, Sabu, David Farrar, Flora Robson, Esmond Knight and Jean Simmons.
The Red Shoes is a 1948 British drama film written, directed, and produced by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known collectively as The Archers. The film is about a ballerina who joins an established ballet company and becomes the lead dancer in a new ballet called The Red Shoes, itself based on the fairy tale "The Red Shoes" by Hans Christian Andersen.
Michael Latham Powell was an English film director, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company "The Archers", they together wrote, produced and directed a series of classic British films, notably 49th Parallel (1941), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). His later controversial 1960 film Peeping Tom, while today considered a classic, and a contender as the first "slasher", was so vilified on first release that his career was seriously damaged.
Emeric Pressburger was a Hungarian British screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell, in an award-winning collaboration partnership known as the Archers and produced a series of films, notably 49th Parallel (1941), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).
A Matter of Life and Death is a 1946 British fantasy-romance film set in England during the Second World War. Written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the film stars David Niven, Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey, Kim Hunter and Marius Goring.
I Know Where I'm Going is a 1945 romance film by the British-based filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey, and features Pamela Brown and Finlay Currie.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a 1943 romantic drama war film written, produced and directed by the British film making team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr and Anton Walbrook. The title derives from the satirical Colonel Blimp comic strip by David Low, but the story itself is original. The film is renowned for its Technicolor cinematography.
Kevin Macdonald is a Scottish director. His films include a documentary about the 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes, One Day in September (1999), the climbing documentary Touching the Void (2003), the drama The Last King of Scotland (2006), the political thriller State of Play (2009), the Bob Marley documentary Marley (2012), the post-apocalyptic drama How I Live Now (2013), the thriller Black Sea (2014), and the Whitney Houston documentary Whitney (2018).
The British film-making partnership of Michael Powell (1905–1990) and Emeric Pressburger (1902–1988)—together often known as The Archers, the name of their production company—made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s. Their collaborations—24 films between 1939 and 1972—were mainly derived from original stories by Pressburger with the script written by both Pressburger & Powell. Powell did most of the directing while Pressburger did most of the work of the producer and also assisted with the editing, especially the way the music was used. Unusually, the pair shared a writer-director-producer credit for most of their films. The best-known of these are The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).
One of Our Aircraft is Missing is a 1942 British war film, mainly set in the German-occupied Netherlands. It was the fourth collaboration between the British writer-director-producer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and the first film they made under the banner of The Archers. Although considered a wartime propaganda film and made under the authority of the Ministry of Information as part of a series of film productions specifically aimed at morale in the United Kingdom, it is elevated by the story and production values above the usual jingoistic fare. Today, One of Our Aircraft is Missing is considered one of the "best of British films of the era."
The Elusive Pimpernel is a 1950 British period adventure film by the British-based director-writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on the novel The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. It was released in the United States under the title The Fighting Pimpernel. The film stars David Niven as Sir Percy Blakeney, Margaret Leighton as Marguerite Blakeney and features Jack Hawkins, Cyril Cusack and Robert Coote. Originally intended to be a musical, the film was re-worked as a light-hearted drama.
The Tales of Hoffmann is a 1951 British Technicolor film written, produced and directed by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger working under the umbrella of their production company, The Archers. It is an adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, itself based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann.
Ill Met by Moonlight (1957), also known as Night Ambush, is a film by the British writer-director-producer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and the last movie they made together through their production company, "The Archers". The film, which stars Dirk Bogarde and features Marius Goring, David Oxley, and Cyril Cusack, is based on the 1950 book Ill Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe by W. Stanley Moss, which is an account of events during the author's service on Crete during World War II as an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The title is a quotation from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the book features the young agents' capture and evacuation of the German general Heinrich Kreipe.
In 1999, the British Film Institute surveyed 1,000 people from the world of British film and television to produce the BFI 100 list of the greatest British films of the 20th century. Voters were asked to choose up to 100 films that were 'culturally British'. The list also includes two non-British films, namely My Left Foot and The Commitments.
Erwin Hillier was a German-born cinematographer known for his work in British cinema from the 1940s to 1960s.
The Edge of the World is a 1937 British film directed by Michael Powell, loosely based on the evacuation of the Scottish archipelago of St Kilda. It was Powell's first major project. The title is a reference to the expression ultima Thule, coined by Virgil.
Raymond Durgnat was a British film critic, who was born in London of Swiss parents. During his life he wrote for virtually every major English language film publication. In 1965 he published the first major critical essay on Michael Powell, who had hitherto been "fashionably dismissed by critics as a 'technician’s director'", as Durgnat put it.
Reginald "Reggie" Mills was an English film editor and one-time film director with more than thirty feature film credits. Among his prominent films are The Red Shoes (1948), for which he received his only Academy Award nomination, The Servant (1963), and Romeo and Juliet (1968).
Ian Christie is a British film scholar. He has written several books including studies of the works of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Martin Scorsese and the development of cinema. He is a regular contributor to Sight & Sound magazine and a frequent broadcaster. Christie is Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London.
Eric Gray was a stills photographer whose work was featured in Life Magazine. His career was mainly in the British film industry and it and was on two Anthony Asquith pictures, Shooting Stars 1928 and A Cottage on Dartmoor 1929, that his reputation began to emerge.
