Michael Latham Powell was an English filmmaker, 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 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, Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian–born British film director, producer, and screenwriter, who founded his own film production studios and film distribution company.
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 a collaboration partnership known as the Archers, and produced a series of films, including 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).
The submarine film is a subgenre of war film in which the majority of the plot revolves around a submarine below the ocean's surface. Films of this subgenre typically focus on a small but determined crew of submariners battling against enemy submarines or submarine-hunter ships, or against other problems ranging from disputes amongst the crew, threats of mutiny, life-threatening mechanical breakdowns, or the daily difficulties of living on a submarine.
Hans Walter Conrad Veidt was a German-British actor. He attracted early attention for his roles in the films Different from the Others (1919), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and The Man Who Laughs (1928). After a successful career in German silent films, where he was one of the best-paid stars of UFA, Veidt and his new Jewish wife Ilona Prager left Germany in 1933 after the Nazis came to power. The couple settled in Britain, where he took citizenship in 1939. Veidt subsequently appeared in many British films, including The Thief of Bagdad (1940). After immigrating to the United States around 1941, he was cast as Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942), his last film role to be released during his lifetime.
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 and 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).
Contraband (1940) is a wartime spy film by the British director-writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, which reunited stars Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson after their earlier appearance in The Spy in Black the previous year. On this occasion, Veidt plays a hero, something he did not do very often, and there is also an early (uncredited) performance by Leo Genn.
49th Parallel is a 1941 British war drama film. It was the third film made by the British filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was released in the United States as The Invaders. The British Ministry of Information approached Michael Powell to make a propaganda film for them, suggesting he make "a film about mine-sweeping". Instead, Powell decided to make a film to help sway opinion in the then-neutral United States. Said Powell, "I hoped it might scare the pants off the Americans" and thus bring them into the war. Screenwriter Emeric Pressburger remarked, "Goebbels considered himself an expert on propaganda, but I thought I'd show him a thing or two". Powell persuaded the British and Canadian governments and started location filming in 1940, but by the time the film appeared, in March 1942, the United States, which had been trying to stay out of the war in Europe, had been drawn into taking sides against Germany after being attacked three months earlier.
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing is a 1942 British black-and-white 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.
Ill Met by Moonlight (1957), released in the USA 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.
June Ada Rose Duprez was an English film actress.
The Silver Fleet is a 1943 British World War II film written and directed by Vernon Sewell and Gordon Wellesley and produced by Powell and Pressburger under the banner of "The Archers".
The Thief of Bagdad is a 1940 British Technicolor historical fantasy film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan, with additional contributions by William Cameron Menzies and Korda brothers Vincent and Zoltán. The film stars Indian-born teen actor Sabu, Conrad Veidt, John Justin, and June Duprez. It was released in the US and the UK by United Artists.
Alfred Junge was a German-born production designer who spent a large part of his career working in the British film industry.
Fräulein Doktor is a 1969 spy film loosely based on the life of Elsbeth Schragmüller. It was an Italian and Yugoslavian co-production directed by Alberto Lattuada, starring Suzy Kendall and Kenneth More, and featuring Capucine, James Booth, Giancarlo Giannini and Nigel Green. It was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and has a music score by Ennio Morricone. It was distributed by Paramount Pictures in the United States.
We Dive at Dawn is a 1943 war film directed by Anthony Asquith and starring John Mills and Eric Portman as Royal Navy submariners in the Second World War. It was written by Val Valentine and J. B. Williams with uncredited assistance from Frank Launder. It was produced by Edward Black. The film's sets were designed by Walter Murton.
Dark Journey is a 1937 British spy film directed by Victor Saville and starring Conrad Veidt, Vivien Leigh and Joan Gardner Written by Lajos Bíró and Arthur Wimperis, the film is about two secret agents on opposite sides during World War I who meet and fall in love in neutral Stockholm.
Under the Red Robe is a 1937 British-American historical adventure film directed by Victor Sjöström and starring Conrad Veidt, Annabella and Raymond Massey. Previously filmed as a 1923 silent directed by Alan Crosland. Before the films a play had been produced on Broadway in 1896-97 starring Viola Allen and William Faversham. The film is based on the 1894 novel by Stanley J. Weyman and is set during the religious wars of early 17th century France; events in the novel itself means it can be dated to the autumn of 1630.
Land Without Women is a 1929 German drama film directed by Carmine Gallone and starring Conrad Veidt, Elga Brink and Clifford McLaglen. It was based on the novel Die Braut Nr. 68 by Peter Bolt. The film is set amongst a community of gold diggers in Western Australia. It was shot at the Staaken and Templehof Studios in Berlin with sets designed by the art directors Hans Sohnle and Otto Erdmann. It was made by the small independent production company Felsom Film using the Tri-Ergon sound-on-film process, the first full-length German-speaking sound film to be released. It was followed a month later by the first all-talking film Atlantik, which had been made in Britain.
The Spy in Black is a 1917 spy thriller novel by the British writer J. Storer Clouston. It takes place near Scapa Flow in the Orkneys during the First World War. It was one of several thrillers he wrote along with The Man from the Clouds and Beastmark the Spy.
