Powell and Pressburger

[Steve Crook]

What is your opinion on the Espionage TV series (I havent seen it) Steve ?
or was Powell a few bricks short of a full load by then?

No, he maintained his full load right to the end

The Espionage episodes he directed are somewhat limited due to the facilities he had available, but they are very interesting. Especially to the Powell scholar. You can certainly see the hand of the master at work in a few scenes, and he brought in a few of his old friends to help him out. People like Anthony Quayle, Roger Livesey & Pamela Brown

Steve

[Arfur Teacake]

I would have liked to see him do some more TV work, but him having worked in films it must have taken some getting use to working with a TV budget and expecting to knock out a completed film in a couple of weeks?
I heard he was offered work on The Champions but was too busy in Australia with that somewhat peculiar film The're a weird mob

[Steve Crook]

I would have liked to see him do some more TV work, but him having worked in films it must have taken some getting use to working with a TV budget and expecting to knock out a completed film in a couple of weeks?
I heard he was offered work on The Champions but was too busy in Australia with that somewhat peculiar film The're a weird mob

He started directing Quota Quickies where he had to put out a feature film very quickly and to a very small budget. Even at their peak, Powell & Pressburger were putting out a major feature film every year for 10 years, and still managing a few other things like making short films. Nowadays it seems that nobody can make any feature length film in less than 3 or 4 years.

They're a Weird Mob may have been peculiar but it was very successful and is often credited with revitalising the Australian film industry. Without it there may well have been no Walkabout, no Picnic at Hanging Rock and no Mad Max

Steve

[HUGHJAMPTON]

They're a Weird Mob may have been peculiar but it was very successful and is often credited with revitalising the Australian film industry. Without it there may well have been no Walkabout, no Picnic at Hanging Rock and no Mad Max

Steve

I'm quite fond of They're A Weird Mob, Walter Chiari's as Nino is very personable in the part of the stranger in a strange land, and it's a real feel good film, imho.

I think in the Pathe newsreel premiere, the commentator mention it as being Australia's most influential film, at that time.

[Steve Crook]

I'm quite fond of They're A Weird Mob, Walter Chiari's as Nino is very personable in the part of the stranger in a strange land, and it's a real feel good film, imho.

I think in the Pathe newsreel premiere, the commentator mention it as being Australia's most influential film, at that time.

It was influential, and it is a good film, and it's the last feature length Powell & Pressburger film because the "Richard Imrie" credited for the screenplay is really Emeric Pressburger

Steve

[HUGHJAMPTON]

It was influential, and it is a good film, and it's the last feature length Powell & Pressburger film because the "Richard Imrie" credited for the screenplay is really Emeric Pressburger

Steve

That's interesting. Why did Emeric feel the need to use a pseudonym?

[julian_craster]

Because he knew it was cr*p ?

[HUGHJAMPTON]

Because he knew it was cr*p ?

IYHO, julian

[Steve Crook]

That's interesting. Why did Emeric feel the need to use a pseudonym?

He wanted to start a new career as an author. He wrote "Killing a Mouse on Sunday" in 1961, that was turned into a film Behold a Pale Horse (1964) but Emeric wasn't directly involved in that film. He also wrote "The Glass Pearls" in 1966, at about the same time that he was re-writing They're a Weird Mob. He didn't want the people in the literary world to know that he was still working on films.

They're a Weird Mob was based on the book by "Nino Culotta" (an aka for John O'Grady). Powell and a few other people had tried turning the book into a screenplay but couldn't manage it to Powell's satisfaction. So Micky brought in his old friend Emeric who re-wrote it to turn it into a decent story for the screen.

Steve

[Steve Crook]

Because he knew it was cr*p ?

Julian doesn't really like any P&P film apart from The Red Shoes

Steve

[Arfur Teacake]

They're a Weird Mob may have been peculiar but it was very successful and is often credited with revitalising the Australian film industry. Steve

Yeah I bet the Aussies sat in the audience and said
"struth Sheila! we must be able to do better job than those poncy pommes"

[GRAEME]

You can certainly see the hand of the master at work in a few scenes, and he brought in a few of his old friends to help him out. People like Anthony Quayle, Roger Livesey & Pamela Brown

Steve

Careful there pardner, that's gettin' mighty close to auteur theory speak...

[Steve Crook]

Yeah I bet the Aussies sat in the audience and said
"struth Sheila! we must be able to do better job than those poncy pommes"

You may be not too far from a truth there

It was by watching the simple but effective "special effects" in The Tales of Hoffmann that George A. Romero realised that you didn't need the facilities of huge studios to make a film - and he went off and made his zombie pics

He still cites P&P as the main reason why he got into making films

They're a Weird Mob was presented as a purely Australian production so it's unlikely that Bruce & Sheila sitting in the audience would have thought that it was made by "poncy pommies". But it may have made them realise that they could make a decent film based in Australia that told an Australian story and that it would be of interest to people all around the world.

Back in the 1960s, many Australians were still suffering from what Clive James dubbed the "cultural cringe" where they thought that everything Australian was bad and everything foreign was good. TaWM told people like that that something Australian could be good

Steve

[MonicaMC]

Dear Steve:

Here is a new one, tangentially related (for my purposes) to The Red Shoes:

Have you been to the Mercury Hill Theatre? I just read on (please don't sneer, gang :)) Wikipedia that the theatre changed from a venue for new dramas to a home for the Ballet Rambert, which appeared in P&P's The Red Shoes.

The theatre has since closed (1987), but I was wondering what's there now, has the place since been razed or otherwise unrecognizable, and (hint, hint ) does anyone have any pics or movie stills or both?

[Steve Crook]

Dear Steve:

Here is a new one, tangentially related (for my purposes) to The Red Shoes:

Have you been to the Mercury Hill Theatre? I just read on (please don't sneer, gang :)) Wikipedia that the theatre changed from a venue for new dramas to a home for the Ballet Rambert, which appeared in P&P's The Red Shoes.

The theatre has since closed (1987), but I was wondering what's there now, has the place since been razed or otherwise unrecognizable, and (hint, hint ) does anyone have any pics or movie stills or both?

I'll have to add that to the long list of locations used in P&P films that I have yet to visit. I don't know if anything of the old building is still there.
When it was shown in The Red Shoes the exterior shots of it were in the rain - because that's how Powell remembered it from his many visits there. BTW the woman who winces when they scratch the record as they change over, was M. Marie Rambert herself

I have been to quite a few of the locations used in their films. I even got a cab taking me across Paris to take a detour and stop by the Paris Opera so that I could take a few pictures of somewhere that was only on screen for about 30 seconds



Steve

[Maurice]

Did Powell or Pressburger have any close links with North-East England?

[Steve Crook]

Did Powell or Pressburger have any close links with North-East England?

Not particularly, not that I can think of. Micky's family, on his mother's side, came from Shropshire, Emeric settled in East Anglia when he retired. That's about the closest personal links either of them had to the North East

They went on location to Boston, Lincs when they made One of Our Aircraft is Missing. In The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Barbara's family home was filmed at Denton Hall, Denton, North Yorkshire. That's the closest they got for any of the locations in their films.

Any particular reason for asking?

Steve

[MonicaMC]

I just saw A Canterbury Tale, largely because I couldn't get IKWIG to stream on Netflix (it played this other P&P fine, though, so who knows). Why are the actors who played the pilgrims credited at the top of the film, but not at the end?

[Steve Crook]

I just saw A Canterbury Tale, largely because I couldn't get IKWIG to stream on Netflix (it played this other P&P fine, though, so who knows). Why are the actors who played the pilgrims credited at the top of the film, but not at the end?

So you are really asking, why weren't they credited at the end of the film. Why should they be when they were credited at the beginning?

Steve

[MonicaMC]

So you are really asking, why weren't they credited at the end of the film. Why should they be when they were credited at the beginning?

Yes, I suppose you're right. But they just show the actors' names - they're not matched up with the respective characters.