Billy Liar

available for pre-order from Amazon of France.

EDIT: Can some nice moderator move this to the correct thread, it seems I've messed up a wee bit.

Steve Crook

I like the sound of the "inclus 1 livret de 50 pages"

Also see their
Black Narcissus
Colonel Blimp
Red Shoes

with probably a few other titles to follow.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Billy Liar

Good stuff Steve, any idea what extras we are likely to getting? looks as though I'll have three editions of The Red Shoes on DVD.

Steve Crook

When they were first planning it they told me the full details and I put them on a page (un-indexed) on the PaPAS site. I don't know for sure that all the items mentioned have made it to the final cut but it certainly looks good. I'll know for certain when I get my copies.

They were announced as all being double DVD releases with the film on one (in English with optional French subtitles) and the other DVD in each set being chock full of extras. There are two documentary essays with an episode on each of the 4 releases. One by Thelma Schoonmaker telling of her Memories of Michael, the other titled A Daring Adventurer by Bertrand Tavernier. Bertrand also does an introduction to each film (in French with English subtitles). There are other essays and documentaries of the different releases. They said they would include (on the Blimp DVD) Kevin Macdonald's documentary about Emeric Pressburger. I have that on tape but could do with a better copy and although it's not up to the high standard of Kevin's subsequent work I think it deserves a wider audience so that more people realise just how important Emeric was.

Some of the other documentaries have been seen on other releases but there are quite a few that have been made just for this release. Everything is bilingual, the parts in English had French subtitles and the parts in French have English subtitles.

So I think that's a big THANK YOU to L'Institut Lumière for organising it all.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Billy Liar

As always Steve you've delivered the goods regarding info on P&P. I will have to start checking out the your other site on a more regular basis. Anyway many thanks for the info mate.

ChristineCB

(Steve has been helping me with this film and I wanted to bring this thread back for more discussion.)

This 1941 film has some interesting choices in action (or non action).

For example, the rather lame Leslie Howard portrayal who appears considerably less outraged by the appearance of Nazis than an Englishman might.

...The ending where Raymond Massey - who appears anything but lame but quite powerful - stands laughing and enjoying the eventual 'deportation' back to the Canadian side so the Nazi is eventually captured, rather than Massey creating a physical confrontation.

And wasn't Olivier a fairly top-name actor at the time? Yet he's given a relatively throw-away part with a forced Quebecois accent?

...The characters that showed differences between Nazis and other Germans in 1941 when there was certainly no clear indication of what the next year's war headlines might bring. This film could have easily painted all the Germans as murderous fanatics, although I think the farm-village's scenes would have been drastically different.

Very interesting choices in this film.

Ljelja

As you mention Olivier in the 49th Parallel, I thought of his performance being somewhat vaudevillian and over the top. Rather strange of him making a charicature. Or, did I miss something? I mean, anti-war and anti-nazi proclamations got there a bit silly edge, when one considers all flesh-and-blood Nazis, portrayed with the array of human emotions, which must have blown Churchill's top...no wonder!

ChristineCB

It's not as if Pressburger and his German crew were unfamiliar with the Nazi's, either, so the choices made had to be well-considered.

And if the point was raised, "Those are fine and all, but what about the viewing public? Should we incite them more?"

As Steve Crook points out, there is a speech in COLONEL BLIMP that containing elements that noblemen are no longer conducting wars, and living should be considered.

Steve Crook

Despite all the big star names in it like Olivier, Howard, Massey & Walbrook (all big stars at the time) it is really Eric Portman's film as far as performances go. The other actors realised that and gladly offered to give him top billing - but the distributor's publicity departments didn't always agree.

It was written with Portman in mind as the lead character. He hadn't done many feature films up to that time and had never had the lead in one. Powell had seen him on stage in Britain and felt he could carry it off. Powell used Portman again in One of Our Aircraft is Missing and then gave him the lead in A Canterbury Tale.

The submarine crew were some of the few actors to go to Canada. Olivier & Howard did their parts in Britain. Ray Massey filmed his in a studio in Canada.

Steve

ChristineCB

Thanks for that. Yes, this is definitely an Eric Portman showcase, and if Churchill's bubbling tummy was heated up with this film, he should always praise Portman for reminding people that the Evil Nazi dread could walk thru any door looking quite ordinary.

As P&P progressed in the film industry, was 49TH P continually referenced as a top film of theirs? As their later 'top' films were released, did they replace 49TH P as a reference point or were those new high-points added to it?

That is... During their active filmmaking years, how did 49TH P rate among other P&P films?

Was it consider flawed? Was it given a political black-eye that was difficult to shed? Or was its so-called political notoriety actually a blessing for its marketing?

penfold

49th P is definitely still used as one of their benchmarks long after the war...and particularly in the States, where Blimp, ACT were heavily slashed and delayed, and some of the others didn't find much of an audience. Needless to say, in propaganda terms, it was mostly aimed at The States anyway...
I'm not entirely sure how it went down politically in some sections in the US....still very isolationist in places.....generally there was some disquiet that some such as Korda were using Hollywood studio facilities to conduct a British propaganda offensive at the US voters. Certainly, it was only Pearl Harbor that stopped Chaplin having to face a Congressional Enquiry as to his making of The Great Dictator....it was that controversial., that late in the War.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

ChristineCB

Thanks for this excellent perspective, again something I'd failed to consider.

smudger

Hi Christine

I first saw 49P about three years ago and I've seen it two or three times since. Like all Powell & Pressburger, it rewards repeated viewings.

I have to say I loved this one straight away, though. I don't see a problem with Olivier's performance - he's playing a big man, so he gives him big qualities. I wasn't expecting Max de Wynter. I love him scrubbing his back in the bath and shaving his beard off and greeting his old mates in the nude. It feels more real to me than many a film of the period, where characters are uniformly buttoned-up. I like Olivier's 'unbuttoned' characterisation.

As for Leslie Howard's performance, isn't that the point of his character - that he's a laconic, laissez-faire , the-war's-far-away-from-me type of Englishman. That's why he's less bothered by the appearance of Nazis. He's been away writing and living the grand tour whilst the war has been developing. He comes to realise the threat of the Nazis when they destroy his paintings - hence the punching of the german soldier with dedications to writers and artists...!
The point being that America was of course seen to be unaware that this war was also their war - that's the propogandic message of the filn - so each chacater discovers why the Nazis are such a threat, why it's necessary to make a stand against them, in their own individual way.

A bit like A Canterbury Tale, it's a film that gets deeper and richer every time you see it.

All the best

Andrew

ChristineCB

I agree. This film took my attention from the first time I saw it and it's been a springboard into all 'war' films for me, although few even come close to this (Battleground with Van Johnson and James Whitmore, for one).

Steve Crook

One other thing to note about the vast majority of P&P war films - you don't see much of the war. Most of them are about real people and how the war affects them, rather than hordes of soldiers screaming and shooting at each other.

Steve