Steve Crook

Of course the (possibly apocryphal, possibly not) story is that it was renamed as Pursuit of the Graf Spee for the American audience in case anyone thought it was about the River Platte and so thought that it was a Western

BoRP and Ill Met are the two that P&P made towards the end of their partnership. They were both based on real events in WWII and were both such amazing tales of bravery and sheer cheek that there wasn't too much that The Archers could add to them. They could only tell the tale as they found it. It was also the time when the partnership was beginning to come to its natural conclusion. They had a few disagreements but remained firm friends till the end of their lives. But they had come to the end of all the things they wanted to do together and they both wanted to pursue some individual projects. They had been working closely together since 1939 so it's understandable that they'd want a break.

I agree, it would have been nice to explore the character of Langsdorff more. Especially to make more of the fact that he wasn't a Nazi but was old school German Navy. I think Micky might have been distracted by having such fun playing with all those nice toys. It's not often that a film-maker has much of the Mediterranean Fleet of the Royal Navy to play with, plus the USN Salem who was on station in the Med at the time.

The scenes of the actual battle at sea, especially the gunnery, often gets compliments from people who have experienced real naval battles.

Some people thing it drifts off a bit when they get to Montevideo. But that's how it really happened. It did become more of a battle of wits, of diplomacy and some deliberately leaked information.


Well of those 4, Gone to Earth is easily available. It's been released on a Region 2, PAL format DVD. That's the restoration that was done by a nice man at Disney. But after he'd finished it, the suits at Disney didn't know what to do with it and shelved it - despite some classic Disney scenes of animals scurrying for cover when the huntsmen approach. Luckily it was picked up and released by Pearson in the UK. But those in the ex-colonies should make sure they can play region 2, PAL format DVDs before buying it.

I would regard it as a 2nd rank classic. Not as good as their very best films. But a "not their best" by The Archers still knocks the spots off most other films

It does betray its origins and the book it was based on is very melodramatic. But the saving grace is the landscape which is as important in this film as it is in ACT or IKWIG.

Jennifer does a great job, even managing the Shropshire accent very well. David Farrar makes a superb wicked squire and Cyril Cusack is perfect as the meek parson. Good support from Archers regular Esmond Knight as Jennifer's father and from Sybil Thorndike as the parson's mother.

The DVD includes some "home movies" of the cast and crew on location. But sadly there's no soundtrack on the film itself (they added some music for the DVD) and there's no subtitles so it helps to know who is who and to have some idea of what they're doing.

Nick Dando used to live around that way and found all the locations used. We did a tour of them and got a load of "Then & Now" photos which I'll refer you to after you've seen it. Apart from more cars, TV aerials and a few other things, most of them are still remarkable recognisable.

Try not to watch the Selznick version first. In his autobiographies, Powell claimed that Selznick only left about 35 minutes of the original film. In fact, about two-thirds remains intact. Selznick's changes are mainly adding: a prologue; scenes explaining things, often literally, by putting labels or inscriptions on them; more close-ups of Jennifer Jones. The most infamous of these are the scenes at the end when she is supposedly carrying a tame fox - in the additional scenes, Jones is carrying what is obviously a stuffed toy fox. He also deleted a few scenes that he felt weren't dramatic enough. Sadly some of these were major plot points so the story doesn't make as much sense as in the original film.


Ill Met by Moonlight is also available on UK DVD. As with BoRP it's based quite closely on a true story. A group of young men who, had it not been for the war would have become smugglers or pirates, gathered in Cairo and went off on various adventures. One of these was to the Nazi-occupied island of Crete to kidnap the German General and bring him back to Cairo for questioning. It sounds like something straight out of a "Boys Own Adventure" comic book - but it really happened.

Starring Dirk Bogarde at his flamboyant Byronic best as the leader and with various British character actors doing good impersonations of Cretan partisans. But once they've kidnapped the General it does lag a bit as they take him from one mountain hideout to the next.


The Elusive Pimpernel has never been released commercially on DVD although it has been released on video so you might be able to find one of those (cheaper than the $78 which is the cheapest on Amazon Marketplace).

Starring David Niven and Margaret Leighton this was for some time my prime contender for the worst film made by Powell and/or Pressburger - until I saw The Queen's Guards. It's not that it's a bad film, but it could have been so much better. And of course a "not very good" film by The Archers is still worth watching


Oh... Rosalinda!! has never been released commercially on video, DVD or on any other medium. Although it has been mentioned as being on Criterion's long term plans. Maybe in a year, or two.

It has been shown on TV in the UK so some recordings do exist.

Starring some of the old crowd from TRS and ToH like Anton Walbrook and Ludmilla Tcherina it is a fun operetta (Die Fledermaus). They brought in Mel Ferrer, Dennis Price, Michael Redgrave and Anthony Quayle to play the other main parts. Well worth watching, but don't expect anything of the standard set by TRS or ToH.

It was the first film they made in wide screen (CinemaScope) and they make good use of that with things like a long balcony scene with different things going on in different rooms and people singing their parts from different sections of the balcony.


But first on your list should quite rightly be The Edge of the World. The American DVD has a bit of sprocket slippage which was very careless of them (Milestone) but is otherwise very good.

It was Michael Powell's first truly personal project and the one that pulled him out of the 20+ B-films he'd made in the previous 6 years. It let him be recognised by some major players like Korda who in turn put him together with Pressburger. But even if it wasn't for that historical significance it's still well worth watching.

Bearing in mind what they went through to make it. Going to an island a few hundred miles north of the Scottish mainland and then staying there for nearly 5 months. Longer than intended but the weather marooned them there.

The American DVD includes the short propaganda piece An Airman's Letter to His Mother and the 1978 documentary Return to the Edge of the World where Powell and some of the surviving cast and crew went back to Foula to see how things had changed in the last 40 years. It also has a commentary by Thelma Schoonmaker & Ian Christie on the main film and some other goodies.

Micky knew that it was such a significant event that he even wrote a book about their adventures and how it all happened. Originally titled "200,000 feet on Foula" (referring to the amount of film shot, not the height of the cliffs), it's available in various editions with different titles like "200,000 Feet - The Edge of the World".

And even if we ignore all that, it's still an amazing film
It was very rare to make location based films in 1937 and this one really does make great use of the landscape and the people living there as well as the imported actors. It's a great story and is filmed (and edited) superbly well.

Steve

Steve Crook

[Homer Simpson mode]
Hmmm, Lilli Palmer

Like Pamela Brown, even if her role in the film is only a small one, it's hard to take your eyes off her.

They even put her on a stamp in Germany


Steve

penfold

Kathleen Byron, in The Small Back Room. It's the eyes........

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Freddy

Hindsight is a luxury and probably this information wasn't available to P and P when they made AMOLAD but the last operations flew by Lancasters (Peter Carter's plane) was dropping food supplies to the civilian population in Western Holland after a truce was arranged with the local German commander and that was at the end of April and the beginning of May. There were no offensive operations by Lancasters in May. The last offensive operation of Bomber Command before the surrender in Europe was by Mosquitoes of the number 8 Group on Kiel on the 2/3 May.

RAF History - Bomber Command 60th Anniversary

Forumites have mentioned many aspects of AMOLAD but has anyone ever commented on the Peter Carters opening scene and what that says?

He tells us he is 27, that his father died in 1917, in that line you realise that as it is 2/3 May 1945 (only a few days before the end of the war) there was a good chance he was born in 1918, that his father died before he was born, perhaps never knowing his wife was pregnant or ever seeing his son and that Peter's mother was going to lose her husband and son in each of the world wars.

Freddy

The world wags on.

stormcat

I love this film... but think, maybe, a Roger Corman / Wicker Man edit would have done wonders to have improved it: especially losing the preachy bit about getting on with the Americans.

Nick Dando

That was the whole point of the film - to improve the soured relations between Britain and America thanks to the vast numbers of "overpaid, over-sexed and over here" service e men and women.

Nick

Steve Crook

It really was necessary at the time. And it's thanks to this film (and maybe a few other things) that we get on so well now

Although it wasn't just the morals of the GIs that the government was worried about. There were also reports about those nice English girls corrupting all those innocent GIs. The things a girl would do for a pair of stockings!

And remember, that's your mothers, aunts and grandmothers we're talking about

See Times article


When they did a stage version of this film, the Kneehigh Company had a similar thought. All that preachy stuff about the British and the Americans had to go. So they made the girl into an English girl. But that took out too much IMHO. They could have made her any other non-British nationality and then they could have still had an updated attack on and defense of Britain. But they cut all of that and I think the play was poorer for it,

Steve

stevie boy

In the supplement to The Mail on Sunday, 10 War films you should own. Top of the list Mr. Crookes favourite(I know Steve, it is more than a war film!!!) also on the radio they were talking about the forthcoming big screen showing of this film and the influence it has had on filmakers and musicians and video's)

Steve Crook

I'll have to root through the bins and see if I can find a copy
Unless someone has one that they can scan in.

That's one of the many odd things about all of Powell & Pressburger's "war films" - the films made during the war, there's very little war actually shown in any of them. They're "war films" that aren't about the war

I've just asked the P&P email group how many would be interested in a trip to the NFT (BFI Southbank) to see it, and when would be a good day to do it on. If anyone here is interested in going along as well, when would be good for you? It'd be good to get a few people to meet up and do a joint PaPAS / Britmovie event.

Thu 25 Sep 20:45 NFT1
Fri 26 Sep 14:30 NFT3
Fri 26 Sep 18:30 NFT1
Fri 26 Sep 20:45 NFT1
Sat 27 Sep 15:50 NFT1
Sat 27 Sep 18:10 NFT1
Sat 27 Sep 20:30 NFT1
Sun 28 Sep 15:50 NFT1
Sun 28 Sep 18:10 NFT1
Sun 28 Sep 20:30 NFT1
Mon 29 Sep 20:40 NFT2
Tue 30 Sep 18:30 NFT1
Tue 30 Sep 20:45 NFT1
Wed 1 Oct 20:30 NFT3
Thu 2 Oct 18:10 NFT3
Thu 2 Oct 20:30 NFT3
Fri 3 Oct 18:10 NFT3
Sat 4 Oct 15:45 NFT3
Sat 4 Oct 20:30 NFT3
Sun 5 Oct 15:50 NFT3
Sun 5 Oct 18:00 NFT3
Sun 5 Oct 20:30 NFT3
Mon 6 Oct 20:30 NFT3
Tue 7 Oct 20:30 NFT3
Wed 8 Oct 20:45 NFT1
Thu 9 Oct 18:00 NFT1
Thu 9 Oct 20:45 NFT1
Fri 10 Oct 18:30 NFT1
Fri 10 Oct 20:45 NFT1
Sat 11 Oct 15:30 NFT1
Sat 11 Oct 18:30 NFT1
Sat 11 Oct 20:45 NFT1
Sun 12 Oct 15:50 NFT3
Sun 12 Oct 18:10 NFT3
Sun 12 Oct 20:50 NFT3
Mon 13 Oct 18:10 NFT3
Mon 13 Oct 20:40 NFT3
Tue 14 Oct 14:00* NFT3
Tue 14 Oct 18:10 NFT3
Tue 14 Oct 20:20 NFT3
Wed 15 Oct 18:10 NFT3
Wed 15 Oct 20:30 NFT3

* 'Seniors' matinee, with introduction and discussion
I've asked who's doing the introduction and leading the discussion on the 14:00 screening on Tue 14 Oct. And how old you have to be to count as a 'senior'. But they haven't told me yet.

NFT3 is their "bijou" screen. It seats just 134 people
NFT1 is their main screen which seats 450
NFT2 is their intermediate screen which seats 162 people

Steve

stevie boy

when you have a defenite date,please let me know Steve,thanks

Sgt Dudfoot

Apologies if this has been asked before, but I read recently that after America had released AMOLAD as 'Stairway To Heaven' Michael Powell said that they had 'missed the point'. What was this point that Powell was referring to?

Steve Crook

From the second volume of his autobiography, Million Dollar Movie (p 418):
I realized that the whole idea of a trial in heaven had to have a solid base in reality, medical reality and that the appearance and disappearance of the heavenly messenger would have to be matter-of-fact and realistic if we were to get away with such fantasies at the end of a great war to end all wars. It was the firm acceptance by all the principals of the solid medical reason for the operation on the pilot's brain that made the rest of the plot so satisfying to the audience. When the Americans wanted to rename our film "Stairway to Heaven" we knew at once that they hadn't understood at all what we had succeeded in doing. They saw it all as a fairy tale. I saw it as a surgical operation.

The American distributors saw it as a fantasy or fairy tale. They concentrated on the heavenly and angelic parts in their promotional material and press books. Powell and Pressburger, particularly Powell, saw it as being a straightforward story, grounded in fact, medical fact, at every step of the way. OK, it's an unusual story, and it has strong romantic elements. But it's certainly not fantasy, and it's not even religious. The only mention of Heaven in the film is by the young pilot played by Dickie Attenborough, and he uses it as an adjective more than a noun.

The American distributors decided that they couldn't release a film with the word "Death" in the title. Not so soon after so many people had been killed in the war. Of course there are other films released at the same time which do have "death" in the title but we don't look for consistency with distributors, especially the American distributors of the time

Steve

Sgt Dudfoot

Many thanks for a full answer

sprig63

Hello Barbara,
I recently got a copy via ebay on DVD, good quality too.

sprig63

Hi Jack,
This was a fine piece of film making.
I first saw it when i was off ill from School [about 1977] it was on in the afternoon. i had a really bad case of chicken pox @ aged 14 and was delerious with it. So watching THIS film was even more surreal than it might have been! A remarkable experience. I can only think to relive it now would be to get a class A drug and watch a re-run!