Collection of eleven classic films from influential filmmakers
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. 'The Battle of the River
Plate' (1956) tells the true story of the famous 1939 naval
battle. Hans Langsdorff (Peter Finch) is captaining the crack
German battleship Graf Spee through the South Atlantic, unaware
that a small number of lightweight British battle cruisers are
hot on his trail. When the British cruisers manage to trap the
powerful German ship in the Uruguayan harbour of Montevideo, they
attempt to trick Langsdorff into believing that an entire battle
fleet is waiting to destroy his vessel at sea. In 'A Canterbury
Tale' (1944), a British sergeant, a land girl and a United States
Army officer arrive at a Kent village on the same train. The
newcomers are brought face to face with the bizarre menace
causing bewilderment in the tight-knit community: someone is
pouring glue onto the hair of girls who dare to venture out at
night with visiting servicemen. Powell and Pressburger offered
this 'propaganda' piece as their contribution to the war effort,
but the authorities were unsure how its oddball tone would go
down with the Allies. In '49th Parallel' (1941), Laurence Olivier
and Leslie Howard are among the stars who try to prevent Nazi
sailors, from a sunken U-Boat, reaching neutral USA through
Canada in this classic war film, which was intended to persuade
America to join World War II. Pressburger won an Academy Award
for the story and the film was directed by Powell. In 'I Know
Where I'm Going!' (1945), a woman (Wendy Hiller) has always known
what she wanted in life, and now she is about to marry a
millionaire. But when she ends up stranded on a Hebredian island
due to a storm, she begins to see things a little differently.
'Ill Met By Moonlight' (1957) was the final film created by
Powell and Pressburger together. Set on the island of Crete
during the Nazi occupation, the film stars Dirk Bogarde and David
Oxley as British officers assigned to kip the German
commander-in-chief General Kreipe (Marius Goring) and spirit him
back to Cairo. If successful, the morale of the Germans would be
weakened and the resistance would be stronger. But once he is
captured, the British officers have to get him past German
patrols at almost every turning. In 'The Life and Death of
Colonel Blimp' (1943), stuffy ex-soldier Clive Candy (Roger
Livesey) recalls his career which began as a dashing officer in
the Boer War. As a young man he lost the woman he loved (Deborah
Kerr, who plays three roles) to a Prussian officer (Anton
Walbrook), whom he fought in a duel only to become lifelong
friends with. Candy cannot help but feel that his notions of
honour and chivalry are out of place in modern warfare. The
film's title comes from 'Evening Standard' cartoonist David Low's
satirical comic creation, Colonel Blimp. In 'The Red Shoes'
(1948), ballet impressario Boris Lermontov (Walbrook) hires
up-and-coming ballerina Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) and
talented young composer Julian Craster (Goring) to work with him
on a new ballet, an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen
story 'The Red Shoes'. The show is a great success and Victoria
and Julian fall in love, but Boris is jealous and makes moves to
spoil their happiness. 'A Matter of Life and Death' (1946) is a
classic wartime propaganda movie, commissioned by the Ministry of
Information, but turned into a fantastical allegory by the
Archers, aka Powell and Pressburger. David Niven plays an RAF
pilot who is ready to be picked up by the angels after bailing
out of his plane. But an administrative error in Heaven leads to
a temporary reprieve, during which he must prove his right to
stay on Earth. A tribunal in heaven ensues to decide the case. In
'They're a Weird Mob' (1966), Nino Culotta (Walter Chiari) is an
Italian immigrant who arrives in Australia with the promise of a
job as a journalist on his cousin's magazine, only to find that
when he gets there the magazine has folded, the cousin has done a
runner and the money his cousin sent for the fare was borrowed
from the daughter of the boss of a local construction firm. 'The
Tales of Hoffman' (1951) is an adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's
opera and follows Hoffman's (Robert Rounseville) tales of his
love for the doll Olympia, the courtesan Giuletta (Ludmilla
Tcherina) and the frail diva Antonia (Anne Ayars), and of how his
quest for the eternal woman was always thwarted by evil. Finally,
in 'Black Narcissus' (1946), a group of British nuns are sent
into the Himalayas to set up a mission in what was once the
harem's quarters of an ancient palace. The clear ain air,
the unfamiliar culture and the unbridled ity of a young
prince (Sabu) and his beggar-girl lover (Jean Simmons) begin to
play havoc with the nuns' long-suppressed emotions. Whilst the
young Mother Superior, Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), fights a
losing battle for order, the jaunty David Farrar falls in love
with her, sparking uncontrollable jealousy in another nun, Sister
Ruth (Kathleen Byron).