‘What fascinated me was the attitude: the planned yet
flexible operation, led by the director, to seize the moment … to turn the
light of common day into something beautiful and entertaining. This was for me!
I never had the slightest doubt that I was meant to direct films from that day
to this. Ten years later, I made my first.’
Michael Powell*
My family remember the BFI’s 2023 Powell and Pressburger
season very well and with some fondness as my regular disappearances up to the
Southbank were greeted with ironic jeers along the lines of “Mickey Powell
a-gain, A Life in Movies eh?”, “Oh, so you’re not going to the tip then?” and
“Is it a matter of life and death then?” The great Liverpool manager Bill
Shankly might well have said that football wasn’t a matter of life and death,
it’s more important than that… but latterly Jurgen Klopp added the balancing
view that it was the most important of the least important things.
So it was that Michael Powell became, for a few golden
months at least, “the most important of the least important things" and, from
Cinema Ritrovato to the BFI, I tried to watch everything I could from the rare
to the restored. The films on this set are mostly branded as “Quota Quickies”,
a loaded term now and then referring to the need for US studios to invest in
British B movies in order to not blow our domestic industry completely out of the
domestic picture houses.
 |
| Stewart Rome in Rynox (1931) |
Tight of budget and time they may have been though but for ambitious men like Powell they were a way into making films along the lines of the Rex Ingram features he had been involved in (Mare Nostrum and The Magician, in which he appeared as well) and Hitchcock’s Blackmail on which he was a photographer and, as quoted by the BFI’s James Bell in one of the extras, claimed to be responsible for the dramatic denouement. Once a bank worker, but always a film fanatic, celluloid ran in Mickey’s veins or at least the drive to create stories for the screen of a British flavour.
Here there are five of these short films – not all
definitively quota quickies as King’s College London’s Dr Laurence Napper
describes on one of the excellent commentaries – along with some fascinating
silent shorts made by Powell as a travelogue for the South of France where his
father ran a hotel. Together they form the most serious effort yet to document
this most distinctive of British filmmakers and the forging of a genuinely
British style during the post silent period.
In other words, it wasn’t all just Alfred.
Powell made some 23 films for various companies in the early to mid-1930s of which only 13 survive. Some are already on DVD, such as the lovable lighthouse mystery, The Phantom Light (1934), The Fire Raisers and Red Ensign (both 1933) also but this marks the first time the five “quota” films included have been on Blu-ray let alone the recently restored versions. All picture digitisation has been carried out at 4K resolution and 16-bit colour depth whilst nitrate sound negatives for the features were digitised at the BFI’s Conservation Centre. Regardless of the various sources, they all look wonderfully crisp whether you are viewing on home cinema or on the big screen
 |
| Michael Powell gives instruction during filming of Her Last Affaire |
Take quota quickies, for example. You know what they
are? Films made in a hurry, and much too cheaply, for an American distributing
company to offer for sale, in order to comply with the law of the land. These
are made by “independent” companies – so called, presumably, because they can’t
afford to be independent.**
The films range from the first to the last of Powell’s so
called quota quickies:
Rynox (1931)
… there never was an English film so well made. The
director’s name is Michael Powell.
John Grierson, Everyman magazine
Powell was also clear that Rynox was not a quota-quickie
production: It was a British feature, financed and distributed by Ideal
Films, a respectable and respected English film-maker.***
The film stars Stewart Rome in twin roles, not to give the
game away, and boss of a failing company who decides to finish himself off and
go undercover to determine who his enemy is.
Then there’s Blackmail’s investigating officer, John Longden playing his
son Tony Benedik. The film is one of the more suspenseful and rushes along at pace with some silent style in terms of cinematography. There are many soundless moments - as you'd expect at this point in British film making, and this makes for an odd experience for those of us used to fuller scores. Powell would later use silence for effect such as in One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942).
In his commentary Marc David Jacobs draws the links from Rome's struggling company boss to Colonel Blimp, with the actor playing a man running out of options and yet who bravely faces the ultimate decisions for the sake of his family. As Jacobs says, it's very rewatchable with a lot packed into the running time and all very well played all round. The design is also very striking with art deco Rynox branding heightening the poignancy of the human drama.
 |
| Jerry Verno and guests at the Hotel Splendide! |
Hotel Splendide (1932)
This is a likeable comedy that shows some visual flair
from Powell on his tiny budget. As senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Kings
College London, Lawrence Napper points out in his booklet essay notes, “Powell’s
resourcefulness in the face of meagre resources is everywhere evident, perhaps
nowhere more so than in the brief sequence that shows Verno travelling from
London to Speymouth…. The entire journey is handled in less than two minutes
with 18 shots edited across eight camera set-ups…”
I’ve now seen this film a number of times and I have a
fondeness for Jerry Verno’s jumped up optimisem and Joyce Dacre’s plucky Vera
Sherbourne. You’ll believe that a Speymouth hotel can indeed be Splendide!
 |
| Ernest Thesiger and Jane Millican |
The Night of the Party (1935)
In her booklet essay, film writer Pamela Hutchinson
summarises this one with trademark economy
as “… a witty parlour-game whodunnit, dismissed by its young director
Michael Powell as ‘a piece of junk’ but which offers plenty of arch amusement
within its brief running time, and an explosive courtroom finale.”
There’s good work from Malcolm Keen as Lord Studholme
along with Leslie Banks as Sir John Holland and Ian Hunter as the reliable, solidly
masculine character he came to specialise in. Then there’s Ernest Thesiger,
who’s character couldn’t be anymore coded. As for time immemorial,
cash-strapped British filmmakers had a ready supply of highly-trained
theatrical talent who could turn up do the job and not require endless
re-takes.
 |
| Francis L. Sullivan, Sophie Stewart and Hugh Williams |
Her Last Affaire (1935)
This one has my favourite cast including Googie Withers
in an early role, Powell stalwart John Laurie and two more legends Felix Aylmer
as Lord Carnforth and Cecil Parker Sir Arthur Harding. Hugh Williams, once
again, plays Hugh Williams… he was totally “method” on this one.
Film historian and Powell specialist, Ian Christie writes
the booklet essay and expects that modern audiences will note Powell’s
ingenuinty in resolving the plot and story line with “…the ingenious use of
a BBC broadcast SOS message (the play had a message tapped out in morse code)
that is striking. And even more, the montage sequences Powell and Dalrymple
devised, first for Alan’s journey to the New Forest inn, and then for his
return by plane from Paris.”
Behind the Mask (abridged reissue version of
The Man Behind the Mask (1936)) (1944)
This last film was long considered lost until the discovery of this abridged version from the US which makes for a slightly unbalanced tale in terms of the master-mind behind the operation and the grandiose science fiction elements of his secret base… some 40% is still missing. That probably wouldn’t elevate this into a classic but it would have explained more about the grandiose plans of the chief villain, The Master aka Paul Melchior as played by Maurice Schwartz.
As with all the rest, it is charming and well made romp with good performances
from Donald Calthrop especially as Dr H E Walpole and Jane Baxter as June
Slade. Hugh Williams also gives another example of the Hugh Williams School of
Acting. It's an enjoyable romp that takes in old school friendships and betrayal, masked balls, kidnap and chase, country pub stand-offs - with Esme Cannon as a waitress - and mystic hokum for the deranged conclusion. Another very entertaining ride!
Special features
The whole set feels like a celebration of British film
preservation and specifically the BFI with both Inside the Archive extras
showcasing the steps taken to restore and preserve the work with not just the
head of departments but also specialists within shown at work in the
painstaking process which is by turns stressful in terms of the unknown
condition/completeness of original materials and most rewarding when a
previously-lost film can re-emerge.
This box set is a bargain in terms of it’s breadth and
depth of information and also in showing the passion involved. So, please look
at these extras as extra-special!
Newly recorded feature commentaries by Marc David
Jacobs (Rynox, Behind the Mask), Lawrence Napper and Dom Delargy (Hotel
Splendide), Dr Josephine Botting and Vic Pratt (The Night of the Party),
and Ian Christie (Her Last Affaire)
Riviera Revels – Travelaugh No.1 and No.10 (1927,
26 mins total): Powell himself appears in these rare short comedy curiosities
from the silent era, with optional audio commentary by Bryony Dixon, curator of
silent film at the BFI
Inside the Archive: Riviera Revels (2024, 12
mins): Bryony Dixon explores the origins of Riviera Revels and Michael Powell’s
work on them
Inside the Archive: The Early Films of Michael Powell
(2024, 42 mins): a new documentary on the BFI National Archive’s role in
rediscovering and remastering the early films of Michael Powell
Visions, Dreams and Magic: The Unmade Films of Michael
Powell (2023, 41 mins): a new documentary exploring some of Michael
Powell’s unrealised films
Interview with Erwin Hillier (1988, 26 mins,
audio): in these extracts from an interview recorded by the British
Entertainment History Project, cinematographer Erwin Hillier recalls working
with Michael Powell
The Archers in Argentina (1954, 21 mins): Michael
Powell and an international film-star entourage are captured on camera at an
Argentinian film festival in this home movie footage shot by Emeric
Pressburger, with optional audio commentary by Marc David Jacobs
Image galleries
There’s a handsome illustrated booklet featuring
contributions from James Bell, Marc David Jacobs, Lawrence Napper, Pamela
Hutchinson, Ian Christie, Bryony Dixon, Dr Josephine Botting and Kieron Webb;
notes on the special features and credits. It’s only available with the
first pressing but is an essential companion!
So, go straight to the BFI’s shop in person or online and buy this set immediately!
*Powell writing in his autobiography, A Life in the
Movies after seeing an article in Picturegoer magazine, aged 15 in 1920.
Quoted by James Bell in the booklet for this set.
**On the British Sets – The Crime of quota quickies’,
EG Cousins, Picturegoer, 9 September 1933, p28
*** A Life in
the Movies
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