Rentals
Phantom Threads: Powell + Pressburger in Context
A collection of films from other directors which are somehow linked to the Archers’ own films.
Complementing our celebration of the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, BFI Programmer-at-Large Geoff Andrew and BFI National Archive Senior Curator of Fiction James Bell have assembled a selection of titles by other directors which are somehow linked to the Archers’ own films.
An American in ParisAn American in Paris
Musical1951113 minsDirector: Vincente Minnelli
Gene Kelly stars as a former GI turned bohemian artist, torn between two women in this exhilarating ride through the Gershwin songbook.
Perhaps the closest Hollywood came to the Archers’ experiments in combining cinema, dance, music and the visual arts was this tale of an artist striving for fame, fortune and romance. Powell claimed Kelly told him he’d screened The Red Shoes at least 15 times for MGM executives before he got the go-ahead for this ambitious Gershwin musical, omplete with ballet and visual tributes to famous French painters.
The Queen of SpadesThe Queen of Spades
Fantasy194995 minsDirector: Thorold Dickinson
Thorold Dickinson's most dazzling success, based on Pushkin’s 1834 tale of black magic and gambling.
Though less well-known than Powell + Pressburger, Dickinson was a similarly ambitious, intelligent, slightly maverick figure in the British film world of the time. This impressively atmospheric adaptation of Pushkin’s short story, about an impoverished soldier’s efforts to trick an elderly countess into betraying her secret of winning at cards, came to Dickinson thanks to the support of Anton Walbrook, star of four Archers movies.
OrlandoOrlando
Fantasy199393 minsDirector: Sally Potter
Tilda Swinton stars in Sally Potter's dazzling interpretation of Virginia Woolf's novel.
Sally Potter included a dedication to her friend Michael Powell at the end of this imaginative adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel, which follows the immortal Orlando from the court of Elizabeth I to the 20th century. Potter favourites include A Matter of Life and Death and Gone to Earth, reflecting her own interest in history, politics, sexuality, identity – individual and cultural – and film’s relation to the other arts.
CasablancaCasablanca
Drama1942103 minsDirector: Michael Curtiz
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman star in the eternal story of love, loss and redemption; the ultimate testament to the brilliance of Golden Age Hollywood.
Michael Curtiz – like Pressburger, a Hungarian emigré – hit gold with this adventure about a motley group of expatriates, exiles and refugees frequenting Rick’s, a Casablanca
nightclub and gambling den during World War Two. The mix of romance, patriotism, politics and ethical dilemma is perhaps not so different from the Archers’ movies. And
one member of the stellar cast, Conrad Veidt, had recently starred in three Powell + Pressburger movies.
BlackmailBlackmail
Police drama192982 minsSilentDirector: Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock's first sound film sees a young woman blackmailed for a murder she was forced to commit.
Hitchcock’s first (part-)talkie, about a detective’s fiancée who finds herself in deep trouble after an encounter with a predatory painter, is renowned for its expressionist use
of sound and a climactic chase that makes imaginative use of the British Museum. Powell, officially stills photographer, claimed to have worked on the script and come up with the idea for the famous finale.
More from Phantom Threads: Powell + Pressburger in Context in our Subscription collection.
