Powell and Pressburger
The British film-making partnership of Michael Powell (1905–1990) and Emeric Pressburger (1902–1988)—together often known as The Archers, the name of their production company—made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s. Their collaborations—24 films between 1939 and 1972—were mainly derived from original stories by Pressburger with the script written by both Pressburger and Powell. Powell did most of the directing while Pressburger did most of the work of the producer and also assisted with the editing, especially the way the music was used. Unusually, the pair shared a writer-director-producer credit for most of their films. The best-known of these are The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).
Industry
Film production company
1939
1943 (as "The Archers")
1957
Partnership amicably ended
United Kingdom
- The Spy in Black (1939)
- Contraband (1940)
- 49th Parallel (1941)
- One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)
- A Canterbury Tale (1944)
- I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
- A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
- Black Narcissus (1947)
- The Red Shoes (1948)
- The Small Back Room (1949)
- The Elusive Pimpernel (1950)
- Gone to Earth (1950)
- The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)
- Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955)
- The Battle of the River Plate (1956)
- Ill Met by Moonlight (1957)
- more...
In 1981, Powell and Pressburger were recognised for their contributions to British cinema with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, the most prestigious award given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
History[edit]
Early films[edit]
Powell was already an experienced director, having worked his way up from making silent films to the First World War drama The Spy in Black (1939), his first film for Hungarian émigré producer Alexander Korda. Pressburger, who had come from Hungary in 1935, already worked for Korda, and was asked to do some rewrites for the film.[1] This collaboration was the first of 19, most over the next 18 years.
After Powell had made two further films for Korda, he reunited with Pressburger in 1940 for Contraband, the first in a run of Powell and Pressburger films set during the Second World War. The second was 49th Parallel (1941), which won Pressburger an Academy Award for Best Story. Both are Hitchcock-like thrillers made as anti-Nazi propaganda. For these three films, Powell is the credited director (also producer on 49th Parallel), while Pressburger is credited with the screenplay:
Powell and Pressburger re-used actors and crew members in a number of films. Actors who were part of The Archers' "stock company" include:
Notable crew members include:
Powell & Pressburger also produced two films written and directed by crewmembers or compatriots of through their production company.