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by James Howard (Author)
Michael Powell was the greatest and most successful film director in Britain in the 1940s as, together with Emeric Pressburger under the banner of The Archers, they produced a string of dazzling, award winning movies including 49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going, A Matter of Life and Death and Black Narcissus. Now, for the first time, Powell's entire remarkable career is examined in detail - from his early experience as a 'Grip' with the legendary Rex Ingram, as stills photographer attached to the Alfred Hitchcock unit, and his own early directorial efforts - 23 movies in five years, analysed and reviewed here in greater depth than previously. The Archers partnership lasted through to the mid 1950s, with later acclaimed productions including The Tales of Hoffmann and The Battle of the River Plate, after which Powell and Pressburger went their separate ways. Powell's fate seemed to be sealed by the notorious reception given to Peeping Tom in 1960 - the film traditionally credited with putting an end to his career in Britain. This book examines each of Powell's films in context, discussing the true effect that Peeping Tom had on his future work, while also taking in his rarely discussed work in television and the theatre, and exploring the groundbreaking use of music in his films. Many exclusive interviews and comments from those who worked with him help to make this a fully rounded assessment of a man whose reputation continues to grow, rediscovered by successive generations of cinema enthusiasts. At last, Michael Powell's extraordinary career has the book that it deserves 400 pages, with almost 400 ilustrations, many previously unpublished.
