Michael Powell: Early Works │ BFI
Courtesy of BFI
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Between the years 1931 and 1937, Michael Powell directed twenty-three films: twenty-three films in six years. Sadly, ten of those works are no longer with us due to the fact that they were printed on the highly volatile nitrate film stock, which was not only extremely difficult and expensive to store, but was highly flammable. Michael Powell, who went on to direct such classics as The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, was still in his twenties when he started directing but was known for his sense of economy and swiftness of turning a project around. Thanks to a government initiative set up to boost British cinema by establishing a quota system – so that a proportion of British films had to be shown in British cinemas alongside the big-budget Hollywood releases – the ‘quota quickie’ was born. And what the British cinema needed was young, highly energetic and innovative directors to knock out these quickies, that were often barely an hour long and slotted alongside the newsreel footage, cartoons and main feature. In those days you got more than just the endless trailers and commercials – you really got your money’s worth. But not all of Michael Powell’s programme fillers were lost and five of them, painstakingly restored, have been remastered and preserved on high-definition Blu-ray in a new two-disc BFI release simply called Michael Powell: Early Works. The package starts with the 1931 release Rynox, the visually pristine story of a benign, pipe-smoking businessman played by Stewart Rome. Like many a later Powell production, it is full of engaging eccentrics and it does rather feel like a filmed play – and I saw the twist a mile off – but it was quite a hit. I was surprised by one sequence, when a man is able to purchase a colt. 45 from a gun shop in London just like that, but this was before the ban on handguns implemented in England in 1996 (although you can still purchase a handgun in the Channel Islands and on the Isle of Man). The second production is Hotel Splendide, from 1931, when a cocksure clerk working for the International Fruit Company inherits a hotel. He is required to use a telephone and there is a priceless sign that declares, “Accustom yourself to use the telephone. Don’t be afraid of it. Dominate it as you dominate your fellow men.” The film also features Michael Powell himself in a cameo, in which his first words on camera are, “My ears are open all right, Pussy.” So now you know.
The other films include The Night at the Party which, in Powell’s autobiography, he describes the script as being “a stinker... You cannot imagine the awfulness of it, in out-of-touch Olde England. As we read it, I could hardly believe it.” In the end, Powell was persuaded to have a stab at it, if only for the all-star cast dangled before him, including the two lead actresses, Jane Baxter and Viola Keats – “both ladies were my type,” he admitted – and the final Old Bailey trial he thought he could make something out of. The pundits on the audio commentary were more favourably disposed towards the film. Although The Night at the Party was over an hour, I couldn’t resist watching it again with the commentary turned on, just because you learn so much, not just about the film but about the whole process of making cinema, the shortcuts Powell was forced to take (there is only one street scene) and the little details, such as how the leading actor Leslie Banks was only filmed from the right side so that we couldn’t see the scars he had sustained to the left of his face during the First World War. Her Last Affaire (1935) stars Hugh Williams, Viola Keats, Francis L. Sullivan, Felix Aylmer, Cecil Parker and a hilarious Googie Withers in the role of a cheeky hotel maid, and the final feature – or featurette – Behind the Mask, with Hugh Williams again, whose son, Simon Williams, went on to become a star in his own right.
The Blu-ray is a crystallisation of one of Britain’s most individual filmmaking auteurs, showing us the talent as it was coalescing, his use of British eccentricity, shadow play (à la Fritz Lang) and alluring leading ladies. And there is the bounteous bonus material, mini documentaries and interviews, covering the man, his aspirations and influence, including the fascinating documentary Visions, Dreams and Magic: The Unmade Films of Michael Powell, which brings us right up to his autumnal creative years, and the projects that never saw the light of day, including The Tempest with James Mason as Prospero, Mia Farrow as Ariel, Frankie Howerd and others, and a hugely ambitious anthology project called 13 Ways to Kill a Poet, in which he was actively involved with David Hockney, David Bowie, David Cronenberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Redford and which, like so many others, sadly never came to pass. But his ambition and imagination was relentless and unending.
BFI’s release of Michael Powell: Early Works is now available on Blu-ray
The BFI releases up to 30 new titles a year on Blu-ray. They are dedicated to releasing classics of world cinema, rarely seen British film and TV, expertly-curated British documentary and archive collections. All BFI releases are mastered from the best quality film materials available, often held at the BFI National Archive, and most are accompanied by extensive, illustrated booklets. The BFI is a cultural charity, a National Lottery distributor, and the UK’s lead organisation for film and the moving image. Founded in 1933, the BFI is a registered charity governed by Royal Charter.
