Michael Powell: The Early Works

[MichaelB]

Throughout the 1930s, director Michael Powell (The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, Peeping Tom) honed his craft on a succession of modestly budgeted feature films produced under the United Kingdom’s screen ‘quota’ system. Many of these titles remain lost but, those which survive, reveal a burgeoning talent that readily established Powell as one of British cinema’s leading lights. This new 2-disc collection brings together five of those early films directed by Powell, newly remastered by the BFI National Archive, including murder mysteries, sensational thrillers and a comedy caper. Discover the formative works of a filmmaking icon, available on Blu-ray for the first time.

The Films:

Rynox (1932, 47 mins)
Hotel Splendide (1932, 53 mins)
The Night of the Party (1934, 63 mins)
Her Last Affaire (1936, 68 mins)
Behind the Mask (aka The Man Behind the Mask) (1936, 55 mins)

• Newly remastered from original camera materials and presented in High Definition
• Newly recorded audio commentaries by Marc David Jacobs (Rynox, Behind the Mask, Emeric Pressburger Home Movie), Lawrence Napper and Dom Delargy (Hotel Splendide), Jo Botting and Vic Pratt (Night of the Party), and Ian Christie (Her Last Affaire), Bryony Dixon (Riviera Revels)
• Riviera Revels: Travelaughs No. 1 and No. 2 (1927): Powell himself appears in these rare short comedy curiosities from the silent era
• Inside the Archive: The Early films of Michael Powell (2024): a new documentary exploring the BFI National Archive’s role in rediscovering and remastering the early films of Michael Powell.
• Vanishing in Thunder: The Unmade Films of Michael Powell (2023): documentary by Henry Barnes exploring some of Michael Powell’s unrealised films
• Emeric Pressburger Home Movie (1954): Powell and Pressburger are both seen on camera as they travel to Argentina for a 1954 Film Festival
• **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Booklet featuring contributions from James Bell, Marc David Jacobs, Lawrence Napper, Pamela Hutchinson, Ian Christie, Bryony Dixon, Claire Smith, Josephine Botting and Kieron Webb

[hearthesilence]

FWIW, if anyone in NYC wants a preview, these will be showing at the Powell (& Pressburger) retrospective that's about to open at MoMA - same program that was held earlier in London at the BFI.

[yoloswegmaster]

FWIW, if anyone in NYC wants a preview, these will be showing at the Powell (& Pressburger) retrospective that's about to open at MoMA - same program that was held earlier in London at the BFI.

Jealous that MoMA is screening the early Powell films. TIFF held a Powell/Pressburger retrospective last month but it mainly consisted of the more well-known titles.

This release looks like an excellent release, and it also comes at a good timing for me since I just picked up the Michael Powell autobiography.

[colinr0380]

Excellent news! If it is OK, I'll transcribe the write up from the 1992 BFI publication "Missing Believed Lost: The Great British Film Search" edited by Allen Eyle and David Meeker on these early works. First from the director overview section:

It was in 1931, when American distributors in Britain were commissioning supporting films at £1 per foot, solely in order to meet quota requirements and virtually regardless of quality, that the twenty-six-year-old Michael Powell was able to start directing featurettes, made with producer Jerome J. Jackson for their own company, Film Engineering. Only one of the company's five films directed by Powell is known to survive - Rynox (1931). A Jerry Verno comedy that followed, Hotel Splendide (1932), happily exists, but three films that Powell and Jackson made under the banner of Westminster Films have disappeared. The net result is that only two of Powell's first nine films as a director have been located.

Many subsequent films are also lost from the period before Powell achieved the freedom to make his first major work, The Edge of the World (1937). These early efforts are doubtless of varying aesthetic value, but the surviving examples show a technical inventivness and an an attempt to circumvent the restrictions of genre and budget that make them both interesting and entertaining. Michael Powell's lost films are: Two Crowded Hours (1931), My Friend the King (1931), The Rasp (1931), The Star Reporter (1931), C.O.D. (1932), His Lordship (1932), Born Lucky (1932), The Girl in the Crowd (1934), The Price of a Song (1935), Some Day (1935), The Brown Wallet (1936), The Man Behind The Mask (1936).

The above post by MichaelB shows that in the decades since Missing Believed Lost was published The Man Behind the Mask has been found. Here's the write up from the book on that title (which worryingly states that it runs 79 minutes, compared to the 55 minutes on the upcoming disc):

1936 The Man Behind the Mask

Melodrama in which a girl (Jane Baxter) is abducted from a masked ball and her boyfriend (Hugh Williams) is accused of stealing a valuable shield from her father (Peter Gawthorne). The criminal proves to be a mad astronomer (Maurice Schwartz).

Michael Powell: "They had a very poor script. I did my best to make it into a rather German type expressionistic thriller. It was very hard work indeed because we had no money".

Kine Weekly: "Sensational melodrama entirely unconvincing as to plot, but holding the attention by its extremely good acting and some clever touches of production which introduce the human note. Michael Powell has done everything possible to give plausibility to the tale; he provides a clear continuity, concentrates on facial expression and detail rather than background, and is responsible for many amusing touches. Melodramatic atmosphere is preserved throughout, with the usual humourous quips lightening the tension. The ending is disappointing, the ravings of the madman, whose one passion is possession of the shield, containing insufficient philosophy to interest. Dialogue, by Ian Hay, as might be expected, is entirely successful, especially in its lighter moments." Ian Hay's other film work includes writing dialogue for Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935), The Secret Agent and Sabotage (both 1936).

Monthy Film Bulletin: "The story is melodramatic and absurd but, technically, the film is excellent. Direction, photography, lighting, acting and sound are all good. The glimpses of family life ... are extremely realistic, the country scenes are lovely and the final scenes at the crook's house are impressive when they might so easily have been ludicrous. All the acting is competent but Donald Calthrop as the chess-playing Dr Walpole and Kitty Kelly as his American secretary give the most polished performances. Martin [sic] Schwartz is good but his part being so usual is less difficult. But on the whole, the director is to be most congratulated for having made what must be termed a good film out of very unlikely material."

The film had a significant outcome for Powell: he interested the producer, Joe Rock, in making what would be his first personal work, The Edge of the World, with which he bade farewell to the world of quota quickies.

Apparently according to that first link His Lordship (another Jerry Verno film) has also been found from the list of lost Powell films, although if true it does not look as if it is going to appear on this disc release.

[A Tempted Christ]

Hopefully this sells well and BFI follows it with two more volumes that cover the rest of his pre-TEotW films.

[MichaelB]

Thirteen survive, of which this box covers five - but some of the others only exist in compromised versions (for instance, burned-in foreign-language subtitles, as per the only extant print).

[A Tempted Christ]

That's unfortunate. Thankfully whatever remains of these thirteen films has been restored in 4K by BFI. I'm completely unfamiliar with the Riviera Revels series though.

[LaburnumGrove]

The above post by MichaelB shows that in the decades since Missing Believed Lost was published The Man Behind the Mask has been found. Here's the write up from the book on that title (which worryingly states that it runs 79 minutes, compared to the 55 minutes on the upcoming disc):

The only surviving copy of The Man Behind the Mask is a 16mm print, now held at the George Eastman Museum, which was lent to the BFI for its recent restoration. This print came to light in around 1993, as a result of the Missing Believed Lost initiative, but dates from the film's mid-1940s rerelease, when it was unceremoniously shorn of nearly 25 minutes (hence the discrepancy in runtimes) and retitled 'Behind the Mask', possibly to avoid confusion with the 1941 Peter Lorre film, The Face Behind the Mask - although the new title would hardly improve such matters, one imagines. I believe I'm right in saying this makes it the only of Powell's surviving films from any era to exist solely in incomplete form, albeit a 'deliberate' incompleteness as opposed to an unintentional lost reel or two.

Thirteen survive, of which this box covers five - but some of the others only exist in compromised versions (for instance, burned-in foreign-language subtitles, as per the only extant print).

None of the surviving 1930s Powell films (apart from The Man Behind the Mask, as detailed above) exists in a 'compromised' version. Of the extant 1931-1936 films, The Fire Raisers, Red Ensign and The Phantom Light have previously been released on commercial DVD (the first two by Strawberry Media, the last by Network, and all three by Les Films de ma vie). This set therefore represents half of Powell's surviving pre-The Edge of the World films which have never previously been available on (legitimate) physical media. The remaining five - His Lordship, Something Always Happens, The Love Test, Lazybones and Crown v Stevens - exist in clean, complete prints.

I'm completely unfamiliar with the Riviera Revels series though.

If you're interested in finding out a bit more about Harry Lachman's Riviera Revels - Travelaughs, there's a tantalising eightyish seconds about them in Powell's fantastic 1986 episode of The South Bank Show, starting from about 11:20 here. Sadly, the extract shown is from Fauny Business, the tenth in the series, which is not included in the forthcoming BFI set.

[MichaelB]

I'm very happy to be corrected! I wonder which 1930s British films I must have been thinking of?

[LaburnumGrove]

Off the top of my head, the most prominent examples would be Money for Speed (1933), Bella Donna (1934) and The Lambeth Walk (1939) - the BFI copies have German, Czech and French subtitles (respectively), if I'm remembering correctly. There are also a handful of other cases - Walter Forde's Condemned to Death (1932), for example, only survives in a heavily cut version dubbed in French (although quite well for the era, actually).

[A Tempted Christ]

If you're interested in finding out a bit more about Harry Lachman's Riviera Revels - Travelaughs, there's a tantalising eightyish seconds about them in Powell's fantastic 1986 episode of The South Bank Show, starting from about 11:20 here. Sadly, the extract shown is from Fauny Business, the tenth in the series, which is not included in the forthcoming BFI set.

Thank you. That little snippet, along with this write-up, were very informative. Perhaps they're saving the other episodes for future sets.

[LaburnumGrove]

One hopes! According to MoMA, the BFI have restored seven in the series, which seems to tally with those thought to survive of the original dozen instalments.

[colinr0380]

Thanks for all of the added context LaburnumGrove, and that certainly explains the time differences on The Man Behind the Mask! Embarassingly I had not been aware of the three early Powell films released by Strawberry Media and Network / Les Films de ma vie before this, but I will have to look into tracking copies of those down.

[LaburnumGrove]

Very glad to help! Not on the home video front obviously, but you may also like to know that the restored versions of Rynox, Hotel Splendide, The Night of the Party, Red Ensign, Something Always Happens, The Phantom Light, Her Last Affaire and Crown v Stevens are all currently available to rent from BFI Player for £2.50 or £3.50 each. Additionally, the restored version of Lazybones is on Talking Pictures TV Encore for free, at time of writing.

As regards the aforementioned releases, I can't speak to the quality of the Les Films de ma vie DVDs (released under the titles Les Incendiaires, Le Pavillon rouge and - erm - The Phantom Light), I'm simply aware of their existence. I believe they're all out of print and quite rare these days, but there were also a pair of French box sets from 2011 and 2013 that collected all three titles and may be cheaper. I also neglected to mention a similarly out-of-print Region 1 release from 2008 that included both Red Ensign and The Phantom Light - DVDBeaver review here.

The Network release of The Phantom Light was very much up to their usual high standard, and is recommended - obviously, it's out of print as well (RIP Network), but there appear to be plentiful stocks remaining with the usual stockists. As you'll probably be aware, Strawberry Media releases (amongst which can also be found Powell's 1939 films The Spy in Black and the co-directed The Lion Has Wings) are frequently of fair to middling quality at best. Their versions of The Fire Raisers and Red Ensign are towards the cleaner end of their offerings, but both do still look a bit like high-end VHS: