The Films of Powell and Pressburger Quiz

Answer: The Spy in Black

"The Spy in Black" was based on J. Storer Clouston's novel of the same name. The plot centres on a German submarine commander who has his leave cancelled in order to lead a spying mission in the Orkney Islands. The mission is intended to discover information that would enable an attack against the British fleet at Scapa Flow. However, unbeknownst to the commander, the British are aware of his mission and have replaced his contact on the island with a spy of their own.

Michael Powell was hired to direct the film by Hungarian emigré producer, Alexander Korda. Korda had previously worked with fellow Hungarian Pressburger on the previous year's "The Challenge" and personally chose him as writer for "The Spy in Black" also.

Director and writer were hugely impressed by each other's abilities and they went on to write, direct and produce films together over the next 33 years. Powell was later to describe Pressburger's flight from Germany as "the worst day's work that the clever doctor [Goebbels] ever did for his country's reputation".

Answer: 49th Parallel

The film was commissioned as propaganda with the purpose of highlighting to Americans the dangers of fascism in Europe and demonstrating why the US should join the Allies in the fight against the Nazis. It was considered such an important piece of work that many of the stars, including Laurence Olivier and Leslie Howard, agreed to work for much less money than normal, in order to get the film made.

The film was the first Powell and Pressburger collaboration to be nominated for Oscars at the Academy Awards. It was nominated in three categories, including Best Picture, and won one Oscar for Emeric Pressburger's original story.

The 49th Parallel forms the border between Canada and the USA from the Lake of the Woods to the Pacific coast. Despite the title, the only border scene in the film is not set along the 49th Parallel but at Niagara Falls.

Answer: To cover a scar gained in a duel with a German officer

Major General Clive Candy (AKA Colonel Blimp), played by Roger Livesey, travels to Germany, against the advice of the War Office, after receiving a letter from an English teacher in Berlin who reports of anti-British propaganda being spread about the city. In the course of his trip, Candy offends the honour of the entire German Imperial Army and is challenged to a duel. An officer, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, played by Anton Walbrook, is chosen to fight the duel on behalf of the German Army.

In the course of the duel, Candy's lip is split and Theo is also wounded. Both officers are sent for recuperation to the same hospital where, despite the language barrier, they become firm friends - a friendship that survives the enmity of two World Wars on which their countries were on opposite sides.

Answer: Who is pouring glue into girls' hair in the town

The story of the glue man, who attacks girls whom he deems to be unpatriotic for fraternising with American soldiers, whilst ostensibly the central plot of the film, is secondary to the true themes of the film; the beauty of the English countryside, the necessity for Anglo-American harmony in war time and a paean to the pre-war English lifestyle. "A Canterbury Tale" was another Powell and Pressburger film that had its roots in war-time propaganda, even if it received no input or funding from the government.

Alison, a land girl traveling to Kent to take up work on a farm, is attacked by the glue man shortly after leaving the train at the village of Chillingbourne, near Canterbury. Her companions Peter Gibbs, a cinema organist turned British Army Sergeant and Bob Johnson, a US Army sergeant, decide that they ought to investigate the attacks. Whilst on their way to Canterbury (deemed by Powell as "a modern pilgrimage") they unmask the culprit.

Answer: Fried Onions

"A Matter of Life and Death" is a fantastic romantic tale about squadron leader, Peter Carter, whose plane is fatally damaged during a flight. With everyone on board dead, bar Carter himself, and no parachute for him to use, Carter makes contact via radio with June, an American WAC stationed in England. Carter believes he is having the last conversation of his life and declares that he has fallen in love with June's voice. Carter leaps to certain death from the plane in foggy weather - but he does not die. In the fog, conductor 71, who was meant to catch him and take him to heaven, lost him and so his life was extended.
By the time conductor 71 catches up with him, Carter has met June and the two have fallen in love. When the conductor tells him that he must go with him to heaven, Carter pleads to be given a chance to live on and a trial is arranged in heaven to decide his fate. It is left deliberately ambiguous as to whether what we are seeing is real or a consequence of a neurological illness suffered by Carter.

The idea for the aroma came from the novel "A Journey Round My Skull", a semi-autobiographical novel by Frigyes Karinthy detailing a medical condition from which he suffered. Pressburger researched the condition further in the British Library and Michael Powell's brother in law Joe Reidy, a plastic surgeon, gave the crucial information about pressure on the brain causing olfactory and optical hallucinations.

An article, "A matter of fried onions" by medical researcher Diane Friedman in the 1992 volume of "Seizure" considered the portrayal of Peter Carter's condition in the film and declared it to be "medically correct".

Answer: Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen was the son of a shoemaker and took inspiration for the tale of "The Red Shoes" from an incident he witnessed in his childhood home. A rich lady brought some red silk to his father to make a pair of dancing shoes for her daughter. His father worked carefully on producing a fine pair of shoes for the girl only for the mother to reject them saying that Andersen had merely ruined her silk. In response, the shoemaker cut up the shoes saying "If I've spoilt your silk, I may as well spoil my leather".

"The Red Shoes" film tells the story of aspiring ballerina, Vicky Page, played by real life ballerina Moira Shearer, who is prepared to give up everything to live out her passion; to dance. In the end, unable to reconcile the conflicts between her art, her marriage and her life, she "dances" in front of an oncoming train and is killed.

The centerpiece of the film is a fifteen minute fantasy dance sequence which is the performance of "The Ballet of the Red Shoes", also based on the Andersen tale. This story within a story is closer to the Andersen original; a young girl falls in love with a pair of red shoes. She puts them on and starts dancing with her boyfriend but soon finds that even when she wants to stop, the shoes refuse to let her.
Years pass and her boyfriend is left behind. Eventually, exhausted she seeks refuge in a church but her former boyfriend, now the church's priest, will not let her enter until the shoes are removed. The priest unties the shoes but as soon as they come off her feet, she dies.
After the death of Vicky Page, the ballet is restaged with only the shoes to stand in for her.

Answer: Oh... Rosalinda!!

Though it has a better reputation now, "Oh Rosalinda" was much derided upon its initial release in 1955 - even the use of two exclamation marks in the title was considered vulgar (the FunTrivia site seems to agree as I can't include them here).

Following more of a conventional film musical structure than Powell and Pressburger's previous foray into the operatics world "The Tales of Hoffman", it tells the tale of Dr. Falke - "The Bat" of the original opera's title. A man of influence in a Vienna occupied by four controlling powers, Falke seeks his revenge on French Colonel Eisenstein and his wife Rosalinda for playing a practical joke upon him by setting up one of his own.
Knowing that Rosalinda has been flirting with a US Army Captain, he persuades both Eisenstein and Rosalinda to attend the Russian masked ball, without either knowing that the other is there. Eisenstein flirts with her until she runs off with his treasured watch. When Eisenstein returns to barracks, he discovers Rosalinda's flirtations. He accuses her, but Rosalinda produces the watch in return.

Answer: Petula Clark

'I Know Where I'm Going!' is set on the Scottish island of Mull where a determined young English woman, Joan, played by Dame Wendy Hiller, is stranded due to the weather, en route to her wedding to a millionaire industrialist.
On Mull, the locals take advantage of the enforced stopover to introduce her to the charms of the local penniless laird, Torquil, played by Roger Livesey. Meeting Livesey forces Hiller to reappraise her future plans.

Clark appears as Cheril, the young daughter of an English couple who rent a castle on Mull. A popular child star in the UK where she was sometimes referred to as "Britain's Shirley Temple", Clark's film career was mainly spent in 'B' movies. However, in the 1950s she began to find greater success in the world of music. A string of top ten hits in the UK was followed by a first number one with "Sailor" in 1961. Three years later, she was to hit the top of the US charts with "Downtown", the song for which she is perhaps best known today.

An interesting trivia fact for you; though the majority of "I Know Where I'm Going" is filmed on location in Mull, Livesey never traveled further north than Denham in Buckinghamshire to film his scenes as he was appearing in Peter Ustinov's play "Banbury Nose" in the West End at the time. All the shots of Livesey on the island make use of a body double. Michael Powell said that it was very difficult to find a suitable double for Livesey as "no two men walk the same way in a kilt".

Answer: Black Narcissus

"Black Narcissus" tells the tale of a group of nuns who build a school and hospital in a remote part of the Himalayas, in order to convert the locals to a Christian lifestyle. The sensuous nature of their surroundings and the loneliness of the remote location lead many of the group to impure thoughts and doubts about their vocation.

For the film, the Himalayas were reproduced in Pinewood Studios, using giant painted backdrops to stunning effect. The set decoration also won an Oscar for German art director, Alfred Junge. To see the full glory of the cinematography make sure you see the 2005 UK restoration of the film.

Cardiff was head cinematographer for three Powell and Pressburger films; "A Matter of Life and Death", "Black Narcissus" and "The Red Shoes" after he impressed Powell as second unit cameraman on "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp". Many consider his work on "The Red Shoes" to be even better than that on "Black Narcissus" but surprisingly, he did not receive a Oscar nomination that year.

Answer: The Wild Heart

'The Wild Heart' was a re-editing of 'Gone to Earth' released separately by producer David O. Selznick after a legal dispute with Michael Powell.

'Stairway to Heaven' was the US title of 'A Matter of Life and Death', 'The Pursuit of the Graf Spee' was the US title of 'The Battle of the River Plate' and 'Night Ambush' was the rather prosaic US title for the more poetic 'Ill Met by Moonlight'.

Powell and Pressburger objected to the title 'Stairway to Heaven' but were told by their American distributor that, with World War II still fresh in the memory, American audiences wouldn't see a film with the word "Death" in the title.