Philadelphia Inquirer (21/Feb/1990) - MICHAEL POWELL, 84, BRITISH FILM DIRECTOR
Details
- article: MICHAEL POWELL, 84, BRITISH FILM DIRECTOR
- newspaper: Philadelphia Inquirer (21/Feb/1990)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Laurence Olivier, Martin Scorsese, Michael Powell
Article
MICHAEL POWELL, 84, BRITISH FILM DIRECTOR
OBITUARY
"Of his generation, he was unquestionably the most innovative and most creatively brilliant filmmaker this country ever boasted," said fellow director Richard Attenborough. "He broke new ground and set standards of quality which almost no other filmmaker ever did and he will be deeply, deeply missed."
Mr. Powell was fired from his first film job for dropping photographic plates, but he later found work as a still photographer for Alfred Hitchcock, working with him on three silent films.
In 1931, Mr. Powell directed his first films, Two Crowded Hours and Rynox, both 40-minute melodramas.
Mr. Powell and screenwriter Emeric Pressburger, who died in 1988, formed one of the most creative partnerships in British cinema.
Their first movie was Spy in Black in 1938, devised for the German actor Conrad Veidt. It was titled U-Boat 29 in the United States.
49th Parallel, starring Laurence Olivier, followed in 1940. Titled The Original Story of the Invaders in the United States, it won an Academy Award for best original story (by Pressburger) and was nominated for best picture and best script.
In 1941, the partners made One of Our Aircraft is Missing, about British fliers forced to parachute into Nazi-occupied Holland. The script was nominated for an Academy Award.
Pressburger and Mr. Powell formed the Archers Film Producing Co. in 1942. The team took joint credits for producing, directing and script, but Mr. Powell was largely responsible for directing.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the first Archers film, offended Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The 1942 movie was named after a cartoon character. Britons loathed Blimp-type bureaucrats who ran offices while others fought, but Churchill claimed the film was too defeatist.
The Red Shoes (1948) was about a ballerina, played by Moira Shearer in her first screen role. Brian Easdale won an Academy Award for the film's score, and it was nominated for best picture and best original story.
Mr. Powell was born Sept. 30, 1905, in Bekesbourne, near Canterbury in southeastern England. His first wife, Frances, died in 1983. They had two sons.
In 1984, Mr. Powell married Thelma Schoonmaker, who had worked as a film editor for American director Martin Scorsese.
