Michael Powell Movies
A one time studio gofer, still photographer, and comic actor, Michael Powell became one of the most celebrated and controversial directors ever to come out of England. Born in Canterbury, Powell became enamored of films while still a teenager and, after a start in the mid-'20s and a stint shooting stills and serving as a co-scenarist with Alfred Hitchcock in the early sound era, Powell broke into directing in low-budget British thrillers and comedies. After directing and writing his first notable movie in 1937, The Edge of the World, he moved to London Films where he began working with Emeric Pressburger, a gifted young author and screenwriter. Their two-decade association began shortly after they left London Films (where they collaborated on The Spy in Black and Powell co-directed The Thief of Bagdad). The wartime thrillers Contraband and Forty-Ninth Parallel -- the latter attracted much attention (including Oscar nominations for Best Picture and best original story) -- resulted in the creation of The Archers, an independent production company.Powell and Pressburger went on to jointly write, produce, and direct The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going, and Stairway to Heaven during World War II. The idiosyncratic humor and point-of-view of these films alienated many British critics, but delighted audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. After the war, Powell and Pressburger made a series of movies that emblazoned their names around the world: Black Narcissus, a story of nuns who are nearly destroyed by their own passions while trying to found a convent in the Himalayas; The Red Shoes, a phenomenally successful film about the life and death of a ballet dancer, whose multi-year run in America and multimillion-dollar success made possible such pictures as An American in Paris and The Tales of Hoffmann, an opera/ballet amalgam of unprecedented stylistic flare and daring.
The early '50s saw a decline in fortunes for the filmmakers, and their partnership dissolved in 1956. Powell continued to make movies of a fiercely personal nature until 1960, when the critical reaction to Peeping Tom -- about a man who mixes voyeurism, cinema, and murder, and is now considered a classic -- ended his career in England. He worked for American and European television during the 1960s and '70s, and was rediscovered in the late '70s with the help of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, who regarded Powell as one of the most important influences on their individual work. Museum retrospectives, restorations, and reopenings of his classic films followed, along with a multi-volume autobiography that he completed prior to his death in 1990. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
- 1984
This biographical film -- a bit long for most viewers, even in its cut version -- is made especially for ballet aficionados. Focusing on the short life of the remarkable Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (1882?-1931), it features several dance sequences and provides a backdrop of the historical events in the Soviet Union and Europe during her life. Pavlova (Galina Belyayeva, better as a dancer than an actress) was born in Saint Petersburg and her interest in the ballet began early. As a little girl (Lina Boultakova), Pavlova would watch the ballet students in training, and she eventually entered the Imperial Ballet company, quickly rising to the position of prima ballerina. Before long, she perfected a style especially evident in her dancing of Giselle and Swan Lake. In her brief tenure at the Ballets Russes established in Paris in 1909 by the famed Russian expatriate impresario Sergei Diaghilev, Pavlova was inspired by dancers like Vaslav Nijinsky and obtained further training under a master, traveling extensively with the company. But the famous ballerina was not without personal problems, and at one point had to take a two-year advance on her salary in order to pay off her husband's debts so he would not go to jail. There are several intriguing aspects of this biography that would recommend it to general viewers: varied locations from Mexico to Cuba to Europe and the USA, good ballet performances, some noted bit players (Martin Scorcese as Gatti Cassaza) and a critically recognized Michael Powell, the director of Red Shoes in his last professional role, as an editor. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Galina Belyayeva, James Fox, (more)
- 1978
Forty years after shooting his breakthrough film The Edge of the World on the remote island of Foula in the Shetlands, director Michael Powell decided to make a pilgrimage back to the island. Bringing along two of the original film's cast members, John Laurie (who played Peter Manson, the father of the twins Robbie and Ruth) and Grant Sutherland (who played the Catechist), Powell visits many of the film's locations, little changed after 40 years. One major alteration: Powell and his colleagues are able to fly to the island, which had no landing strip in the 1930s, when transport was by ferry or fishing boat. He also locates several islanders who played extras in the original film. Return to the Edge of the World was made for British television. The running time listed reflects its being divided into two parts, as a prologue and epilogue wrapped around the 1940 version of the original film, which ran 62 minutes. A restored version of The Edge of the World is available on VHS; the tape includes Return to the Edge of World (shown separately), plus Powell's 1941 wartime short, An Airman's Letter to His Mother. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi
- 1973
This curious made-for-TV movie stars Alan Alda as a police detective in a small New England town. The community's elderly are dying at an unusual rate, prompting Alda to investigate. He deduces that the old folks are being murdered, but can't find a motive (there are no robberies involved, and none of the victims have any enemies to speak of). The hunt for the killer becomes personal when Alda's best friend, police chief Lloyd Nolan, falls victim to the unknown assailant. With the help of his funky girlfriend Louise Lasser, Alda assembles the clues and arrives at a startling conclusion. Isn't it Shocking? is enhanced by the presence of several veteran character actors, including Ruth Gordon as a disheveled cat fancier. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1969
James Mason is Bradley Morahan, an Australian artist far away from home and trying to prod his muse in the bowels of New York City. Disgusted with life in the big city, Bradley decides to return to his roots and heads back home to Australia. Once there, he decides to become a Gauguin primitive and sets up shop on a deserted island on the Great Barrier Reef. To his disappointment, however, he discovers the island is populated by a drunken old harridan (Neva Carr-Glyn) and her attractive granddaughter Cora (Helen Mirren). One look at Cora, and Bradley excitedly begins to mix his pigments, offering Cora a job as his model. Soon enough, Cora goes native and poses for Bradley in the raw. Love is, of course, in the air. But just as things seem to being going fine in every way, Bradley's old friend Nat (Jack MacGowran) appears on the island out of the blue and proceeds to rob Bradley blind. Barely recovered from the theft, Bradley must also deal with an irate grandma, who discovers that Cora has been posing nude for Bradley and has been keeping her earnings hidden from granny. Bradley's island paradise is shattered and he finds he has to deal with an old woman threatening to turn him in to the authorities for having a minor pose naked before him and his easel. The character of Morahan was based on real-life Bohemian artist Norman Lindsay, who later became the subject of John Duigan's Sirens (1994). ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Mason, Helen Mirren, (more)
- 1968
Sebastian (Dirk Bogarde) is an undisciplined mathematics genius who works in the "cipher bureau" of the British government. While cracking enemy codes, Sebastian finds time to romance co-worker Susannah York. The film dwells upon Sebastian's rather lax morals (even by 1968 standards), culminating in his refusal to commit himself to York once he's rendered her pregnant. This aspect of the story is frankly more fascinating than the main espionage plotline. Keep an eye out for Canadian actor Donald Sutherland in a bit as an American. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Nigel Davenport, (more)
- 1966
Based on a popular Australian novel, this comedy was produced Down Under in 1966. Nino Culotta Walter Chiari is an Italian journalist who is lured by his brother into coming to Australia to work for his paper there. But when Nino arrives in Sidney, he finds out that there is no paper; his brother has taken off with the investors' cash. Left in the lurch was his brother's business partner, Kay Kelly (Clare Dunne). Nino vows to pay off his brother's debt and gets a job as a bricklayer to do so. He also tries to woo Kay, but finds her difficult to win over. Meanwhile, he encounters a series of racist reactions from Aussies, at the thought of an Italian assimilating into Australian culture - one of the film's core themes. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi
- Starring:
- Walter Chiari, Clare Dunne, (more)
- 1964
Peerless British filmmaker Michael Powell found his career in tatters after directing the still-controversial crime thriller Peeping Tom (1960). Bluebeard's Castle, Powell's first film in four years, constituted an cinematization of the 1911 opera Bluebeard's Castle, by Bela Bartok, about the nefarious exploits of the 19th century Parisian murderer (here played by Norman Foster) who woos his female victims, then dispatches them. Because the British industry was, for all intents and purposes, still blacklisting Powell in 1964, he had to travel to Germany to make this one. Legal issues kept Bluebeard's Castle out of circulation for decades. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Michael Powell's controversial meditation on violence and voyeurism effectively destroyed his career when it was first released, but later generations have come to regard it as a masterpiece. Karl Heinz Boehm stars as Mark, the son of a psychologist who kept a video journal of the boy's upbringing for research purposes. The constant intrusions profoundly affected the boy, who grew up to be a photographer himself; but his principal subject matter consists of women whom he murders before the camera. He then runs the films of his victims in their final throes so that he can study their reactions to death--a perverse extension of his father's experiments, which tormented Mark to analyze his reactions to raw fear. The British press had long been hostile to the unorthodox films of Powell and his partner Emeric Pressburger; when Peeping Tom came around, they used the film to castigate him as "sick" and tawdry. The passage of time has proven Peeping Tom as profound and accomplished as any of Powell's earlier films, and it ranks with Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958) as a landmark exploration of the links among voyeurism, violence, and male sexual desire. Powell himself plays the evil father in the flashback sequences, and his son Colomba plays Mark as a child. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Karl Heinz Böhm, Moira Shearer, (more)
- 1959
Britain's Michael Powell, co-creator of the international success The Red Shoes (48), returns to the world of ballet for the Spanish/English coproduction Honeymoon. Prima ballerina Ludmilla Tcherina stars as an ex-dancer who marries Anthony Steel and heads to a new life in Spain. The call of her muse is strong indeed, as are the charms of a handsome male dancer (Antonio), and Ludmilla is sorely tempted to renounce her current existence and return to the ballet. The dramatic portion of the film is for the birds, but the two ballet highlights (from Los Amantes de Teruel and El Amor Brujo) are worth a few moment's attention. The original Spanish title of Honeymoon was Luna de Miel. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1957
Eschewing the Shakespearean original title (it's a quote from A Midsummer Night's Dream), the British Ill Met by Moonlight was released stateside as Night Ambush. This superb Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger concoction is set during World War II on the island of Crete. Dirk Bogarde and David Oxley play Major Paddy Leigh Fermer and Captain Billy Stanley Moss, two British officers whose job it is to kidnap Nazi general Karl Kreipe (Marius Goring) and spirit him off to Cairo. The motive of this mission is to weaken German morale on Crete and to provide hope to the enslaved locals. With the help of a group of resistance fighters, Fermer and Moss manage to trap the general; now they must transport their captive back to their own lines, avoiding German patrols every inch of the way. Originally 104 minutes, Ill Met by Moonlight was cut to 93 minutes by its American distributor. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Marius Goring, (more)
- 1956
Widely regarded as one of the best and most intelligent British war dramas of the 1950s, The Battle of River Plate is the story of Britain's first significant naval victory in WW2. John Gregson heads the cast as Captain Bell, skipper of the Exeter, one of several vessels engaged in pursuit of the "indestructable" Geman battleship Graf Spee. Taking refuge in the neutral harbor of Montevideo, the Graf Spee is covertly protected by the Uruguayan government. Eventually, however, German captain Langsdorff (Peter Finch) is faced with a difficult decision: either stand his ground and fight a losing battle against the Exeter and its sister ships, or scuttle the Graf Spee and save the lives of his crew. Battle of the River Plate was released in the US as Pursuit of the Graf Spee. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Gregson, Anthony Quayle, (more)
- 1955
In 1799, Johann Wolfgang Goethe penned a poem called The Sorcerer's Apprentice that was based upon a much earlier tale by the Greek poet Lucian. This poem served as the basis for a popular classical piece by Paul Dukas, as well as for this ballet version, staged at Opera Frankfurt and filmed in 1955 by Michael Powell. The familiar story -- told by an unseen narrator as it is being interpreted by dancers -- focuses on a young apprentice to a powerful magician. Dissatisfied with his lot, he wishes to be a sorcerer himself. When his master is out of the room, the apprentice decides that he will use the wizard's magic tools himself -- specifically, to enchant a broom to do his heavy work, such as fetching and carrying buckets of water. The broom complies, but to the student's horror, it continues bringing water long after the job is finished. Unable to find the correct manner of breaking the spell, he takes an axe to the broom and splits it in two -- with the result that there now are two brooms carrying twice as much water as before. Eventually, the sorcerer returns, sees what has occurred, and removes the spell from the brooms, returning everything to normal. Originally running 30 minutes, an edited version running 13 minutes is also in circulation. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi
- 1955
The ever-adventuresome Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are responsible for the British musical farce Oh, Rosalinda! Set in postwar Vienna, the film stars Michael Redgrave as Colonel Eisenstein, a military officer who because of a little legal misunderstanding must serve a few months in prison. While sitting alone in her sumptuous house, the colonel's wife Rosalinda (Ludmilla Tcherina) is romanced by American officer Alfred Westerman (Mel Ferrer). When the guard assigned to escort Rosalinda to prison marches in, Westerman, hoping to save Rosalinda from disgrace, claims that he's her husband, and winds up in the pokey himself. Later on, Rosalinda attends a costume ball, where she flirts outrageously with her own husband. Sound familiar? It should: Oh, Rosalinda is a modernized version of Johann Strauss' comic opera Die Fledermaus. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Redgrave, Mel Ferrer, (more)
- 1955
Opening with elaborate preparations for the Queen of England's birthday, The Queen's Guards introduces the audience via voiceover to John Fellowes, a young captain overseeing the participation of the Grenadier Guards in the celebratory parade. A series of flashbacks follow, which fill the viewer in on John's difficult past: a crippled father who is a former Guardsman himself and maintains an obsessive interest with the Guards; a dead brother (also a Guardsman) to whom John is constantly (and unfavorably) compared by his father; and difficulties encountered during his military training when he learns his brother died a coward and caused the death or injury of many of his colleagues (including the father of a girl in whom John has a romantic interest.) Eventually, John is placed in charge of a military operation that has many parallels to the ill-fated one led by his brother, putting him in the position to either repeat his brother's mistakes or atone for them and thereby restore the family's honor. The film mixes shot of actors portraying Guards with footage of actual Guardsmen and soldiers on parade and in action, and also includes some location shots of Battersea Bridge and the Prospect of Whitby. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi
- Starring:
- Daniel Massey, Raymond Massey, (more)
Most baby-boomers are familiar with the Powell-Pressburger production of the Offenbach opera Tales of Hoffman only through the full-color stills from the film which were reproduced in the "Motion Picture" section of The World Book Encyclopedia. If this is your only memory of the film, we advise you to seek out a copy of this lengthy but visually enthralling picture as soon as possible. Metropolitan opera star Robert Rounseville plays Hoffman, a university student who is spectacularly unlucky in affairs of the heart. Each of his love affairs with Olympia (Moira Shearer), Giulietta (Ludmilla Tcherina) and Antonia (Ann Ayars) is doomed to failure due to circumstances far beyond our hero's control (Olympia, for example, turns out to be nothing more than a life-sized mechanical doll). As in the previous Powell-Pressburger collaboration The Red Shoes, the film's best moments are its ballet sequences, choreographed by Jane Ashton. Offenbach's score is given a splendid rendition by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of the legendary Sir Thomas Beecham. Most prints of Tales of Hoffman run 118 minutes, eliminating the closing "Tale of Antonia" sequence; the laserdisc version has been restored to 127 minutes, while the search goes on for the complete 138-minute negative. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Moira Shearer, Robert Rounseville, (more)
- 1950
In this costume adventure set in France during the Reign of Terror, a mysterious man known only as the Scarlet Pimpernel rescues noblemen from the guillotine and leads them to safety across the English Channel. Chauvelin (Cyril Cusack) is determined to unmask the Pimpernel and bring him to justice. When evidence begins to suggest that the hero is actually foppish Sir Percey Blakeney (David Niven), Chauvelin blackmails Percey's wife, Marguerite (Margaret Leighton), into cooperating on the threat that he'll expose the criminal activities of her brother Armand (Edmund Audran). However, Marguerite doesn't much care for her husband, hardly believes he could be the heroic Pimpernel, and is startled when she finds out that he truly is the masked vigilante. The Elusive Pimpernel was originally shot in color as a musical, but the musical numbers were cut before the film was released, and the picture's American distributor chose to make only black-and-white prints (though the current home-video release is in color). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- David Niven, Margaret Leighton, (more)
- 1950
The brooding British romantic drama Gone to Earth is better known by its American title The Wild Heart. Filmed in England and cofinanced by David O. Selznick and Alexander Korda, the film stars Jennifer Jones (Mrs. Selznick) as Hazel Woodus, a tempestuous Welsh gypsy maid who can't seem to stay out of trouble. Feeling more of a kinship with woodland animals than with human beings, the Hazel enters into a loveless marriage with minister Edward Marston (Cyril Cusack). Believing she's been born under a curse which will punish her if she ever truly falls in love, Hazel does her best to suppress her carnal desires, but gives up the struggle when she begins an affair with rakish landowner Jack Reddin (David Farrar). Her inability to be mistress of her own fate leads to a spectacularly tragic denouement. Based on a novel by Mary Webb, Gone to Earth was cut from 110 minutes to 82 for its American release; the latter version included a narration by Joseph Cotten and several new scenes directed by Rouben Mamoulien. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jennifer Jones, David Farrar, (more)
In 1948, "The Archers" -- the writing and directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger -- had completed The Red Shoes, one of their greatest international successes, but it had yet to be released when the Rank Organization, doubting the commercial appeal of the picture, severed ties with the team and Powell and Pressburger signed a new deal with Alexander Korda's London Films. Their first project for Korda, The Small Back Room, was a dramatic change of pace, a thriller set in London in the midst of World War II. Sammy Rice (David Farrar) is explosives expert who works with British military intelligence as part of a ragtag munitions research team studying new ways to defuse enemy weapons and improve allied arms. While he's brilliant on the job, Rice is a troubled man with an artificial leg that causes him chronic pain and an appetite for alcohol that stands between him and those around him, especially his girlfriend and secretary Susan (Kathleen Byron). Rice's latest project is finding a way to defuse a new German bomb that's cleverly disguised as a children's toy, but Rice finds himself battling his superiors when Waring (Jack Hawkins), an unscrupulous businessman who has been pressed into service with the explosives team, and his colleague Professor Mair (Milton Rosmer) begin lobbying the Army to purchase a new weapon that Rice feels is both ineffective and dangerous. Despite excellent reviews and a fine cast that includes Cyril Cusack, Sidney James and Robert Morley in a cameo appearance, The Small Back Room was a box office disappointment on its original release, and it appeared in edited form in the United States under the title Hour of Glory, though later video releases allowed Americans to see the film in its original British cut. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- David Farrar, Kathleen Byron, (more)
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's influential musical tragedy set the stage for the climactic dance ballets that became a staple of the Arthur Freed-MGM musicals (An American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain and The Band Wagon) of the early 1950s. Hans Christian Andersen's tragic fairy tale forms the basis of this film about betrayal, love and art. The story begins as struggling composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) attends a performance of the Lermontov Ballet Company and recognizes his own score in the production of "Hearts of Fire." Julian protests to ballet company director Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) about the unauthorized use of his music. Impressed by Julian's talent, Boris hires him to compose the score for his next ballet -- a dance version of "The Red Shoes." Boris also hires an attractive young dancer, Victoria Page (Moira Shearer), to perform in the ballet. When the lead ballerina announces that she plans to get married, Boris, in a pique over being abandoned, casts Victoria in the starring role. As Julian works on the score and Victoria struggles to perfect her dance technique, the two fall in love. When "The Red Shoes" ballet is premiered -- seen in a stunning and glorious fifteen-minute sequence -- it is a raging success and it makes Victoria a star. But when Boris learns that Julian and Victoria have fallen in love, Boris, who is secretly in love with Victoria, in a fit of rage forces Julian to leave the ballet company; Victoria leaves with him. Since Boris owns the rights to "The Red Shoes" ballet, he forbids Victoria to perform the dance and she becomes unemployable. Time passes and Julian and Victoria are now happily married. Julian's compositions have made him an international success. One day, with Victoria disembarking from a train in Paris, she meets Boris, who implores her to do one performance of "The Red Shoes" in Monaco. Victoria agrees as Julian cancels an engagement in London to travel to Monte Carlo in order to convince his wife not to perform the ballet. But Victoria goes on with the performance, with tragic results. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, (more)
- 1947
East Indian actor Sabu is consistently better than his material in the sociological melodrama End of the River. The story concerns Mancel (Sabu), an Akuna Indian youth living in the forests of Brazil. Betrayed by a treacherous tribal chieftan, Mancel is branded an outlaw and exiled from his village. Forced to scrounge for a living in the white man's world, he runs afoul of corrupt political forces, ending up on trial for his life. The defense counsel (Maurice Denham) tries to convince Mancel that not all white men are demons, and to help the boy come to terms with his own inner turmoil. Despite its powerhouse cast, End of the River suffers from indifferent and sometimes downright lackadaisical performances; still, it deserves praise for trying to tackle a difficult subject with a semblance of intellence. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Basil Appleby, Dennis Arundell, (more)
British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger once again deliberately courted controversy and censorship with their 1947 adaptation of Rumer Godden's novel. Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron play the head nuns at an Anglican hospital/school high in the Himalayas. The nuns' well-ordered existence is disturbed by the presence of a handsome British government agent (David Farrar), whose attractiveness gives certain sisters the wrong ideas. Meanwhile, an Indian girl (Jean Simmons) is lured down the road to perdition by a sensuous general (Sabu). While Kerr would seem most susceptible to fall from grace --we are given hints of her earlier love life in a long flashback--she proves to have more stamina than Byron, who delivers one of moviedom's classic interpretations of all-stops-out, sex-starved insanity. The aforementioned flashback was removed from the US release version of Black Narcissus so as not to offend the Catholic Legion of Decency. While the dramatic content of the film hasn't stood the test of time all that well, the individual performances, production values, and especially the Oscar-winning Technicolor photography of Jack Cardiff are still as impressive as ever. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Deborah Kerr, Sabu, (more)
- 1946
Also known as Stairway to Heaven, A Matter of Life and Death is the remarkable British fantasy film that became the surprise hit of 1946. David Niven stars as Peter Carter, a World War II RAF pilot who is forced to bail out of his crippled plane without a parachute. He wakes up to find he has landed on Earth utterly unharmed...which wasn't supposed to happen according to the rules of Heaven. A celestial court argues over whether or not to claim Carter's life or to let him survive to wed his American sweetheart (Kim Hunter). During an operation, in which Carter hovers between life and death, he dreams that his spirit is on trial, with God (Abraham Sofaer) as judge and Carter's recently deceased best friend (Roger Livesey) as defense counsel. The film tries to have it both ways by suggesting that the heavenly scenes are all a product of Carter's imagination, but the audience knows better. Among the curious but effective artistic choices in A Matter of Life and Death was the decision to film the earthbound scenes in Technicolor and the Heaven sequences in black-and-white. The film was a product of the adventuresome team known as "The Archers": Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- David Niven, Kim Hunter, (more)
While awaiting access to England's Technicolor cameras for their upcoming super-production Stairway to Heaven, the producer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger dashed off a delightful "personal" project, I Know Where I'm Going. Young middle-class Englishwoman Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is determined to have the finer things in life, and to that end she plans to marry Sir Robert Bellinger (Norman Shelley), a wealthy, middle-aged industrialist whom she does not love. En route to the Island of Mull, where her future husband resides, Joan is stranded in a colorful Scottish seacoast town. Inclement weather keeps her grounded for a week, during which time she falls in love with young, insouciant naval officer Torquil McNeil (Roger Livesey). Ignoring the dictates of her heart (not to mention common sense), Joan stubbornly insists upon heading out to sea towards her marriage of convenience, but the exigencies of Mother Nature finally convince her that her future resides on the Mainland. A winner all the way, I Know Where I'm Going is full of large and small delights, including a wonderful sense of regional detail and endearing, three-dimensional characterizations (even the mercenary heroine is a likeable character). The film is easily one of the best of the Powell-Pressburger films of the 1940s, and arguably the team's all-time best romantic drama. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, (more)
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