Black Narcissus (1947)

UK, 101 minutes

Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Writers: Rumer Godden, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Photography: Jack Cardiff

Music: Brian Easdale

Editor: Reginald Mills

Cast: Deborah Kerr, David Farrar, Kathleen Byron, May Hallatt, Sabu, Jean Simmons, Judith Furse, Flora Robson, Jenny Laird, Nancy Roberts, Eddie Whaley Jr.

Black Narcissus was filmed entirely in Ireland and the UK, which is somewhat unexpected for a movie so determined to be about its location in the remote Himalayas. Watching closely, it’s not hard to make out the various matte paintings decorating the cinematic mise en scene unto the mountainous horizon—that is, if you’re not already distracted by the spectacular glowing technicolor of cinematographer Jack Cardiff. All I took from this movie the first time I saw it many years ago was that it is amazingly vibrant with color, and has something to do with nuns.

Both IMDb and Wikipedia classify this Archers team picture—codirectors and cowriters Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on a 1939 novel by Rumer Godde—as “psychological drama.” In a sense that’s true—Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron skillfully gobbling everything in sight) is having a heck of a spiritual crisis, which being sent to this unlikely site in the Himalayas only exacerbates. The picture is about setting up a convent from scratch with a small team of nuns, in a building that once housed the harem of an Indian royal, poised on the precipice of the edge of a deep valley. I mean like literally on a cliff, with minimal protective fencing. It’s a wonder there is not a parade of Vertigo-like falls.

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Stairway to Heaven, UK, 104 minutes

Directors/writers: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Photography: Jack Cardiff

Music: Allan Gray

Editor: Reginald Mills

Cast: David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Marius Goring, Raymond Massey, Robert Coote, Joan Maude, Abraham Sofaer

I must have been in a bad mood the first time I saw this war picture cum extravagant fantasy romance by the Archers, who are collaborating coproducers, codirectors, and cowriters Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. I know I was put off by the romance they give us between Peter Carter (David Niven) and June (Kim Hunter)—rhymes with “moon” and “swoon,” no last name necessary because it’s obviously going to be “Carter” before they’re through (later she will go on to a career as a country singer). It’s wartime—4:11 p.m. London time, May 2, 1945, to be specific. Carter’s plane is going down over open ocean and his parachute has been destroyed. He spends his last minutes in radio contact with Boston babe June. He asks her if she’s pretty. “Not bad,” she blurts. This is approximately the moment they fall in love but, realistically, the whole experience has to be accounted a trauma, for both of them, and arguably the rest of the story is mutual PTSD. Carter jumps out of the burning plane and somehow survives. The story is based on an actual incident, so I don’t want to hear any complaints about suspension of disbelief.

I’ll take care of all that, though I must say I enjoyed the picture much more the second time around. A Matter of Life and Death (released as Stairway to Heaven in the US, which reportedly had an aversion to the word “death” so soon after the war) is a fantasy show, featuring a place they call heaven and a pouty French angel, “Conductor 71” (Marius Goring), who couldn’t find Carter at the appointed hour in the thick fog. That’s the explanation for Carter’s unlikely survival. Now the conductor is supposed to collect him, but for some reason Carter and June falling in love is a basis for arguing an extension of life. Ultimately the issue turns into a trial and a courtroom drama and I’m pretty sure you know where it’s headed. It’s by the numbers as a romance, but Powell and Pressburger are interesting moviemakers and they find a number of ways to save it and make the case for it as one of their greatest pictures, which is saying something from the team that gave us The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and many others.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

UK, 163 minutes

Directors/writers: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Photography: Georges Perinal

Music: Allan Gray

Editor: John Seabourne Sr.

Cast: Roger Livesey, Anton Walbrook, Deborah Kerr, Roland Culver, James McKechnie, Albert Lieven, Arthur Wonter, A.E. Matthews, David Hutcheson, Ursula Jeans, John Laurie, Harry Welchman, Ian Fleming

Things I didn't know: "Colonel Blimp" was a British political cartoon that began in the 1930s. The character was an ancient harrumphing military veteran with a walrus mustache, potbelly, and reliably fatuous opinions on issues of the day, which he brayed from the comfort of Turkish baths. So that explains why this UK Archers production has no one named Blimp in it (I don't believe the word or name even occurs across this lengthy picture). What's more, the character who is obviously set up as his type, Clive Candy (Roger Livesey with literally a stiff upper lip—you'll learn why, and also why the mustache), is still in good health at the end of the movie and quite alive.

This epic, lively, and colorful picture came out in the depths of World War II. The death it seems to be talking about is more of a Colonel Blimp-like idea: faith in German honor. A lot of people had a hard time shaking that off. It's one reason the Nazis were so effective. Only a few years before, French director Jean Renoir was celebrating the class solidarity of aristocrats across national lines in La Grande Illusion, showing the respect and decent treatment officers accorded one another even in P.O.W. camps. That's the world Colonel Blimp knew, and it's the world Clive Candy knows too, a veteran of the Boer Wars and the Great War and in the present day with duties in the Home Guard, protecting against the air raids of 1940. His best friend in all the world is the German Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook), who Candy must face in a duel of honor before they find their way to fast friendship.

The Red Shoes (1948)

UK, 134 minutes
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Writers: Hans Christian Andersen, Emeric Pressburger, Keith Winter, Michael Powell
Photography: Jack Cardiff
Music: Brian Easdale
Editor: Reginald Mills
Cast: Anton Walbrook, Moira Shearer, Marius Goring, Robert Helpmann, Albert Bassermann, Leonide Massine, Ludmilla Tcherina, Esmond Knight

I love the swooning romantic pulse of The Red Shoes by the Archers (codirectors and cowriters Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger). It's magical, of course—a technicolor movie full of special effects based on a ballet based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale—but it bears a dark and keen edge as well. While the narrative frets over questions of art, love, and sacrifice, perhaps its most germane features are that it was designed by a painter, cast with professional ballet dancers, and dreamily hops about Europe, from London to Paris to Monte Carlo, like there had never just been two great wars and a major economic depression. Mostly it stays indoors within the world of theater and make-believe.

The gist of the fairy tale is that the red shoes are tools of Satan, the color being the giveaway by which he may be known. They tempt a young girl with their handsome fashionable charm and then, once she puts them on, cause her to dance without surcease until she falls down dead (no obvious relation to They Shoot Horses, Don't They?). The Japanese horror version from 2005 is more true to the Andersen story, which does not include even one artist but rather mostly just goodly humble church people. In turn, there are none of those here. Or, if there are, their house of worship is more like the backstage rehearsal space and the holy sacrament of art, Art, ART. In fact, the real star of The Red Shoes is not the young girl, but a character Andersen never conceived at all: the svengali impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), who is the veritable Jesus, Buddha, and Rasputin of art.