There is no time machine to transport me back to the 1930s and no selective memory wipe that would help me appreciate the art and craft of filmmaking at that time. So what you have here, right now, is myself, an industry veteran with over 40 years' experience in professional cutting rooms reviewing a set of films produced a hair's breadth in time after the invention of synchronised sound, all produced with next to no money. Let's just say Michelangelo would have had a tough time to shine without opportunities worthy of his talent. Michael Powell's own scaffold to his Sistene Chapel moments was almost a decade away from completion. At the dawn of his career, what he needed most of all was experience. He had all the drive and reckless confidence any man in his mid-twenties might have had and then some. Powell made his directorial debut at the ripe old age of 25.

All five films have certain aspects in common and rather than repeat them over and over, I'll cover them here collectively. Acting for the screen in the 30s was very different from naturalistic acting styles employed today. The first British feature film with a running time over an hour was made in 1912. Stage acting had a mere 20 years to evolve from performances that could be registered from the back row of a large theatre to the need of infinitely subtler turns captured by an all-seeing camera. This is a polite way of saying that almost all the performances in all five films are 'heightened'. It's not overacting per se but it's damn close. There's no getting away from it and presumably it was considered not only acceptable but normal in the 30s. The later films are inching towards a more natural acting style but very slowly. Slower than inching? That's slow. Almost everyone on screen (and off presumably) smoked and even to an ex-smoker, you cannot imagine what it must have been like coming home from work stinking like an ashtray. Again, normal for the 30s.

Also there is a lot of sound work that was post-synchronised and it's sometimes very noticeable. There is also a significant lack of sound in certain scenes, mostly those shot (one presumes mute) outdoors. The one aspect that has dated the films more than any other is probably their sense of humour on offer. Scenes that might have reduced audiences of the day to helpless laughter now barely register as anything remotely amusing. A lot of this from my own perspective is due to the uneasy nature of the 'heightened' acting.

Once 'talkies' obliterated or at the very least handicapped the promising artform of silent movies, mechanical cameras had to be hushed and at the birth of sound in cinema, cameras really couldn't move very far. Dynamism on screen was decades away but the most creative filmmakers were just on the verge of discovering what this medium was capable of. What may have been the shock of the new in the 1930s is now simply a technique, one of thousands of other techniques that filmmakers have learned over the following 93 years. In some cases it's clear that we are watching filmed plays but in observing how director Powell edges his way beyond the stage and closer to cinema is a small but potent education in itself. I hope I'm up to the task of appreciating the work for what it was then and not how it may be viewed today.

Director Michael Powell collaborated with his writing/producing partner Emeric Pressburger on twenty-one films between 1939 and 1972. Their collective partnership was christened 'The Archers' as is evident from their distinctive target logo. Any filmmaker would be justifiably proud to have just one film from the men's oeuvre on their own CVs; The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going and A Canterbury Tale, classics all. Both Powell and Pressburger had careers in the industry without each other, before and after their partnership and I suspect both men would agree that their collaboration bore the most luscious fruit of their combined careers.

In the late 1920s, the UK film industry was in the doldrums. Before World War I, British films dominated the national market and what was robust quickly declined after the war giving rise to a flood of American imports. Emergency measures were put in place to revive the homegrown industry and to keep American and European films from swamping the nation's screens. The Government stipulated that distributors and cinemas had to provide the public with a small percentage of British films to keep the industry going. These films quickly earned the nickname 'quota quickies'. They were often poorly funded, turned around in so short a time that even Roger Corman might've raised an eyebrow and a modest percentage were screened to empty houses. The films had no run time to adhere to. Only 2 of the 5 in this box set run just over an hour. And many, as mentioned, were simply filmed plays. But it is in this context that two of the UK's brightest talents honed their craft. If you're wondering, Alfred Hitchcock was the second. I tried to imagine the parallel career courses of both leafy shoots from the same tree and yet Hitchcock became the most famous director of his era working in a proven genre of mass appeal, while Powell was determined to make films about the world he lived in and crossed genres repeatedly. Being absurdly reductive for a moment to make a point but Hitch went after the big time and Powell followed his art and had it broken all too often. It's a shameful irony that Powell's career was derailed for making a film about a psychopath, Peeping Tom (1960) while his contemporary was hailed for the same, twice with Psycho in the same year and Frenzy (1972). Despite my admiration and respect for Hitchcock, it's Powell's work that resonates with me as a collection of true works of cinematic art.

Powell directed twenty-six supporting feature films before the Archers' arrow found its first bullseye. Most have been lost to time. It's a testament to the efforts of the BFI supported by Matt Spick and the Charles Skey Charitable Trust that these films have been made available. At the time of writing the above, I'd not seen anything from the box set. Now, moments away from a final proof read, I am in awe of the achievement. Bravo, BFI.

– DISC 1 of 2 –

Rynox begins with a shady character, an aggressive and boorish man, easily angered making enemies at every turn. Engulfed in a woollen cape and sporting the most obvious theatrical make-up hinting at a disguise and a later reveal, he's trying to meet up with a managing director of a trading company, FX (Francis Xavier) Benedik. It's clear the boorish man is a 'wrong 'un'. After a series of dissolves of large buildings, we settle on the top floor where the company Rynox does its business. Benedik's company is on its uppers and he is breaking the bad news to his son, his colleagues and staff. It's clear that he is a broken man but he has a plan to rescue his company and it's pretty drastic.

Once everyone is established, it's not hard to guess the real identity of the boorish man but that's someone's opinion from 2024… I'd like to think a few people were fooled by the disguise but as I later found out in Hotel Splendide, there's a character who is so obviously not what 'she' seems but you have to accept everyone else in the film is taken in by the 'disguise'. It's something that makes them all appear rather idiotic, like, as mentioned in one of the commentaries, the entire staff of The Daily Planet… The script is solid with a few nice ideas and not too many instances of Powell flexing any authorial muscles. The budget was clearly not there for too much cinematic imagination.

It seems too much of a stretch to start seeing themes and ideas that Powell would go on to develop in his later career in his third quota quickie but over the five films there are certain bits of business that crop up now and again. He's fond of shooting into mirrors and peppering his static set with interesting objects, some of which crop up in other films. Nettlefold Studios of Walton-on-Thames must have had a very small collection of props and set dressing. Those distinctive art deco candlesticks are everywhere.

Jerry Mason, working from a self-help book in front of a mirror, imagines himself as a thrusting young executive, letting his bosses have it with verbal salvo after salvo. The two men he's railing against enter the office while Jerry is in mid flow. Despite the mirror he's talking into, he doesn't notice them, being so absorbed with his invective. Once suitably shamed, Jerry slinks back to his dull little job only to find out that he has been left a hotel in a will. We find out that a master criminal has buried a diamond necklace and in the time he's been incarcerated, the hotel has been built on top of the location. A farce ensues as all the shady characters converge on the hotel all intent on possessing the necklace.

There are a few cinematic techniques that Powell uses that must have seemed new at the time. Twice he dissolves from a box and a safe and back again to reveal the contents of both. A hidden microphone is bugging Charlie and Slim, a pair of gentlemen criminals. The bugger is none other than Powell himself. There are a few jump cuts that do not suggest bold cinematic technique more editorial panic. For completists, they occur at 12'07" and 41' 23". But perhaps audiences then had not been weaned on a lifetime of film watching and would accept a simple change of point of view. What jumps to us may have been smoothly acceptable then.

In Hotel Splendide, we see the emerging playfulness that led to the tartan mountains of I Know Where I'm Going. The imaginary hotel with such a highfalutin' name is enormous and stately. As that image melts in front of us, Jerry is confronted with the reality of what looks like a normal house that happens to take in guests. Another Powell touch that seems genuinely bizarre is the procession of guests, none of whom are what they seem, following a black cat after a murder  – 'Pussy' being the nickname of the nastier master criminal and murderer. It's all played out to the very famous piece from The Funeral March of the Marionette by Charles Gounod. It's notable for the fact that this piece became, decades later, the theme from Hitchcock's hugely profitable TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents from 1955 to 1962. Powell and Hitchcock seem inextricably linked in their early careers. Powell came up with the idea of a chase climax in the British Museum co-writing a Hitchcock script with the great man and his wife Alma Reville. The film was a smash hit and Blackmail put Hitch into orbit.

An unpopular Rupert Murdock-type (are there any other kinds?), newspaper magnate Lord Studholme, has fallen foul of a foreign princess and arranges a party to appease her and fills the guest list with an eclectic bunch of characters, most of which have some reason to dislike the man. So far, so Agatha Christie. There's Studholme's personal assistant who has secretly married his boss's daughter, the frustrated novelist piling up bad reviews in the man's newspaper and a young girl whose affair with a bounder is being used by Studholme to blackmail the poor girl into having sex with him. What a charmer. In one of his most odious actions, Studholme has pocketed the girl's room key, about as low a move I can well imagine. Throw in an off duty senior policeman who's looking out for the young girl, her being his daughter, an old colonel and a gloriously Lurch-like character playing Studholme's dour butler and you have the groaningly predictable premise of a real murder at a murder party. It's directed competently enough but it feels very staged with tiny bits of business added in the frame to make things a little more interesting. But there's nothing here I could chew on that would give me any indication that Powell was destined for great things. This is not the fertile soil from which to produce great swathes of roses. It's a film factory, all hard edges, tight deadlines and a sheer brute force of will was required to make anything more worthy and exciting than 'polite society drama about non-existent people,' as Powell wrote himself.

Of the cast, two stand out. There's the nominal star, Leslie Banks, playing the senior policeman, so memorable to two of us on this site, as the double-crossing squire in the brilliant Went The Day Well?. Banks was injured in WWI and was often photographed in profile showing only his unblemished right side. The left side of his face was scarred and paralysed and Banks incorporated the injury into his performances, favouring his left side when playing villainous roles. Then there is the irrepressible and theatrical Ernest Thesiger playing the disgruntled writer. He looks like he's having the most fun of all the cast but of course, he's famous for being Dr. Frankenstein's mentor with the glorious name of Septimus Pretorius in James Whale's horror classic The Bride of Frankenstein. It's the first of the five films that edges a tiny bit more into naturalistic acting (Ernest Thesiger notwithstanding!) The whodunnit actually still works as a surprise as the Old Bailey courtroom scene ends with a bang.

Michael Powell's first impressions of a film script he was tricked into directing leave no room for ambiguity… "You cannot believe the awfulness of it in out-of-touch Old England in 1933. As we read it, I could hardly believe it. How did Mickey (Michael Balcon, studio head) dare to try to get this piece of shit off his plate and on to ours." But as his autobiography reveals, the cast was top notch and despite the formulaic whodunnit, a couple of the actresses caught Powell's eye. He's quite candid about this in his autobiography which is impressively honest but of course in 2024 it reads a little off kilter, just a tad leery.

I can confirm two of the three films were shot in the original Academy 35mm aspect ratio of 1.37:1. I've not been able to confirm the aspect ratio of Rynox but with the careful use of two accurately positioned post it notes, I can confirm it is also 1.37:1. On the back of the Blu-ray sleeve, the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 is quoted. I dare say that would be some of the archive shorts. Generally, across all five films, the restorations are things of black and white beauty. Contrast levels are never too far one way or the other keeping the detail in the shadows but also keeping the blacks well represented. There is almost imperceptible grain and if you are sensitive to celluloid imperfections, not all the damage has been obliterated – even with an infinite budget, this is hardly conceivable – and that seems in keeping with the spirit of restoration. The films are presented as how they may have been viewed in the 30s and 40s in an average cinema. In this regard, all five films appear as if they've been in distribution for a few weeks, having all been projected a few times picking up the inevitable celluloid damage, none of it distracting. I'm assuming all the nasty damage has been expertly repaired. Each film is a small joy to witness, never mind some of the silliness and 'heightened' acting!

Rynox has its fair share of intermittent tramlines, mostly on the left half of the frame, straight line, north-south scratches caused by dirt lodged in the gate. None of this detracts from the experience of watching it and as hinted above, it may make that experience more authentic.

Hotel Splendide has some water damage briefly seen as dancing dark marks and a particularly insistent tiny spot of damage from 14' 56" in the centre of frame, two thirds up from the bottom of frame. I suspect that would have been a new reel starting. It's gone after the flag close up at 21' 31".

The Night of the Party displays its share of tramlines on the far right of frame but is otherwise in fine condition.

Where the restoration absolutely outdoes itself is in the quality of the sound. Yes, it's mono originally recorded between ninety-three and eighty years ago and the dialogue, by far the lion's share of the sound, has a clarity and crispness that is frankly stunning.

There are descriptive subtitles available for each film.

Audio commentary on 'Rynox' by Marc David Jacobs, freelance film nerd
And I thought I was a movie nerd. This is movie nerdism at its zenith. Almost without a break, Jacobs throws so much detail at you, you realise that this is a whole new level of cinema appreciation made even greater by what must have been the paucity of information on a film now 93 years old. He corrects a long standing casting mistake off the bat and delivers a veritable avalanche of detail on the cast and crew of the film. He notes how faithful the film is to the original book even using snatches of dialogue from the text. Also heartening to hear is how close Powell's collaboration was with his editor at the time, John Seabourne. As Powell notes in Volume I of his autobiography; "I relied on cutting between close ups, and John Seabourne, who, luckily for me had assigned himself to our film, at once saw what I was after. I daresay that technique looks primitive now, if a print exists. But it was new then."

Newly recorded feature commentary on 'Hotel Splendide' by Lawrence Napper and Dom Delargy
"50 minutes of gold, coming up!" Both Napper and Delargy, I suspect, are indulging in a little light irony. This is a commentary that has more in common with a few friends getting together and while respectful of Powell's later work and reputation, the two men thoroughly enjoy themselves gently mocking the acting and the film but allowing you to enjoy it seen through modern eyes. They cover a whole host of interesting points but standing out were the following: their comic incredulity that Jerry doesn't see or hear his two bosses entering the office behind him. Their stealth and the angle of the mirror are the only excuses. Close ups are favoured for a very prosaic reason… you don't have to build big sets! Quota quickies came under fire for being generic crap driven by jewel thievery. They were regarded as shameful and actually damaging the industry they were created to support. The lack of sound is mentioned more than once as well as the jump cuts. In one instance one of the two surmises that there is no sound on the cars so they "must be electric!" In 1932. Finally there are details that they highlight which no one would catch… "Unless you watch it twice… Which nobody did, except from us!" Well I can add myself to that small roster.

Newly recorded feature commentary on The Night of the Party by Dr Josephine Botting and Vic Pratt
Botting and Pratt really know their stuff and both play off each other nicely particularly on the one occasion they disagree about a piece of casting. Nothing like the tiniest conflict to add spice to the proceedings. They clear up the origin of the story. It's not a play at all but a newspaper serial common in the 30s. Despite being conned into helming this one, Powell was more than happy with the top notch cast. But its formulaic nature was never going to raise this film to another level. All the main actors and some of the supporting get biographical coverage and also for the first time in my reviewing career, the costumes are highlighted. We were reminded that to get women into the cinema, they had to have ravishing costumes to look at as if women were incapable of being tempted by top notch narratives. Powell was so desperate to have his next film The Fire Raisers be his debut film for this new studio, Gaumont British, he convinced the powers that were to stall the release of The Night of the Party until after his own chosen project was released. I assume he hoped that The Fire Raisers would make more of a splash, and therefore allow him to chalk up Party as a contractual obligation. Remember, filmmaking was a far more prosaic affair in the 30s and directors could churn out four films a year instead of one every four years these days.

Inside the Archive: The Early Films of Michael Powell (2024): a new documentary on the BFI National Archive's role in rediscovering and remastering the early films of Michael Powell(41' 29")
Via the talents of James Bell, Josephine Botting, Mike Kohler and Elena Nepoti of the BFI National Archive, we have here an extra, that to my knowledge (happy to be corrected of course) we've always hoped for but never really received. Given the number of superb restorations we've reviewed, extras in those editions have been very light on one subject: coverage of the actual acts of restoration. The detail of the restorations, especially that of the sound, is intensive and for this particular film technician, it's delightful to see all those 35mm machines up and running again. As a cheeky little insert, a technician takes a reel of 35mm and we see, next to each other, a strip of negative and its corresponding strip of positive. But not only is it not one of the films on offer in this box set, it's colour film. And of all things, it's a shot of the Archers' logo! Also visually pleasing is the choice of background for the interviews… a cinema auditorium. Adding to the technical material, this extra gives you a perfect introduction to Powell's early days and entry into the industry as well as an excellent level of detail on the history of the British film industry. I found both background information and the specific restoration sequences absolutely fascinating.

Image galleries (10' 06")
Unlike others of its ilk where you are in control of the image presentation via the slow forward button of the remote, this presentation of images from three of the five films rolls through its content with six seconds to appreciate each image contained within a brief fade up and out. Rynox features three stills and 12 Front-of-House images. Hotel Splendide has a mere four stills while The Night of the Party romps home with 66 production stills, four production sketches, one behind the scenes still, one Front-of-House image, a cover of the press book and the four pages of its contents with synopses, actor information and a series of newspaper ads.

DISC 2 >>