Emeric Pressburger

He says the pair wrote, produced and directed everything themselves, making about 16 films together under the name The Archers. He says A Matter of Life and Death is really worth seeing. He describes the pair's approach on The Red Shoes as wanting dancers who can act, not actors who can dance. Adam also says the critics were lukewarm at first, but later ran retrospectives praising their amazing work, and that Pressburger became a screenwriter after they split.

In their own words

• Adam But still, yeah, I mean it's not very. Just. Because so Powell and Pressburger were a team and they did everything, they were writers, producers, directors and everything else like that. They did, I think they made about they they made about 16 films together and they called them they called the production company The Archers. So that's what the bows I think at the start.

  Ep 177 The Red Shoes

• Adam That actually we. Had these people making these really good films, because the the only other. The only other Powell and Pressburger film I've seen is A Matter of Life and Death. Which is really worth seeing. It's basically a RAF pilot.

  Ep 177 The Red Shoes

• Adam Which was then we were saying before, I think that Powell and Pressburger's take on it was that they were we want to find dancers who can act, not actors who can dance. So they know that that side of it was absolutely sorted.

  Ep 177 The Red Shoes

• Adam Well, he he'd done the Red Shoes, he'd done like Matter of Life and Death. sorry, Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus. Basically he this was sort of like him a lot of the big stuff that he'd done was him with Emeric Pressburger who was the co-director on the Red Shoes. And then they sort of went their separate ways and Emeric Pressburger basically went on to be a script writer and Michael Powell continued as a director. and he did some more films and at this point, because when Powell and Pressburger's stuff was first coming out, the public really liked it and the critics were sort of look warm. But by this point, they were actually doing retrospectives of their films from like the past 20 years and saying, look at this amazing stuff that these people have done and everything.

  Ep 178 Peeping Tom

• Adam So, you know, they. Really did not realize what they had. But then when I was looking into it, apparently like Powell and Pressburger stuff at the time was kind of mixed. It wasn't an immediate success, everything all their films were kind of like they gradually got more sort of prestige.

  Ep 177 The Red Shoes