Michael Powell

Peeping Tom, which Adam calls the sleazy one, is the film discussed most. Adam says critics were thrown by it, it was pulled from distribution after about ten days, and it essentially ended Powell's career. Adam adds that Martin Scorsese championed it in the mid 70s, and that people then decided it was a great film, as good as The Red Shoes. Adam thinks Powell only ever did what he wanted, and this film was seriously out of step with what people wanted from him.

In their own words

• Adam Cuz typically enough it's like, you know, Powell and Pressburger like we discussed on the last episode, considered to be sort of like finest British directors pretty much of all time. But of course the one that I had to see was the sleezy one that ruined Michael Powell's career.

  Ep 178 Peeping Tom

• Adam So they went to fucking town on this film. And Michael Powell basically thinks that a lot because he was well, as he described it, he was kind of troublesome in so much as he was a successful director who would always demand to do new things and try things and stuff like that. And like we said, the Red Shoes went ridiculously over budget and at the time the studio were pissed off with him and stuff like that. And I think for a lot of it, it was there were a lot of sort of people involved in the movie industry where it was just their opportunity. It's like, right, Powell's pissed on his chips. We don't have to deal with him anymore. And you know, he did do films after this, but essentially he was never.

  Ep 178 Peeping Tom

• Adam But the weird thing is Psycho basically renews Hitchcock's career and leads and is a massive success and leads on to him going on further and everything. Whereas Michael Powell, it was basically this got pulled out of distribution after about 10 days.

  Ep 178 Peeping Tom

• Adam 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. And then I think possibly it was like all the critics were like, oh, Michael Powell's doing a new film. And then this comes out and they're so utterly sort of nonplussed but like completely sort of thrown by it. And it was I think it was partially the subject matter, partially the fact that it's kind of like actually about the seedier side of cinema and photography and stuff like that.

  Ep 178 Peeping Tom

• Adam But it was it was the seediness we expect from America, so we so over here the critics were fine with it. And even though and in America it was rightly seen as a fucking masterpiece. And then Peeping Tom, I don't think came out for another year because of how it was received over here and then it came out to very little fan fair. And actually the the distributors sold the basically they I think as Michael Powell described it, they sold it to like a black market film distributor to bury it on a shelf somewhere so that it just never be seen again. And weirdly enough, one of there was a there were a few champions for it. Weirdly enough, one of them's Martin Scorsese, who is a massive fan of Michael Powell and Powell and Pressburger. And he'd seen Peeping Tom and he actually bought a copy like he tracked down a print of it because he couldn't see it anywhere, so he could take it to a New York film festival and that was like mid 70s, I think. And that's when it sort of the resurgence started of people going, now actually this is a good film and actually not just a good film, this is a fucking great film and it is as good as stuff like the Red Shoes and things like that.

  Ep 178 Peeping Tom

• Adam but equally it's just about how your brain works and I think at this point, this is what Michael Powell wanted to do. I don't think Michael Powell had ever done in a weird way that was the problem with that a lot of people have with him is I don't think he'd ever sort of done anything other than what he wanted to do. But this was just seriously out of step with what people wanted from him.

  Ep 178 Peeping Tom