The Cinema of Powell & Pressburger: Collection One Blu-ray Review: Imprint begins its dive into the great British filmmakers

The increased access to film history thanks to digital restoration and distribution has resulted in the reassessment and, in some cases, rediscovery of hidden gems from the past by general audiences and emerging filmmakers. Films once relegated to stills in dusty books are now within reach, and in some cases, revived to beyond their former glory. One set of filmmakers that have greatly benefited from this access and restoration are the powerhouse British team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Beginning their partnership in the late 1930s at the start of the Second World War, they would, over the next two decades, create some of the most important and influential films in British cinema, technical and artistic marvels that, even today, feel radical and revolutionary.

It's cause for excitement then that Imprint Films have released their first collection of films from Powell and Pressburger, comprising of six titles from 1939 to 1947. At first glance, the choice of films offers a nice overview of their development and rise to fame, ranging from cracking entertainment to totemic masterpieces, but looked at more closely, this curated collection offers a deeper commentary on exactly why Powell and Pressburger became such important filmmakers, and the historical and social influences that shaped their distinct artistic voices.

The timeframe of the six films - 'The Spy in Black' (1939, also known as 'U-Boat 29'), '49th Parallel' (1941, also known as 'The Invaders'), 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' (1943), 'A Canterbury Tale' (1944), 'A Matter of Life and Death' (1946) and 'Black Narcissus' (1947) - covers the entirety of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath, and though many of these films have direct roots in British propaganda, all six in some way feel like a comment on the war and specifically Britain's place within it. More so than their contemporaries, such as David Lean and Alfred Hitchcock, Powell and Pressburger's films feel wholly British, celebrating the colloquial idioms of the peoples of the British Isles, often through the lens of conflict. Their Britishness is not just self-conscious but essential, and their films explore how conflict puts that British sensibility to the test.

The role of propaganda in a wartime context is often to highlight for the audience who the enemy is and to remind them what they are fighting to protect. Powell and Pressburger were far more concerned with the latter, but even then, their approach wasn't quite so didactic. Of the six films here, only four are actually set during the Second World War, and even then, never centre actual battle. '49th Parallel' is a chase film focused on a group of Nazi submarine survivors, trekking across Canada and encountering various characters and communities who question their fascist ideologies. 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' charts the friendship between a British and German officer, shaped by the fallout of the First World War and the complications of the Second. 'A Canterbury Tale', the lightest of the six films, takes place entirely in the English countryside, where the war is only present through its impact on daily life, both ever-present and strangely abstract. And in 'A Matter of Life and Death', one of the few times Powell and Pressburger engaged in magic realism, the war is the background to a larger story on how we live and how we die. We are positioned comfortably within the major world conflict in all four, but their stories (all, to some extent, akin to fable) are asking deeper questions of what it is its audience and their loved ones are being asked to defend. Britain is not an abstract nationalist concept but a tangible one. It's all well and good to speak to the protecting a way of life, but it's important to highlight exactly what that life is.

Powell and Pressburger rarely concern themselves with the officer class or the aristocracy (with the exception of 'Colonel Blimp', which is in many ways a biting satire of those classes). To them, British ideals come from the soil itself, whether that be the sweeping fields of Canterbury or the rugged rocks of the Orkneys in 'The Spy in Black', a submarine thriller set in the First World War but thematically resonant with the Second. Their characters speak with thick accents, their language a musical symphony of county-specific aphorisms and a general no-nonsense British mentality. Many of the films avoid the tropes of melodrama, characters often containing their building emotions rather than falling into explosive histrionics. Take David Niven's character Peter in 'Matter', a man who sits right on the barrier between life and death. Powell and Pressburger could force this character to make an impassioned plea for his life against all the assembled peoples of Heaven itself, but that would feel disingenuous to his Britishness. It's far more powerful that he hold himself together, try to find the right words, far more British, the embodiment of "Keep Calm And Carry On".

'BLACK NARCISSUS' TRAILER

The ideals Powell and Pressburger celebrate are a resilience, a sense of community and moral certainty, and a belief in traditions that have existed for hundreds of years. One might even call it chivalry, an ideal that seems to bubble under the surface of all these wartime films. It's far more affecting to watch these characters process their emotions rather than act on them, and certainly more moving when coupled with the inherent loss and devastation of war. This makes 'Canterbury Tale' an unexpectedly potent experience, especially for how silly the story is, an amateur investigation in a little village within sight of Canterbury Cathedral where a man runs around dousing women with glue. What we're reminded of, in this and all the films in this set, is that the silly little lives of everyday people are what national identity is made of, a tapestry of traditions and personalities all distinct from one another. When we zoom out, these silly lives become notes in a symphony.

'49th Parallel' highlights this beautifully, especially by centring the Nazi officers as their protagonists. As they encounter the peoples of Canada, including the native peoples, the Nazi hatred for diversity and individual expression is consistently challenged, even chipping away at the uniformity these men have made their entire personalities. The world is more diverse and complex than Hitler leads them to believe. Even what it means to be German is challenged spectacularly. This is another way in which Powell and Pressburger defy the usual conventions of propaganda. Again, with the exception of 'Spy', which is the most conventional of these films, none feature a definitive antagonist. In most cases, the antagonistic force to push against is spiritual or ideological. It's a powerful, even incendiary, comment to make in the midst of a world conflict, especially one where the lines of good and evil feel so clearly drawn. They're reminding us that war is a conflict of people, and that people often don't fall into the easy categories of good and evil. 'Colonel Blimp' is perhaps the most exemplary example of this in the set, where we shift in our sympathies between Blimp and Theo.

'A Matter of Life and Death', the most fable-like of the films in this set and one of their masterpieces, sits at the transition point between war and peace. It was something they'd already started to explore in 'Colonel Blimp', the notion of how Britain's sense of self moved between the two states. While the narrative of 'Matter' still places us within the conflict, it is far more concerned with the question of what is next. Who is Britain after the war? What place do they hold? How do they see themselves with the rest of the Allies? And how will they recover from the emotional, physical, mental and financial devastation of the past six years? That it does so through the lens of a love story is beautifully sentimental and incredibly astute. More than any of the other films, there truly is no antagonist here, just a moral dilemma that demands to be solved, with a British officer and a U.S. servicewoman at the heart of it. You could almost see it as self-reflective of Powell and Pressburger themselves, two filmmakers so defined by the war that they are, perhaps, asking themselves what lies ahead for them. 'Matter' certainly feels like a turning point, an acknowledgement of the grounded reality of their previous films and the flights of visual and narrative imagination they were to explore soon after.

If the first five films address war directly, then where does 'Black Narcissus' fall into this wider commentary? At first, it seems an outlier, a spectacular psycho-sexual drama of a group of Anglican nuns attempting to establish a missionary outpost in the Himalayas. However, one might consider the film as a comment on the role of the victor in battle and the responsibilities they must undertake. The convent ultimately fails because the nuns insist on imposing their British, Christian beliefs on the native peoples, attempting to shame them out of their cultural and religious beliefs. There are many shocking things about 'Black Narcissus', but its most subtle is as a statement on the dangers of colonialism, the expectations of a conquered people to fall into step with the conquerer. It may seem a bit of a stretch, but if 'Black Narcissus' is the last statement in Powell and Pressburger's cinematic analysis of British nationalism during wartime, then is it a warning of the ways a victor can misstep? It's a strange, heady, hypnotic, mysterious film, but viewed in the context of this set, it doesn't feel like an outlier. It feels like the lingering, haunting question at the end.

That Powell and Pressburger didn't survive as a filmmaking team for long after the war makes sense. So much of their work was fuelled by it, offering thematic and artistic prompts that they explored with startling veracity, wonderful wit and technical ingenuity. Watching their films, even the more conventional ones, is like wandering into a dream, where even a slice of life becomes something spiritual. They were considering what the language of cinema was capable of in ways few at the time, and arguably few since, had ever imagined. In that sense, this first collection from Imprint is a major event, a much-needed collating of some of their greatest films. Here's hoping there's a follow-up, especially as there are a number of great films left out here (especially their finest, 'The Red Shoes'). However, these films demonstrate not only that they are among the greatest British filmmakers of all time, but why they are, and what they say about Britain's past, present and future.

PICTURE & SOUND

Each film in the set is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio with a 1080p transfer, likely from the best source available to Imprint. This means there's a fluctuating quality across the six discs, depending on whether the film has received an extensive restoration or not.

The quality can be easily divided between the three black and white films and the three Technicolour films.

Though 'The Spy in Black' states that it was restored by the BFI in the early 2000s, none of the black and white films appear to have received extensive digital restorations, certainly compared to the Technicolor films. In fact, 'Spy' is in the roughest shape, with visible print damage and the need for image stabilisation. The wear and tear of age is also present in '49th Parallel' and 'A Canterbury Tale', though the latter in particular looks a little more robust and stable. I was only able to compare the films to the transfers on The Criterion Channel, and they appear to be the same, albeit benefiting from the stronger non-streaming resolution.

Watching their films, even the more conventional ones, is like wandering into a dream, where even a slice of life becomes something spiritual. They were considering what the language of cinema was capable of in ways few at the time, and arguably few since, had ever imagined.

For 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' and 'A Matter of Life and Death', the recent restorations have been used, with both films gifted excellent transfers. The colours are rich and consistent, the image is stable and the resolution is often startling. I was able to compare them both to their recent on-disc Criterion releases and they both look consistent with those.

'Black Narcissus' is a little more tricky. Only 'Colonel Blimp' is given any kind of provenance for its transfer, all the other films simply listed as being "from a restored high-definition transfer". 'Black Narcissus' is one of the few Technicolour films from Powell and Pressburger to have not received a high-profile restoration, and while the transfer does look wonderful, it isn't quite to the standard of the other two films in the set. I no longer own the original ITV Studios Blu-ray release, but was able to compare it to the out-of-print Network Blu-ray from the UK. The difference is minimal, but I did see a slight difference, with the transfer here a little less robust in its colour stability. There's more noticeable fluctuation in the grading, even if detail and resolution is still very good. I would suspect, with ITV being the source for all the other transfers, that this transfer dates from the older release. Again, the difference is minimal and most probably you won't notice, but a keen eye may see a difference in quality.

Sound often reflects the state of the transfer. Each film has a LPCM 2.0 Mono track, and the quality often correlates with whether the picture has been restored recently or not. Again, 'Spy' is in the worst shape, with a few pops and additional noise, while the Technicolour films have a fuller sound. That said, like the transfers, the sound tracks are all perfectly functional and convey the careful sonic designs overseen by the filmmakers and their sound team.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Imprint have really exceeded expectations with this set, each film including several new bonus features, including interviews with film historians and newly recorded audio commentaries. This is particularly exciting for the films that have had smaller Blu-ray releases previously or, in the case of 'A Canterbury Tale', are making their Blu-ray debut. Here is an overview of what is available on each disc, with the new material marked as such.

THE SPY IN BLACK

Audio Commentary by film critic Kim Newman and Jo Botting from the BFI National Archive [NEW]
Celluloid Miracle – interview with Powell and Pressburger film scholar Ian Christie [26:28] [NEW]
A Dazzling Start – interview with author Charles Barr [18:03]

49TH PARALLEL

Audio Commentary by film historians Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons [NEW]
Call to Arms – interview with Powell and Pressburger film scholar Ian Christie [23:57] [NEW]
Statecraft and Stagecraft – interview with author Jeremy Arnold [14:37] [NEW]
Theatrical Trailer [3:10]

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP
Disc One

Audio Commentary by film historian/filmmaker Daniel Kremer [NEW]

Disc Two

'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' – 115 minute 1945 US version (Standard Definition)
A Breakthrough – Interview with Powell and Pressburger film scholar Ian Christie [26:52] [NEW]
An Evolving Propaganda – interview with author Charles Drazin [18:39] [NEW]
'Martin Scorsese Restoration Piece' – featurette [4:39]
'A Profile of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' – documentary [24:01]
Photo Gallery

A CANTERBURY TALE

Audio Commentary by script supervisor Paddy Arnold, 2nd assistant editor Jim Pople and author Paul Tritton (2025) [NEW]
People's Pilgrimage – interview with 2nd assistant editor Jim Pople [9:08] [NEW]
Listening to Britain – interview with Powell and Pressburger film scholar Ian Christie [23:53] [NEW]
Connecting with the Magic – interview with film critic Kim Newman [16:04] [NEW]
A Continual Revelation – interview with author Charles Barr [18:16] [NEW]
American version excerpts starring Kim Hunter, including a Prologue [6:12] and Ending [6:14]

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Audio Commentary by film historian/author Stuart Galbraith IV (2025) [NEW]
Memories Matter – interview with assistant editor Jim Pople [3:13] [NEW]
Heaven Delayed – interview with Powell and Pressburger film scholar Ian Christie [20:39] [NEW]
Unexpected Realism – interview with author Charles Drazin [17:15] [NEW]
'The Colour Merchant' – short film featuring cinematographer Jack Cardiff (1998) [9:54]

BLACK NARCISSUS

Audio Commentary by author and critic Kat Ellinger (2025) [NEW]
Audio Commentary by co-director Michael Powell and filmmaker Martin Scorsese
The Strange & the Transgressive – interview with film critic/writer Hannah McGill [21:13] [NEW]
Alchemy and Reckoning – interview with Powell and Pressburger film scholar Ian Christie [27:25] [NEW]
Women at War – video essay by critic/film historian Pamela Hutchinson [14:21] [NEW]
'A Profile of Black Narcissus' – documentary [25:29]
'Painting with Light' – documentary on cinematographer Jack Cardiff [26:31]
Trailers From Hell: Neil Labute on 'Black Narcissus' [2:52]
Theatrical Trailer [2:35]

I won't go through each feature individually as there are simply too many to do so succinctly, but across the board, the bonus content here is excellent. The real highlight of the set are the interviews with film scholar Ian Christie. He speaks to each of the films and offers, not only an analysis of the films, but valuable information about their production and their place within Powell and Pressburger's wider filmography. They're wonderfully direct and unadorned, and Christie is an engaging, dynamic interviewee. Each film also includes a second interview, often with authors and critics who admire the film in question, tending to dig deeper into their analysis. A highlight among these is Pamela Hutchinson's video essay 'Women at War', included on the 'Black Narcissus' disc. She discusses the role of women within, not just that film, but all of Powell and Pressburger's films, and offers another exciting thematic link between the six films in the set. All of the interviews sit around the 20-minute mark, with many of them a touch longer. Each film also includes a newly recorded audio commentary, ranging from film critics and scholars to surviving crew members.

Where possible, Imprint have also included previously-released material, tending to favour those included in previous ITV Studios releases. This includes documentaries on the making of 'Colonel Blimp' and 'Black Narcissus', and an audio commentary on the latter with Powell and Martin Scorsese. An exciting addition to the set is the U.S. cut of 'Colonel Blimp', sourced from an analogue video copy and 48 minutes shorter than the original cut. Though only presented in standard definition and looking pretty ghastly, it's a fascinating comparison to the reconstructed version we have now. What we don't have in the set is the material created specifically for the Criterion releases, including the DVD releases of 'A Canterbury Tale' and '49th Parallel'. This does mean the set isn't close to definitive, but it's genuinely incredible just how much new material Imprint has created for this set, especially for films that have been under-represented in the past. It might be one of my favourite releases from them so far.

In terms of packaging, we have the usual hard box containing all the films in individual cases, utilising original artwork from the release of the films that is often charmingly off the mark.

So what might be in a second collection of Powell and Pressburger films from Imprint? The most obvious omission is their masterpiece 'The Red Shoes', one of the most important and beautiful films ever made, but it would also be wonderful to see 'I Know Where I'm Going' and 'The Tales of Hoffmann' included in future sets, along with some of their other war-themed films. Hopefully they'll be able to include the recent documentary 'Made In England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger', an excellent overview of their work both together and separately. They've set the bar high with this first collection, but I'm confident they'll be able to match it when the second collection arrives.

THE CINEMA OF POWELL & PRESSBURGER: COLLECTION ONE

IMPRINT BEGINS ITS DIVE INTO THE GREAT BRITISH FILMMAKERS

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