The Distribution Of Powell And Pressburger’s Films In The United States, 1939–1949
2013; Routledge; Volume: 33; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01439685.2013.764721
ISSN1465-3451
Autores Tópico(s)French Historical and Cultural Studies
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Quoted in Ian Christie, Arrows of Desire (London, 2002), xix. 2. Ian Christie’s Arrows of Desire provides a brief overview of Powell and Pressburger’s film career, but more extended essay than scholarly study it is without supporting notes and contains many errors of fact, having been written before much archival evidence became available. Scott Salwolke’s The Films of Michael Powell and the Archers (Lanham, MD, 1997) is a combination of historical survey and broad textual analysis, which, as its title suggests, focuses on Powell at the expense of Pressburger. Although it offers sensitive readings of the films and gives a useful overview of Powell’s entire film-making career from his apprenticeship in France during the 1920s onwards, it is completely reliant on secondary sources. The major recent monograph on Powell & Pressburger is Andrew Moor’s Powell & Pressburger: a cinema of magic spaces (London, 2005). Published on the occasion of Powell’s centenary as part of the Cinema and Society series, it takes a chiefly textual approach. 3. Paul Swann, Cinema Journal, 39(4) (summer 2000), 27–42; Sarah Street, Transatlantic Crossings: British feature films in the USA (New York, 2002), 91–118. 4. The other film made under the agreement was Q Planes (Tim Whelan, 1939). Four more pictures were to be made for Columbia in 1939, but the war intervened. 5. New York Times, 6 October 1939. 6. Parliamentary Debates: House of Commons, 17 October 1939, vol. 352, cc. 686−7. 7. Daily Variety, 20 October 1939. 8. New York Times, 26 September 1939. 9. Weekly Variety, 27 September 1939. 10. Weekly Variety, 25 October 1939. 11. Ibid. 12. Weekly Variety, 1 November 1939. 13. Weekly Variety, 8 November 1939. 14. New York Times, 25 December 1939. 15. New York Sun, 2 December 1940. 16. Hollywood Reporter, 8 January 1941. 17. The measures were implemented under the Defence (Finance) Regulations, which the British government had introduced at the outbreak of war in pursuance of s.1 of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939. See F. A. Mann, ‘Exchange Restrictions in England’, Modern Law Review, January 1940. 18. Extensive correspondence concerning the agreement, and its subsequent referral for approval to the British Treasury’s Exchange Control Committee, are to be found in the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (hereafter WCFTR), United Artists Corporation Records, Producers’ Legal File, Series 3A, Box 9 f. 4. 19. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Producers’ Legal File, Series 3A, Box 9 f. 4: internal memorandum from M.W. Greenthal to H.D. Buckley, 17 January 1941. 20. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Producers’ Legal File, Series 3A, Box 9 f. 4: quoted in letter from H. J. Muller, Treasure of United Artists, to A. L. Dugon, Secretary of British National Films, 5 February 1942. 21. Government correspondence relating to the negotiations for the film can be found at the National Archives, London (hereafter TNA), TS27/485. 22. TNA, TS27/485: cable from Jack Cohn to Michael Powell, 13 August 1941. 23. American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Columbia Pictures Records 1929–1974, Collection Number 09355, Box 1 f.2: undated correspondence teletype. 24. St Louis Despatch, 19 April 1942. 25. TNA, TS27/485, letter from Ministry of Information to the Treasury Solicitor, 2 January 1943. 26. New York Times, 8 November 1942. 27. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Arthur W. Kelly Collection, Series 6B, Box 3 f. 12: letter from Arthur Kelly to R.W.G. Mackay (a lawyer representing United Artists’ interests in London), 4 February 1948. 28. Daily Variety, 8 August 1943. 29. According to a letter from GFD’s lawyers to the Treasury, in January 1941, when the film was in the final stages of shooting, the projected cost had risen from £68,000 to £137,000 (TNA, TS27/485: Richards, Butler & Co to Treasury Solicitor’s Office, 21 January 1941). ‘This film has broken distribution records both here and in North America,’ the parliamentary secretary for the MOI boasted to the House of Commons a few months after the film was released in the United States. ‘We have got our money back, plus a profit up to date of about 50 per cent., including dollar receipts, and the receipts are still coming in’ (Parliamentary Debates: House of Commons, 7 July 1942, vol. 381, c. 657.) 30. J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry (London, 1993), 92. 31. According to the report of the agreement in Weekly Variety (6 September 1944), the list of films was as follows: Colonel Blimp, This Happy Breed, Blithe Spirit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Henry V, Her Man Gilbey and Mr Emmanuel. 32. Michael Powell, A Life in Movies (London, 1986), 406. 33. Ibid., 419. 34. Daily Variety, 21 March 1945. 35. Powell, A Life in Movies, 419. 36. Observer, 13 June 1943. 37. TNA, CAB195/2, W.M. (43) 67th Meeting, 10 May 1943. 38. TNA, PREM 4/14/15: Brendan Bracken to Sir Winston Churchill, 23 July 1943. 39. Christie, Arrows of Desire, 23. 40. Daily Variety, 12 July 1944. 41. Released in the US under the abbreviated title Colonel Blimp. 42. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Gradwell L. Sears Collection, Series 8B, Box 5 f. 7: letter from Arthur W. Kelly to Gradwell Sears, 11 July 1944. 43. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Gradwell L. Sears Collection, Series 8B, Box 1 f. 1: estimate made in a letter from Gradwell Sears to Alex Ardrey, of the Bankers Trust Company, 15 November 1944. 44. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Tom Whaller Collection, Series 5D, Box 3 f. 2: reviews quoted in an internal memo headed ‘Colonel Blimp Reviews,’ from Jimmie Dunn to Sid Nagler, 2 April 1945. 45. New York Times, 30 April 1945. 46. Daily Variety, 21 March 1945. 47. Hollywood Reporter, 21 March 1945. 48. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Tom Whaller Collection, Series 5D, Box 3 f. 2: undated campaign brief. 49. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Paul Lazarus Jr Collection, Series 4D, Box 8 f. 11: undated memorandum. 50. Time, 23 April 1945. 51. Motion Picture Herald, 21 June 1947. 52. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Gradwell L. Sears Collection, Series 8B, Box 1 f. 4: unsigned memorandum to Harold Auten, Jock Lawrence, Carl Leserman, Barry Buchanan and E. C. Raftery, 29 August 1945. 53. Quoted in Motion Picture Herald, 15 December 1945. 54. Weekly Variety, 9 July 1947. 55. Weekly Variety, 26 December 1945. 56. Andrew Sarris, Film Comment, 26(3) (May/June 1990), 32. 57. Weekly Variety, 11 July1945. 58. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Paul Lazarus Jr Collection, Series 4D, Box 8 f. 9: undated memorandum. 59. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Paul Lazarus Jr Collection, Series 4D, Box 8 f. 9: memorandum to Tom Waller, 23 August 1945. 60. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Paul Lazarus Jr Collection, Series 4D, Box 8 f. 9:Jerry Dreifuss to Tom Whaller, 23 August 1945. 61. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Gradwell L. Sears Collection, Series 8B, Box 1 f. 4: letter dated 11 October 1945. 62. Sarah Street, Transatlantic Crossings: British feature films in the United States (New York, 2002), 97. 63. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Paul Lazarus Jr Collection, Series 4D, Box 9 f. 21: letter from Captain Harold Auten to Gradwell Sears. 64. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Arthur W. Kelly Collection, Series 6B, Box 3 f. 20: figures cited in a memorandum from Harold Auten to Arthur Kelly, 27 February 1948. 65. Weekly Variety, 20 November 1946. 66. Daily Variety, 16 December 1946. 67. Los Angeles Times, 22 January 1947. 68. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Robert Benjamin Collection, Series 14G, Box 2 f. 10: letter from Jock Lawrence to Robert Benjamin, 17 February 1948. 69. Daily Variety, 26 September 1946. 70. Daily Variety, 1 October 1946. 71. Weekly Variety, 9 October 1946. After its disappointing two-week run, I Know Where I’m Going seems to have received no more general release at that time. I can find only isolated mention of the film being booked elsewhere. 72. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Robert Benjamin Collection, Series 14G, Box 2 f. 10: letter from Jock Lawrence to Robert Benjamin, 17 February 1948. 73. New York Times, 20 August 1947. 74. Weekly Variety, 6 August 1947. 75. See ‘British Cinema, American Reception: Black Narcissus (1947) and the Legion of Decency’, in: James Chapman, Mark Glancy and Sue Harper (eds), The New Film History (Basingstoke, 2009), 201–214; and also Sarah Street’s monograph on the film in the Turner Classic Movies British Film Guide series, Black Narcissus (London, 2005), 62–74. 76. Quoted in Newsweek, 25 August 1947. 77. New York Times, 21 March 1948. 78. ‘British Cinema, American Reception: Black Narcissus (1947) and the Legion of Decency’, in: James Chapman, Mark Glancy and Sue Harper (eds), The New Film History (Basingstoke, 2009), 209. 79. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Robert Benjamin Collection, Series 14G, Box 2 f. 10: memorandum from Jock Lawrence to Robert Benjamin, 7 November 1947. 80. BFI Special Collection, Emeric Pressburger Papers: telegram from Michael Powell to Emeric Pressburger, 18 November 1947. 81. BFI Special Collection, Michael Powell Collection, S79: budget dated 29 September 1947. 82. A Life in Movies (London, 1986), 664. 83. Motion Picture Herald, 23 October 1948. 84. Daily Variety, 22 October 1948. 85. My Life in Movies, 654. 86. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Robert Benjamin Collection, Series 14G, Box 1 f. 5: memorandum headed ‘Explanatory Notes,’ undated. 87. Figure cited in the Los Angeles Times, 5 November 1950. 88. Motion Picture Herald, 29 January 1949. 89. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Robert Benjamin Collection, Series 14G, Box 1 f. 5: letter from Robert Benjamin to William Heineman, 8 June 1949. 90. WCFTR, United Artists Corporation Records, Robert Benjamin Collection, Series 14G, Box 2 f. 10: memorandum from Jock Lawrence to Robert Benjamin, 10 December 1948.
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