Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
British filmmaker best known for his collaborative partnership with Emmerich Pressberger, producing, writing and directing some of the finest British films.
Eight records
I wouldn't like to be on the island and not somehow keep touch with something that has entertained me all my life, and that's the the sort of New York attitude to life.
Do not go gentle into that good night
as you know, few poets can read their own poems. But this is one poet who I think reads his own poems as no poet has ever read.
I've always admired for a long time uh Rostropovich and his wife Vishnevskaya. They're the kind of Russians that all all my life was when I was a young man in Nice I lived in the Russian quarter.
The Tales of Hoffmann: Barcarolle
it's pure corn, because it's Sir Thomas Beecham conducting The Barkero from our version of The Tales of Hoffmann.
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
How did you break out of [working in a bank]?
Went on holiday, got a job in a film company in the south of France, and never came back.
Presenter asks
What do you remember about writing the script of the first British talkie, Hitchcock's Blackmail?
I met Hitchcock on the floor in Els J. I was shooting the stills for his pictures, and uh we got on awfully well. Blackmail was a film that changed its mind in mid-air. It started as a silent and then … we wrote it first of all as a sale, and that's probably one of the reasons that helped to fix Hitchcock's style, because when he turned it into a talkie, it was mainly a question of adding a few dialogue scenes and sound effects to what was already a very effective visual picture.
Presenter asks
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 2
Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
Speaker 2
For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1980, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
There are two castaways on our desert island this week. Two filmmakers who've produced, written and directed some of the best British films of the past five decades, Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressberger.
Presenter
Now, together you've made several distinguished films based on ballet and opera, so I presume you both have musical interests. Is either of you a a musical performer, Michael? No, not at all.
Presenter
I used to be a very good idea.
Michael Powell
In what capacity?
Presenter
play the violin quite well, if I may say so. Well.
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Presenter
Mainly in ex-Hungary, now Romania. I was a student of seventeen when I was playing in the orchestra of the town, and uh even more important it was that I could get away from school each time when there were rehearsals and so of course everybody envied me.
Presenter
Do you think, gentlemen, that your musical tastes are going to differ to the extent of your having to live at opposite ends of the island? What do you think, Michael?
Presenter
At the moment.
Presenter
After spending a lot of our working life together, we're now living at opposite ends of England.
Presenter
I'm in Gloucestershire and Emmerick's in Suffolk.
Presenter
From your collections in opposite corners of England you are allowed four records each. I suggest we spin a coin to decide who starts. Is that all right? Heads for Powell and Tails for Pressburger. Here we go.
Presenter
And it's a tale. Emmerich, what's your first record?
Presenter
My first record would be Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude and Fugue, number one in.
Presenter
C major. And who shall play it? Sviatoslav Richter, if we can have it.
Presenter
Richter playing the prelude from the prelude and fugue in C major by Bach.
Presenter
The first disc chosen by Emmerich Presberger. Now, Michael Powell, you're a man of Kent, is that right? Yes, born east of the Medway.
Michael Powell
Boom
Presenter
Near Canterbury. Yes.
Presenter
Educated at King School, Canterbury, and Darledge College. You started by working in a bank. Yes. Where was that? Bournemouth.
Presenter
How did you break out of it?
Presenter
Went on holiday, got a job in a film company in the south of France, and never came back.
Presenter
Oh, yes. Your your father had a hotel in the southern. Yes, it cap ferral. Yes.
Michael Powell
Yes, it caps.
Presenter
And this was the what are now the Victorine studios near and the company was MGM, Metro Goldman Meier, which was making a big film there with a director at that time, a gr a big director, Rex Ingram. And what was your job at the studio?
Michael Powell
Now yes.
Michael Powell
Mm-hmm.
Presenter
Everything. You know, in uh in that kind of small studio where a big company are working, you have a chance of working in all departments, which is such a wonderful chance for anybody. And I worked in them all and ended up even writing the titles with Ingram. How long did you work in Nice? Three years. And then what? Back to Elstry, where they were just starting uh to make big films because there was a big exodus starting from the continent because of the the rise of Hitler.
Presenter
Although you didn't get a screen credit, you wrote part of the script of the first British talkie, Hitchcock's Blackmail, is that true? Yes, that's right. I met Hitchcock on the floor in Els J. I was shooting the stills for his pictures, and uh we got on awfully well. Blackmail was a film that changed its mind in mid-air. It started as a silent and then
Presenter
Yes, we wrote it first of all as a sale, and that's probably one of the reasons that helped to fix Hitchcock's style, because when he turned it into a talkie, it was mainly a question of adding a few dialogue scenes and sound effects to what was already a very effective visual picture. You had the complication of a Czech leading lady whose English wasn't all that good. Anneandra, yeah, but her figure was lovely.
Michael Powell
Annie Andre, yeah.
Presenter
Well, at any rate, there you are. You're in the film business, and seen pretty well all sides of it. What's your first record, Michael?
Presenter
I wouldn't like to be on the island and not somehow keep touch with something that has entertained me all my life, and that's the the sort of New York attitude to life. And uh Mike Nicholls, who most people know as the director of The The Graduate, a wonderful film, he was also a very good stage director and a stage performer. And he used to do some uh acts with Elaine May, his partner. And there's one particular, if you won't mind, Roy, called uh Disc Jockey, which contains the kind of humour which uh one has to be conscious of it today if you're in show business. Uh what what are you playing the picture, sweetheart?
Michael Powell
Well, uh Jack, it's it's just like a real great break for me. Great. Because, I mean, it it's it's a real change of pace for me. I mean, I I don't swim in this at all. Just really not just um lucky enough to get the part of Gertrude Stone. So
Presenter
Great.
Presenter
Amazing.
Speaker 2
No, I mean
Presenter
Okay.
Speaker 2
Uh
Presenter
Uh-huh.
Presenter
I'm very surprised to hear that. I I had heard Gertrude Stein was to be played by Spencer Tracy.
Michael Powell
Only as a child.
Presenter
Uh-huh.
Presenter
Disc Jockey by Mike Nicholls and Elaine May.
Presenter
Emerich Presberger, let's hear something about your early days. You are a Hungarian by birth. Yes.
Presenter
When did you start getting interested in films?
Presenter
Already in Prague I go and later, when uh I went to study in Stuttgart in Germany, I went to the cinema as often as I could, and I wanted to have something to do, if nothing else, to build cinemas. But of course then my father died and my student years have finished, and uh I had nothing and so I came to Berlin.
Presenter
And uh I was standing in front of the UFA building.
Presenter
hoping that one of these days I can get in into that company, which was one of the most important filmmaking company in those times. In the world at that time. Yes, very, very important.
Speaker 3
Very, very
Presenter
And in which side did you did you want to get? I wanted to write, but I sent film story after film story.
Presenter
And everything came back until one day
Presenter
Perhaps six months after I came to Berlin, one story didn't come back.
Presenter
And I went to the UFA and I asked them what happened to my study. So
Presenter
They told me, Well, if you sent it in two months ago, you should have got it already.
Presenter
They never even thought of that that somebody might send send in something that they might accept.
Presenter
But in fact they they did accept it, but uh it was sent to the chief dramaturg.
Michael Powell
But they didn't
Presenter
Who called me?
Presenter
And uh
Presenter
I met him and I gave him straightway another story.
Presenter
And uh so I had access to the head of the department, which was of course already very, very
Presenter
important for me until one day I met Robert Siodmar.
Presenter
Robert Sjotmark, who directed that first film of yours, Abschid. Farewell. I hated it. Lovely title. I thought it was terrible. It was absolutely terrible. Then you wrote a script for Opers and well, you wrote five or six more German films, some made in French versions as well. Then you decided to move to France.
Michael Powell
Lies.
Presenter
I decided to when Hitler came It was decided by him
Presenter
Now, although you didn't speak French, you had that splendid facility that most Central Europeans have and which Englishmen envy so much. You learned French and began writing scripts in French.
Presenter
Well, you can hear.
Presenter
How much I learnt here in this country. I uh I'm a foreigner's foreigner. Ah, but you can write it without any trace of an action.
Michael Powell
Not any trace of an accident.
Presenter
And then to Britain. You joined the the Corder empire, the Alexander Corder empire. Yes, uh that was, I think, in thirty seven. Was it, Michael? Yes, a bit later than when you went to England personally. You were working with Staupenhorst, weren't you? Yes, yes. Is that legend true that he had a notice in his office to be Hungarian is not enough?
Michael Powell
It was
Presenter
It sounds very good, but he didn't didn't have this. It was very often enough to first say, it was. But he must have changed. He put you to work. What was the first film you wrote for Corde?
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Uh
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Michael Powell
He put you to work
Presenter
I think it was uh the spine black.
Michael Powell
Black.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
Presenter
Especially the film on which we knit.
Michael Powell
This is fine.
Presenter
Yes. Was that the first one you wrote for Corda? Yes. I didn't realize that. Well, you remember, Michael, that uh Conrad Feight. Oh, I remember all about it, naturally. Who would ever forget? That's how the collaboration started. Right.
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Michael Powell
I just
Michael Powell
But who would ever forget it?
Michael Powell
That's how
Presenter
Well, we'll deal with that in a moment. Whose turn is it is it? Emmerich, your second record. Watch that.
Presenter
My second record is Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata.
Presenter
An ex-violinist is speaking.
Presenter
And if I may choose.
Presenter
The two
Presenter
Artists who are playing.
Presenter
the Kreutzer sonata, I would like to have Kulen Kampf, George Kullen Kampf, and, it will surprise you, Georg Schulte.
Presenter
The conductor, he was a wonderful, wonderful.
Speaker 2
Shuttle.
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Presenter
Piano player is included here on the record.
Michael Powell
Yeah, let's see.
Presenter
The opening of Beethoven's violin sonata in A op. forty seven, The Kreutzer, played by Kullenkampf and Scholte.
Presenter
Now, Michael Powell, while Emmerich was getting himself established here in London, you had been very busy. Between Blackmail and your first meeting with Emmerich, I believe you had directed twenty four films.
Michael Powell
That's it.
Presenter
Some of the earlier ones, of course, rather cheap and rather quick. Oh, they were all cheap, and some were nasty.
Michael Powell
Are the
Presenter
But uh we they we learnt our business with them. Uh
Presenter
They were mostly financed by the American.
Presenter
Distributors because uh they had to fulfil a certain quota, you see, of British films in the programmes. And they also found it better to commission cheap films to be made here with good actors,'cause we had we had, as now, some of the best actors in the world. I don't mean the stars, I mean the general company of actors. And they found that this was a better way to see what they could do than making film tests. Film tests, you see, are always really a very unnatural thing. The actor knows he's being tested.
Michael Powell
Yes.
Presenter
Working on a performance is different. I remember a first great early film of yours, which I remember exceedingly well, The Phantom Light.
Presenter
Very exciting lighthouse story. Oh, yes, did you see that? I did indeed, and I remember it. It stuck.
Presenter
Yes, it it had a lot of things in it which uh repeated afterwards, perhaps in Edge of the World and what it uh and even in The Spy in Black, perhaps. The Edge of the World, that was one film which you you tried for years to set up, a a very important film so far as you were concerned.
Presenter
I read about uh the evacuation of St Kilda in the in the newspapers and the idea of a whole population of an island being evacuated because they couldn't live there any longer uh seemed to me a marvellous film idea. But it took me five or six years to get anybody to back it. And finally it was a uh a little American producer who was working over here and who liked that kind of film too. A dramatized documentary, really. Now, in those days all roads led to Cordo and it was to Cordo that you went and through him that you met Emmerich. This is leaving England and I couldn't get a job here. Whenever I had a success here, I never could get a job afterwards. And so I was going to Hollywood. And then um Alex saw this picture, The Edge of the World, and and gave me a contract for a year. About the same time I imagine that he gave you a contract for a year, Emmerich. Which which year was that?
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Michael Powell
A contributor
Presenter
Uh thirty thirty seven thirty seven.
Michael Powell
Yes, yes, it was.
Presenter
And this first film you you did together, The Spy in Black, this was a vehicle for Conrad Fight.
Michael Powell
Uh
Michael Powell
And we never
Presenter
Conrad Wright and Valerie Hobson. It was in fact, although it came out just before the last war started, it was in fact about the First World War. Yes, it was. Did it do well? Yes, it was. It made a fortune. It was one of those strange things, you know, that here was a film about a submarine breaking into Scarpa Flo with a Germ heroic German in charge who comes to a sticky end, and the British loved it. It opened the day war was declared, practically, and knocked all box office records, because nobody cared whether it was about the First War or the Second War. They what they liked about it was that it was a good, thrilling war film. Emmerich, roughly through the years of your partnership, how have you and Michael divided the work?
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Presenter
He's done a lot of the directing.
Michael Powell
Lot of the direct
Presenter
Not to be touched.
Presenter
That the director was Michael.
Presenter
I seem to have contributed.
Presenter
So much to the film beside of the the story and uh the script.
Presenter
looking with Michael together on rushes and changing. You know how it is in in films, that suddenly something goes wrong, something new has to be replaced, there is a new idea and that is
Michael Powell
No, I would think.
Michael Powell
Suddenly something
Presenter
Replacing another.
Presenter
part of the film so that we have decided
Michael Powell
That's right.
Presenter
that we are going to sign
Presenter
Together for the films, meaning that we
Presenter
Regard it as contributing equax, yes, that's right.
Michael Powell
A complete collaboration.
Presenter
Michael, we've got to your second record. What's your second piece of disc? Well, it's a a poem.
Presenter
And as you know, few poets can read their own poems. But this is one poet who I think reads his own poems as no poet has ever read.
Speaker 3
Do not go gentle into that good night Old age should burn and rave at close of day Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Speaker 3
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning, they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Speaker 3
Good men the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn too late they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Presenter
The voice of Dylan Thomas. Let's run through some of the principal films of the Powell and Pressberger Oeuvre. Having cleaned up with a film about the First World War, you went on to make, I think, four about what was then the current war. What was the first one, Emmerich? Contraband. Yes. In America, it was called Blackout, you remember? Blackout, yes. We have won something, but I can't remember now what, in America. I hope it was a prize. The best foreign film or something of that of the year.
Speaker 3
That's good.
Michael Powell
Uh
Presenter
Something of that.
Michael Powell
It was
Presenter
Was it? And then Forty Ninth Parallel. And a very nice shiny Oscar for Emery. That was a very fine film, Fortyninth Parallel. It's still a good picture when it crops up today.
Michael Powell
That was a very fine f
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Presenter
And one of our aircraft is missing. Something very unusual about that, a feature film with no music at all. Whose idea was that?
Presenter
Probably both of us. Some somebody said this shouldn't have music at all. It was our first sort of combat film. We we didn't approve generally of combat films, making fictional combat films when people are out there sh fighting and dying, so we thought if we're going to make this story of the aircraft whose crew bail out, that uh we wouldn't have any music or any false emotion in it. We'd try and make it as as realistic as possible, but not, curiously, documentary.
Michael Powell
Some some
Michael Powell
This shouldn't have music.
Presenter
You use the sound of aircraft engines and that sort of thing to use them uh dramatically and emotionally.
Michael Powell
That sort of thing to hold.
Presenter
and the silver fleet
Presenter
And then The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, an excellent film which nearly got you both put in the Tower of London. What was that fuss about, Michael? Well, we had a scene in one of Aircraft's Missing that Emerich wrote, where the old rear gunner says to the young pilot, When I was young, I was just as big a fool as you are, and when you're old, you'll be just as nice an old gentleman as I am. And the young man couldn't understand what he was talking about. And afterwards, we were discussing this scene, which was dropped from the film.
Presenter
And Emmerich said, I think we ought to make a film about that theme.
Presenter
you know, about the impossibility of the young people to understand the old people, and in this case the young soldiers to understand why the old soldiers are so bent on losing the war. And uh quite innocently we I I said, Let's couple it with the figure of Colonel Blimp and we met Lowe, David Lowe, who of course was always ready for an attack. Yes, he was one of Cartoon's sweetest persons. So we decided to build the character round Colonel Blimp.
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Yes, he was one of Cartoon creators.
Michael Powell
This
Michael Powell
So we decided to build the
Presenter
His his name in the film wasn't Colonel Blip, of course, but he we called the film Carol Blip.
Presenter
And the War Office didn't like the idea at all.
Presenter
So uh we planned at first to have Larry Olivier, who loved the idea and who would have done, I think, a much more vicious job than Roger Livesey did. Uh and they wouldn't release him from the Navy to make the film. They they were so determined we should not make it. They tried to stop the film going overseas.
Michael Powell
Uh
Presenter
Yes. And when it was made they tried to stop it going abroad, yeah. But first of all they tried to stop us making it altogether.
Presenter
It's time we had some more music.
Presenter
It's your turn to play a record, Emmerich. What next?
Presenter
Would like Richard Strauss's opera.
Presenter
There Rosen Cavalier. Which part which will he play? I would love to play the end part of it.
Speaker 3
As peace give him my Lord.
Speaker 2
God's word.
Speaker 2
Uh Yeah.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Presenter
An excerpt from the closing passage of Derosen Cavalier,
Presenter
The Voices of Krista Ludwig and Theresa Stitch Randall, and a recording conducted by.
Presenter
Herbert von Callian.
Presenter
Well, a few more of the films of Powell and Pressburger. There's so many we can't deal with a lot. Let's talk about the musical films you made. The Red Shoes, about ballet. Surely a risky subject commercially. Did you have trouble getting the money for that?
Presenter
No, we didn't. The wonderful thing was that in those days, the rank organization.
Presenter
for whom we made uh most of our pictures.
Presenter
They wish to establish British films in the United States.
Presenter
And uh they were very free with money.
Presenter
Thinking that the only thing missing.
Presenter
In British-made films, was that we never spend enough money. So it happened.
Presenter
More than once that uh Mr. Reng himself came to our meetings and said, Well, could you use another hundred thousand pounds?
Presenter
This is never, never happened before and never since, of course.
Speaker 3
This is unusual.
Presenter
Despite that, I believe on the Red Shoes you did go over budget, didn't you? We did go over budget.
Presenter
And everybody thought that it will lose.
Presenter
Everything.
Presenter
And uh of course we thought that we we made really, basically, the red shoes because we thought that war is finished.
Presenter
Everybody will hate.
Presenter
War films now. You know, everybody wants to get rid of those war times. So, what is further away?
Presenter
From war.
Presenter
then ballet. So let's do a film on ballet and we have done because film made an enormous success everywhere. Yes, indeed. And and everything of the best. So Thomas Beecham was your musical director.
Michael Powell
Yeah, it's a big film made an enormous success everywhere.
Presenter
He was also concerned, of course, with Your Next.
Presenter
Musical project.
Presenter
The opera, The Tales of Hoffman, The Offenbach Opera. What was the third one? The third musical? Oh, oh, Rosalinda. Oh, Rosalinda, yeah. A little safer commercially, operetta.
Michael Powell
Oh, Rosalinda, yes.
Presenter
Well, i in theory, it wasn't so commercial as the others though. Wasn't it? No. Wasn't was it in the middle of the middle?
Presenter
Well, let's have your sixth record. It's your turn again, Michael.
Presenter
I've always admired for a long time uh Rostropovich and his wife Vishnevskaya. They're the kind of Russians that all all my life was when I was a young man in Nice I lived in the Russian quarter. And I've admired this kind of Russian artists and and also the the songs of Musorksky that she sings so well.
Michael Powell
Uh For his living.
Speaker 2
Are you doing the yeah
Michael Powell
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Lishnevskaya singing a song by Musogski on the Gnap.
Presenter
What was the last film you did together?
Presenter
a children's film not so long ago after a pause of what fifteen years or something like that and it was a children's film called The Boy Who Turned Yellow. And I got
Presenter
And so did Michael.
Presenter
The children's oscar here, which is called the Chiffee.
Presenter
Chiffy from Children's Film got it twice.
Presenter
What was the other time for? For the same film.
Presenter
'Cause it came up again, didn't it? Yes, it uh supposed to be a miraculous thing. Of course, every generation.
Presenter
Wants to see it, and I accepted my children's Oscar in Norwich.
Presenter
And uh they were showing the latest children's film that day. And I got my Oscar and uh a little boy came up on the stage when practically everything was finished and he said to me, Yours is the best. And during that fifteen years when you were apart, you were both very in busy independently. In your case, Michael, one remembers Peeping Tom and the Queen's Guards and the films you made in Australia. Emerich, you were busy producing and writing films and novels, of course.
Speaker 3
Perfect.
Michael Powell
Uh
Presenter
I started to to write novels, very, very few of them, only two.
Presenter
And uh well
Presenter
I think nice novels.
Presenter
You've got the next record, your last one.
Presenter
I would like.
Presenter
To hear.
Presenter
Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita
Presenter
Number two.
Presenter
For solo violin.
Presenter
If possible, to be played by Manouhin.
Michael Powell
Uh
Michael Powell
Uh
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Uh
Presenter
Yehudi Manuin playing the Bach Patita number two in D minor, the closing passage of the Shakon.
Presenter
Now we've got the last record, which is your last one, Michael. What have you chosen? Well, it's pure corn, because it's Sir Thomas Beecham conducting The Barkero from our version of The Tales of Hoffmann. This is from the soundtrack, isn't it? Yes.
Presenter
The Barker Ol from Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffman from the soundtrack of your film. Now the mechanics of you two living together on a desert island. How do we apportion the duties? Emmeric, are you the man to put up the hut?
Presenter
No. No? No. I think we'd have to get together and could build a hut together. I think we can. Not apart. Who does the fishing?
Michael Powell
Hi.
Presenter
Michael is a very good is he is a fisherman. And the cooking? We're both good cooks, but I think Emery takes the palm.
Presenter
I'm just waiting for that. He wanted to duck the job. Would you try to escape?
Michael Powell
That is
Presenter
I wouldn't, no. Michael? Yes, I certainly would. Well, you would, leaving Emmerich on his own. You'll send somebody back for him. I would wave to him. Now, if you would have just one disc each of the four that you've chosen, which would you have, Emmerich?
Michael Powell
Well you would.
Michael Powell
I would rave to.
Presenter
Rosen Cavalier. Michael?
Presenter
Off from Bart.
Presenter
And one luxury each, nothing of any practical use.
Presenter
Cask of brandy
Presenter
That can be arranged easily. In fact, I might even be able to arrange two. Michael, what's your choice for a luxury? Something from the wreck, would it be?
Michael Powell
Monuments
Presenter
Yes. Not necessarily, but it could be. The ship's log book with plenty of spare pages. What are you going to write? Keep a diary.
Presenter
You published the diary of of of the production of The Edge of the World and made a very good book out of it. Two hundred thousand feet on Fuller, I remember. Thank you. Thank you for remembering it. And uh one book each.
Presenter
I would like Saul Bellows Herzo.
Presenter
Sol Bellows Herzog, yes?
Presenter
Michael?
Presenter
Well, I I hesitate really between Montaigne, who who always goes with me, or uh is there a collected Thurba? You know, the best of Thurba? We'll collect one for you. Montaigne or Thurba. Montaigne or Thurba. A snap decision which.
Michael Powell
Montana Thurburg.
Speaker 3
Uh
Michael Powell
It was
Presenter
Montane. Right. And thank you, Michael Powell and Emmerich Presberger, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. It was unexpectedly lovely. Thank you. A great experience. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.
Michael Powell
Thank you.
Speaker 2
You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.
When did you start getting interested in films?
Already in Prague I go and later, when uh I went to study in Stuttgart in Germany, I went to the cinema as often as I could, and I wanted to have something to do, if nothing else, to build cinemas. But of course then my father died and my student years have finished, and uh I had nothing and so I came to Berlin.
Presenter asks
How have you and Michael divided the work [through the years of your partnership]?
He's done a lot of the directing. … the director was Michael. I seem to have contributed … so much to the film beside of the the story and uh the script. … we have decided … that we are going to sign … together for the films, meaning that we … Regard it as contributing equax, yes, that's right.
Presenter asks
What was that fuss about [The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp]?
the War Office didn't like the idea at all. … they wouldn't release [Larry Olivier] from the Navy to make the film. They they were so determined we should not make it. They tried to stop the film going overseas. … And when it was made they tried to stop it going abroad, yeah. But first of all they tried to stop us making it altogether.
Presenter asks
Did you have trouble getting the money for [The Red Shoes]?
No, we didn't. The wonderful thing was that in those days, the rank organization … for whom we made uh most of our pictures. They wish to establish British films in the United States. And uh they were very free with money. Thinking that the only thing missing … In British-made films, was that we never spend enough money. So it happened … Mr. Reng himself came to our meetings and said, Well, could you use another hundred thousand pounds?