EMERIC

PRESSBURGER
The Life and Death
of a Screenwriter

Kevin Macdonald
Foreword by
Billy Wilder
 ew major figures in cinema history have
remained as personally and professionally
enigmatic as Emeric Pressburger.
A Hungarian Jew who lived and worked in
half a dozen European countries before
arriving in Britain in 1935, Pressburger's
reputation rests on the series of strikingly
original films he made in collaboration with
Michael Powell under the banner of The
Archers.
The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life find Death,
Black Narcissus and The Life and Death of
Colonel Blimp all bear the unique credit
'Written, Produced and Directed by Michael
Powell and Emeric Pressburger'.
Frequently controversial, always
experimental, The Archers suffered a long
period of neglect before being rediscovered
by such prominent admirers as Martin
Scorsese, Derek Jarman and Francis Ford
Coppola. But even now Pressburger
remains a shadowy figure, often ignored,
or demoted to being merely 'Michael
Powell's screenwriter'.
Written by his grandson, and containing
extracts from private diaries and
correspondence, this biography defends the
notion of film as a collaborative art and
illuminates the adventurous life and work of
the film-maker who brought continental
grace, wit and style to British cinema.

Kevin Macdonald was born in Glasgow in

1967. He was educated at Glenalmond
College, Perthshire and St Anne's College,
Oxford and now works as a documentary
film-maker. He is also the writer of the
short film Dr Reitzer's Fragment. This is
his first book.

Back cover stills courtesy of

BFI Stills, Posters and Designs

UK £20.00 net
j Canada $ 35.00
" 1.95
EMERIC PRESSBURGER
The Life and Death o f a
Screenwriter

KEVIN M A C D O N A L D

Foreword by
B IL L Y W IL D E R

s
fa b era n d fa b er
I ONDON B OST ON
 First published in Great Britain in 19 9 4
by Faber and Faber Limited
3 Queen Square London w c i n 3 au

Photoset in Sabon by Parker Typesetting Service, Leicester

Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic

© Kevin Macdonald, 19 9 4
Foreword © Billy Wilder, 1994

A C IP record for this book is available

from the British Library

i sbn 0 - 5 7 1 - 1 6 8 5 3 - 1
 For My Grandparents
ALTA M ARGARET M ACD O N ALD
‘ D B ’ M ACD O N ALD
W EN D Y N EW M AN
E M E R IC P R E S S B U R G E R
 Contents

LI ST OF I L L U S T R A T I O N S ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
F O R E W O R D BY B I L L Y W I L D E R xiii
INTRODUCTION XV

P A R T I IM R E

1 Beginnings 3
2 Travelling 17
3 Down and Out in the Tiergarten 37

P A R T II E M M E R IC H

4 Ufa and the Weimar Movie Brats ¿3

5 Friends and Mentors 83
6 La Vie Parisienne 10 1
7 Being Hungarian is not Enough 120

P A R T III E M E R IC

8 The Teller of the Tale 143

9 The War 159
10 Artists United 183
11 Blimp’s Biography 204
12 Knowing Where To Go 229
13 Other Archers 250
14 The Red Shoes 273
15 Production Values 298
16 Divorce 332
 P A R T IV R IC H A R D IM R IE

17 Second Childhood 365

18 Ending's 392

F IL M O G R A P H Y 4 14
B IB L IO G R A P H Y O F E M E R IC P R E S S B U R G E R 433
B IB L IO G R A P H Y 434
SO U R CE N O TES 436
IN D E X 450
 List of Illustrations

1. The Pressburger family, c. 1900, at Imre’s aunt Mariska’s wed­

ding in Baqka Topola.
2. Magda Rona in 1947. Emeric’s first love.
3. Emeric’s Ufa pass.
4. Writing Abschied, with Irma von Cube in the South of France.
5. Writing Ronrry (19 3 1) in Bad Ischl with Emmerich Kalman,
Hans Albers and Reinhold Schunzel.
6. Front and back of the programme for Ronny (19 3 1).
7. Exile in Paris. With Pierre Brasseur on the Champs Elysees,
1933 ­
8. Emeric outside an English football ground during the season of
1935- 6 ­
9. Emeric’s first marriage, with Stapi, Magda Kun, Agi and Eliza­
beth Ramon.
10. Emeric with Michael Powell and red setter outside Denham
studios shortly after completing The Spy in Black (1939).
1 1 . Emeric with Laurence Olivier on the set of 49th Parallel (194 1).
12 . Emeric with Wendy and Angela in the garden of the house in
Hendon, 1943.
13. Alfred Junge, Michael and Emeric on the set of A Canterbury
Tale( 1944).
14. Emeric with Wendy and Michael Powell on location for I Know
Where Vm Going (1944).
15. Emeric with Wendy, Roger Livesey and Ursula Jeans at the Royal
Command Performance of A Matter o f Life and Death (1946).
X LIST O F IL L U S T R A T IO N S

1 6. Deborah Kerr, Emeric, Rumer Godden, Michael and Alfred

Junge on the set of Black Narcissus (1947).
17 . Part of the set for Black Narcissus (1947).
18 . Kathleen Byron on the same set in the finished film.
19. Anton Walbrook, Albert Basserman and Leonid Massine in a
scene cut from the finished film of Red Shoes (1948).
20. Michael and Emeric with costume designer Jacques Fath and
Moira Shearer and Anton Walbrook.
2 1. J. Arthur Rank presents Emeric and Michael with a Japanese
award for The Red Shoes.
22. Emeric admires Sir Thomas Beecham during a play-through of
The Tales o f Hoffman (1950).
23. With Angela at a children’s matinee.
24. Directing debut. With the twins on the set of Twice Upon a Time
in Kitzbuhel, 19 52.
25. Emeric with Hein Heckroth, Columba, Frankie and Michael
Powell on the set of The Battle o f the River Plate (1956).
26. En route for Kashmir. David Lean and his purple Rolls-Royce,
1958.
27. Emeric retreats into Shoemaker’s cottage.
28. The distinguished elder statesmen of British cinema.
29. A photograph of Emeric taken by Michael during the Museum of
Modern Art retrospective.

All photographs © the author, with the exception of 14 , 17 , 18 , 19

and 20 reproduced courtesy of The Rank Organization, 28 courtesy
of Cornel Lucas, 29 courtesy of the estate of Michael Powell and 8
with thanks to Kevin Gough-Yates.
 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people who took the time to be
interviewed or to write to me, sometimes on more than one occasion,
or who helped in other ways: Noreen Ackland, Agnes Anderson,
Helmut Asper, Ian Bannen, Dirk Bogarde, Kevin Brownlow, Kathleen
Byron, Rudolph Cartier, Jack Cardiff, Chris Challis, Joan Colburn
Alkinson, Betty Curtis, Cyril Cusack, Nancy Dennis, Brian Easdale,
Thomas Elsaesser, Rudi Fehr, Freddy Francis, Don Jokin Garmilla
Ebro, Sidney Gilliat, Michael Gough, Tom Greenwell, Tamara Grun-
wald, Angela Gwyn John, Guy Hamilton, Hans Holba, Bill Hopkins,
Valerie Hobson, Wendy Hiller, Erwin Hillier, Felix Jackson, Rudolph
Joseph, Michel Kelber, Vivienne Knight, Francis Lederer, Linn and
James Lee, Patrick Leigh-Fermour, Malla Macdonald, William M ac­
donald, Geoffrey McNab, Hans Marcus, Ronald Neame, the late
Harold Newman, Charles Orme, Joan Page, Bill Paton, Mr and Mrs
Gyorgy Peteri, the late Jozef Pressburger, Zsu-Zsa Roboz, Miklos
Rozsa, Julian and Kato Schoepflin, Anne-Marie Schiinzel, Martin
Scorsese, Moira Shearer, Curt Siodmak, Marga Stapenhorst, Hugh
Stewart, the remarkable survivors Fricy Szekely, Dr Adolph Aczel and
Gizaneni Pressburger from Timi§oara and Backa Topola, Mrs Tarjan,
Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.
Also: Ada Heckroth for hospitality and permission to quote from
her late husband’s revealing diaries. Caroline Ball and David Watson
at Faber. Mark and George at London Management for access to
contracts etc. David Moore for reading the manuscript with an
editor’s eye, and Chantal Joffe for the comments of a bibliophile. For
translations: the Schoepflins, David, Cathy, Zsuzsa, Ildiko and
Simon. Carmen Reid for her help both practical (translations beyond
the call of duty) and impractical. At the British Film Institute I would
like to express my gratitude to Wilf Stevenson for arranging a grant
for translations, and to Janet Moat and David Sharp at Library
Services. Help was also furnished by the staff of the Stiftung Deutsche
Kinematek in Berlin. Extracts from Crown Copyright Records (Chap­
ter n ) appear by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s
XU ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Stationery Office. The extract from the late Lord Olivier’s letter in the
same chapter appears courtesy of the Olivier estate.
Ian Christie was extremely generous with information and time,
pointing out numerous errors and misjudgements in the early manu­
script.
Most particularly 1 would like to express thanks to the film histo­
rian Kevin Gough-Yates, for providing me with some of the best
research for this book and advising me along the way. Similarly,
Thelma Schoonmaker-Powell has been unfailingly generous in
allowing me access to her late husband’s papers and giving me per­
mission to quote extensively from previously unpublished letters.
Finally, 1 would like to thank my unimaginably patient and tolerant
editor, Walter Donohue, who encouraged me from the beginning,
and my brother Andrew who suggested the idea of a book in the first
place.
 Foreword
BILLY WILDER

I got to know Emeric Pressburger more than sixty years ago in the
coffee houses of Berlin in about 1929 or ’ 30. 1 had just finished
working on the first film for which I received credit, People on
Sunday, a sort of Nouvelle Vague picture (but we didn’t do icinema\
we just made movies) directed by Robert Siodmak. Emeric was
extremely shy. He tried desperately to blend into the wallpaper, but
he was extraordinarily friendly and intelligent and had wonderful
ideas. Everybody had a high regard for this guy. He was the rarest
thing in our business and that is a reticent kind of person, not banging
the table with his fist. No screaming around, nothing vulgar, nothing
ostentatious.
Soon afterwards Emeric began to work with Siodmak, but we
never actually collaborated together. Almost the next thing I heard of
him was ten years later, after myself and many of my colleagues had
fled from Hitler’s Germany. I was establishing myself in Hollywood
and 1 began to see those great films that Emeric was making with
Michael Powell in London. The moment I saw the beginning, the
titles and the name of the company - The Archers - and the arrows
came thudding into the target, I knew these two were very talented
men. I was so tired of seeing that goddamn smelly lion grunting up
there!
My theory about collaborators is that if there are two guys that
think the same way, that have the same background, that have the
same political convictions and all the rest, it’s terrible. It’s not col­
laboration, it’s like pulling on one end of the rope. You need an
opponent there, and then you’ll have it stretched and tense. I think
that was true of the collaboration of Pressburger and Powell, it was
certainly the case with my collaboration with Charles Brackett. He
was a very conservative Republican, didn’t think like I did at all,
didn’t even approve of me. But by God! When we started mapping
out dialogue there were sparks!
XIV FOREWORD

The Archers’ films were truly original and had a striking visual
quality. They were very English despite the fact that Emeric was a
Hungarian who was trained in Germany. Being foreign doesn’t
matter in writing films. Even if you have dropped out of grammar
school and every word is misspelt it doesn’t mean a thing. You are not
photographing the words. If there is an idea, that’s what counts. If
that idea is expressed in faulty English or German it is still there. And
that was the strength of Emeric, he had original ideas. He never did a
picture that was an echo of something he or somebody else had done
and he thought in directions that other people did not think.
To be a film-maker who wants to make a name for himself and
who wants to have his own handwriting, that is very rare. But Emeric,
I think, had the necessary intelligence and stamina and the muses
touched his brow.
 Introduction

It was the summer of 1993 and I was in Timi§oara, a dilapidated city

in Western Romania, where my grandfather, Emeric Pressburger, had
gone to school some 75 years before. My translator Francisc and I
were speeding along a cobbled boulevard in a clapped out Dacia taxi
heading for the Jewish retirement home on the other side of the
overgrown municipal park. I looked anxiously at my watch - I had
been on my way to catch the daily train back to Budapest when we
heard about Dr Aczel.
Inside, the home was cool and dark. Half a dozen figures, hunched
in easy chairs, stared at us in the hallway, before a nurse directed us to
room number eight.
The 92-year old Dr Aczel was sitting on the edge of his bed next to
his wife, reading a magazine. A tall, wiry man with a drooping
moustache, his face clouded over with confusion when he looked up
and saw me standing in the doorway.
Francisc tried to explain that I was the grandson of a man he had
not seen since his school days, the best part of a century before.
Suddenly the old doctor’s face lit up and he shouted ‘Nepotul lui
Pressburger\\ practically bounding over to hug me. He gestured
energetically, shouting in a mixture of Romanian, German, Russian
and Hungarian. Francisc tried manfully to keep up. Mrs Aczel smiled
indulgently, nudging her husband and yelling ‘En RomanesciV
He had an astonishingly clear memory of my grandfather: how he
looked, how he dressed, who he had sat next to at school and who he
had been in love with. He remembered the time when Imre was
thrown out of a maths class for impetuously kissing a girl when he
thought the teacher’s back was turned —and the teacher it transpired
was Mrs Aczel’s father who had taught them maths and physics. But
even at school everyone knew that writing was Imre’s forte and
Professor Ozerai, the Hungarian teacher, used to read out his essays
as an example to the other students.
Dr Aczel was less keen to talk about himself, but little by little he
told me about his life since leaving school in 1920. He had studied
XVI IN T R O D U C TIO N

medicine in Berlin and Budapest, before setting himself up as an

ocular specialist in Timi§oara. The practice did not thrive, as he was a
convinced communist in an otherwise conservative city. In 19 39,
preempting the war, he fled to Russia, joined the Soviet army and
survived the siege of Stalingrad. Less than five years later, however,
because he was both Jewish and an intellectual, Stalin’s regime depor­
ted him to a Siberian labour camp. ‘The wind was the worst,’ he said,
‘it never stopped blowing. Some days you could hardly stand up.’ He
and his wife were only allowed to return to Timi§oara in 1989.
1 had to leave to catch my train. ‘The world is so small now,’ he
mused. ‘It’s strange isn’t it - I went East and your grandfather went
West, and our lives turned out so differently, but here we are meeting
again - in a manner - after so many years and so many events, just
where we started off.’ As I made to leave, he stared me in the eye and
smiled, ‘You know, when you walked into the room, I was scared half
to death - 1 thought you were Pressburger come to visit me from hell!’

During the 1940s and 1950s Emeric Pressburger, together with his
partner Michael Powell, amassed what is arguably the most signifi­
cant body of work in British cinema: morally complex, visually
stylish and completely against the grain. Yet few film-makers of
international standing have remained as enigmatic, both profes­
sionally and personally. While the reputation of his films continues to
grow, he himself seems to recede further into the shadows.
Writing this biography I have found it remarkably difficult to flush
him out into the light.
In part the obscurity was of Emeric’s own making. An intensely
private individual, he shied away from publicity. Even his close
friends found him difficult to fathom: cautious, diffident - suspicious
of those who tried to delve too deeply. He gave the impression of a
man who had secrets to keep.
Researching his background presented some specific difficulties.
The first forty-or-so years of his life were largely spent in the twilight
zone of the exile: moving on from one country to another, at the
mercy of political whims, worrying about visas and languages, some­
times homeless, always close to poverty, living permanently on the
margins. Rarely did his passing leave a permanent trace, and even
when it did, documents and people were scattered over half a dozen
countries in almost as many languages, all equally incomprehensible
to me.
 IN TR O D U C TIO N XVII

Ironically, though, I found that Emeric was at his most elusive

during the period of his greatest success and productivity as a film­
maker. His reticence about his own films verged on the pathological,
but au even greater problem was the all encompassing nature of his
relationship with Michael Powell.
‘Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric
Pressburger.’ So reads the credit on most of the films for which
Emeric is now remembered. The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp,
Black Narcissus, A Canterbury Tale and The Red Shoes —all of them
were made by that peculiar composite creature, Powell-Pressburger, a
bizarre half-breed: part Jewish, Central European, part Edwardian
English gentleman, by turns sedentary musician and avid mountain
climber, diplomat and tactless bohemian, sports-lover and sports-
loather. The major difficulty in writing about Emeric is that for the
greater part of his creative career he was merely one half of something
else. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are - like Rogers and
Hammerstein, Laurel and Hardy and Gilbert and Sullivan - doomed
to spend eternity together.
But critics, tainted by auteurism, are uncomfortable with collabor­
ation. Happy enough to promote the seeming illogicality of one man
as the ‘author’ of a film made by many, they find something con­
tradictory in the notion of dual authorship. Confronted with the
Powell-Pressburger partnership they have tried to prize it apart, like
an oyster, to see which side contains the pearl. It is common know­
ledge that the ‘Written, Produced and Directed’ credit was a measure
of joint responsibility, not a statement of literal fact. Emeric was
primarily the screenwriter, Michael was the director ‘and we called
ourselves producers to stop anyone else doing it’. The fact that he was
‘merely the writer’, combined with his natural diffidence, in contrast
to Michael Powell’s sense of self-publicity, propelled Emeric towards
the ancillary role.
Michael was the spokesman and historian of their partnership. He
has written what contends to be the greatest — and probably the
longest —autobiography ever penned by a film-maker. (For me it has
been both a blessing and a burden. With its copious detail, and
apparent ‘total recall’, it has sometimes left me feeling like a mongrel
begging for scraps at his munificent feast.) Michael writes with almost
unfailing generosity about his partner, but, perhaps subconsciously,
he also manages to portray him as merely an adjunct of his own
personality. Emeric makes his appearances like a muse, or a wise old
x v iii IN T R O D U C TIO N

rabbi, to caution and inspire - but rarely is he presented as an active

character in his own right.
The first time I ever met Michael, in New York, at an Italian
restaurant on the night of his eightieth birthday, he told me, ‘My
book has two heroes: my mother and your grandfather.’ It seems as
odd a comment now as it did then, suggesting that his relationship
with Emeric was virtually familial. Indeed, Michael often said that
their partnership was like a marriage —instead of being of different
sexes they were of different backgrounds and temperaments (‘Our
films,’ Emeric said, ‘were born out of disagreement.’) Moreover,
Michael clearly cast Emeric as the wife, the power behind the throne,
a mercurial, instinctive, almost intangible contributor to the main
event. Writing about Emeric I have sometimes felt like a feminist
biographer writing the life of Nora Barnacle or Empress Josephine,
trying to endow them with a life beyond that defined by their famous
consorts.
In attempting to rescue Emeric’s reputation, there is always a risk
that I have been biased against Michael Powell. I have not stinted
from describing his often difficult personal behaviour, but I do not
want this to belittle the work. He was a director of visual genius and
undoubtedly his work was affected by the less pleasant sides of his
character as well as by the positive sides, but ultimately the films have
to be judged as finished, isolated achievements. I regret not being able
to give more space to his background, personality and talents. At
times I have had to close one eye in order to see more clearly with the
other. But if this is the case, I have only done it to restore the
equilibrium between them. My aim has been to show how two men
with such differing abilities and qualities meshed so perfectly together
and how, ultimately, that famous credit was an accurate reflection of
their joint creative responsibility.

These were the difficulties I faced in writing Emeric’s biography, but I

also had one great advantage: that I am his grandson.
When he was in his late seventies and early eighties I used to visit
my grandfather once or twice a year at his tiny, crooked thatched
cottage in Suffolk. A diminutive, white-haired figure he would wel­
come me in and immediately show me to the lunch table - it didn’t
seem to matter what time of day it was.
The pattern of events was predictable. As soon as I saw the first
course I regretted having had breakfast. And when I saw the second I
 IN TRO D U C TIO N XIX

wished I hadn’t eaten at all the day before. The meal was gargantuan
and Hungarian and went something like this: slices of boiled tongue
and foie gras to begin, followed by slabs of pork with fried potatoes
and cucurrtber salad and - only right at the end when you were dying of
thirst - a litre of ice-cold, specially imported Czechoslovakian beer.
Pudding completed the ritual: a cavernous pot of chestnut purée and
whipped cream, followed by bowls of coffee you could float a brick in.
After lunch we would retire to the living-room-cum-study, where
Emeric’s enormous work table was piled high with notes, manuscripts,
tins of boiled sweets, office gadgets, yellowing news-clippings and, lost
among it all, his streamlined green Hermes typewriter. ‘Vaz eet
enough?’ he would ask peevishly.
Apart from a saunter round the garden and maybe a trip to feed his
dependants, the goldfish, there was nothing to do for the rest of the day
but talk; or rather for him to talk and for me to listen. Slowly,
meticulously, as was his way with everything, he chose his words, as
though a wrong move would detonate a hidden mine. All Hungarians
have strong accents, but Emeric’s was the thickest 1have ever heard. All
Ws were pronounced as V (as in ‘vy’ ? —the favourite word of many
Hungarians) while perversely, some Vs were pronounced W (as in
‘warious persons’). ‘The’ was ‘de’, or something similar, and Rs were
energetically rolled. His grammar was definitely imaginative - ‘If I
vould be derr now, I vould have done warious things differently,’ being
a representative sentence.
Emeric was essentially a storyteller, not a conversationalist, and he
would keep you entertained for hours. There were anecdotes about his
films, about restaurants (which also featured heavily in the other
categories, of course), about gardening, about his goldfish and about
football (mostly, but not exclusively, Arsenal). The impression I gained
from them was that Emeric inhabited a strange magical world, peopled
by an endless string of eccentric friends with unpronounceable Eastern
European names. There was the acquaintance who ate an entire
champagne glass for a bet, the cousin who landed an aeroplane on
Budapest’s central avenue and the head waiter in Vienna who
addressed him by name after thirty years absence from his restaurant.
But for all his story-telling, Emeric never opened himself up to me
while he was alive. I have grown far closer to him writing this book
than I ever was before. I have been able to empathize with him because
in some sense, his past is also my own.
PART I

Imre
 CHAPTER I

Beginnings
My discovery of England . . . put new life into
my most intimate memories.
v l a d i m i r n a b o k o v : The Real Life o f Sebastian Knight

Kine Weekly, October 1942:

It was a hectic period last week for Michael Powell on the
Turkish bath sequence in The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp,
The Archers’ Technicolor production, which outlines the career
from 1902, through 19 14 —19 19 , to the present, of a once dash­
ing young cavalry officer who won the VC in the Boer War and
who reaches in this war the dignity of a knighthood and high
military rank. Roger Livesey stars in the title role, with Anton
Walbrook and Deborah Kerr . . .
In this sequence Alfred Junge, with his assistants, and the
construction department at Denham, have again almost sur­
passed their previous brilliant work on the production. The
Turkish bath interiors cover most of one of Denham’s biggest
stages and took nearly two weeks to construct. The set is built
up 8 feet from the ground and the bath is at least 50 feet long by
8 feet wide, with a camera track running the length of it.
Through the billowing clouds of steam elderly gentlemen, with
violent pink bodies scantily draped in coloured towels, can be
seen sitting or reclining at leisure, and everything is peaceful.
Perhaps because of the steam, the keen-eyed Kine reporter failed to
pick out the small, serious-looking man standing slightly apart from
the bustle, at the back of the studio. He looks a little out of place in
these surroundings, with his carefully parted hair and expensive,
well-tailored suit. But he surveys the scene with an air of satisfaction.
He is the screenwriter and without him none of this fantastic spec­
tacle would exist.
Things have been going well for him recently. He has just been
nominated for three separate Oscars (he will win one of them). There
4 IM R E

are three films being shot at Denham, Britain’s most prestigious

studio; all were written by him. He probably has more authority over
his productions than any other screenwriter in the world.
Out of the scrum of extras and technicians Michael Powell, the
director, thin, lanky, balding, strides over and asks his thickset col­
laborator’s advice about something. He nods his head in agreement at
the reply, and sets off again into the fray. The film hasn’t had an easy
birth. There has been opposition to it at the highest level of govern­
ment. ‘Pray propose to me the measures necessary to stop this foolish
production before it goes any further,’ Churchill had written to his
Minister of Information. ‘I am not prepared to allow propaganda
detrimental to the morale of the army . . . ’
If, like the screenwriter, you are classified as an enemy alien, if you
are subject to a curfew and forbidden to own a radio, it is a dangerous
business to provoke the government. But he has something which he
thinks is worth saying and he is going to say it. And although this is a
propaganda film, it is also a very personal one. When he wrote it he
was thinking about his own life, his youth in Hungary, in Germany,
his beautiful girlfriend, Wendy, and of how he was going to be a
father before the end of the year.
As the screenwriter stands there, hands deep in pockets, the direc­
tor shouts, ‘Action!’ and the actors begin to speak their lines - or,
rather, his lines. And as they speak and the steam rises from the
immense Turkish bath, he thinks: ‘Yes! that’s right. That’s just how I
imagined it!’ :
Clouds of steam ascend\ hiding the combatants as it thickens.
Through the gathering clouds the voice of the g e n e r a l continues to
boom, but as the clouds thicken, the voice gets fainter.

g e n e r a l : (Booming through the steam) What do you know about me?

You laugh at my big belly, but you don't know how I got it! You laugh
at my moustache, but you don't know why I grew it! (His voice grows
fainter.) How do you know what sort of man I was - forty years ago . . .

b l im p ' s last words sound hollow and faint. Already they are no longer

real.
The words hang in the air, like thick clouds of steam.
Fora moment there is silence.
 B E G IN N IN G S 5

5 December 19 02
Through the early morning mist the city of Miskolc emerges from the
great Hungarian plain —the puszta. Initially, you can only make out
the proliferation of church spires and cupolas that dominate the
skyline, and then as the sun warms the mist away, you might see the
six truncated spikes atop the synagogue. Of the two streets that run
by the synagogue, one broadens into an avenue as it leaves the town
and is called Szentpeteri Utca - St Peter’s Street - and it was here, at
No. 3, that Imre Jozsef Pressburger was born.
Imre’s doting, nervous mother, Gizella, was thirty when she had
her only child. Her maiden name was Wichs (sometimes spelt Viksz)
and she sprang from a respectable family of small-scale merchants
and shopkeepers; typical representatives of Hungary’s almost exclu­
sively Jewish middle class. At the turn of the century Miskolc was
home to about 17,000 Jews and was an important trading town. The
four big annual fairs were week-long events at which everything
imaginable was sold and bartered: the farmers and peasants bought
luxuries — porcelain, sugar, silk — and tools with the money they
earned from their crops and livestock.
One of those who came to town to sell his agricultural produce was
Imre’s father, Kalman, a none-too-tall, big-shouldered, silent man
with deep blue eyes. He was the manager of an aristocrat’s estate a
short distance from Miskolc. It was his responsibility to oversee the
sizeable peasant workforce, to weigh the corn, count the chickens and
settle petty squabbles for the absentee landlord. A background in the
rigorously organized world of estate management would seem to
have been a good training for prospective British film producers:
Alexander Korda’s father held the same post on the estates of the
wealthy Salgo family some way to the south.
Unlike the Wichses, the Pressburgers were not natives of Miskolc,
but hailed from the eponymous city of Pressburg on the banks of the
Danube. Now the capital of Slovakia, and re-christened Bratislava,
Pressburg was the capital of Hungary for over 16 0 years, after the
Ottoman Turks captured Budapest. The city’s coat of arms was three
towers with a raised portcullis, indicating hospitality. There had
certainly been a substantial Jewish population there for several cen­
turies.
In general, Jews were better assimilated in Hungary than anywhere
else in Eastern Europe. Although not officially permitted to own land
until the early nineteenth century, they were more rooted to the soil,
6 IM R E

to a single place, than their counterparts in other countries. Jews were

present in almost all the small rural communities, not just in the
capital and important trading centres. In small villages it was a matter
of civic pride to have a resident Jew - it indicated the growing
prosperity and importance of the place. ‘That’s our local Jew ,’ the
villagers would say to visitors, as though they were talking about a
grand new building in the market square.
Jews settled in Hungary thought of themselves as Jewish
Hungarians, not Hungarian Jews; many fought as nationalist patriots
in the 1848 revolution against the Austrian tyranny. After all, the
Jews had lived in the Carpathian Basin as long as the Magyars
themselves. The original Hungarian Jews were Khazars, the remnants
of a race that flourished in what is now southern Russia and Ukraine
in the eighth century. Khazars were part of the tribal confederation,
led by the heroic chieftain Arpad, who rode from the steppes into the
Carpathian Basin and conquered and settled what is now Hungary
and Transylvania in 896 a d .
Jews had lived in and around Pressburg since the thirteenth
century. They have left little record of their passing. The Jewish
quarter was recently demolished and a trawl through the phonebook
reveals not a single Pressburger still living in the city. One or two
notable ancestors have left their mark. One secured the royal
monopoly for ferrying passengers across that stretch of the Danube in
the 1730 s; another was awarded a ‘golden spur’ by the Empress
Maria Theresa for his assiduous work as an overseer of the imperial
grain stores. Abraham Preszburger (as the name was spelt in its
Hungarian form) was a renowned Central European rabbi in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most significant forebear
was Henrietta Pressburger, described as the plump, uneducated
daughter of a rabbi; she was Karl M arx’s mother.
Until the eighteenth century Central European Jews did not have
surnames, but used a patronymic system —their first name followed
by that of their father - in the formula: Moses ben Isaac, Moses the
son of Isaac. This method of nomenclature worked perfectly well
amongst the close family, but it tended to create confusion (often not
unwelcome) when the authorities attempted to collect taxes or issue
fines - as the Austro-Hungarians were particularly wont to do.
Apparently following the rationalizing example of Napoleon,
Emperor Joseph II decreed that all his Jewish subjects were to be
given surnames. Not only, he argued, would this facilitate tax
 BEGINNINGS 7

collection, but also the census and the military draft. The Imperial
namers were duly despatched with a list of available names. All these
permissible appellations had one thing in common: they were
Germanic/ Emperor Joseph was a sensible man and objected to the
notion of increasing the number of his quarrelsome and difficult
Hungarian subjects, when he could, to all intents and purposes, add
to the German population - at least nominally. This subtle policy was
typical of the Habsburg’s willingness to divide and rule. By burdening
the diffuse Jewish population with Germanic names he created an
apparent ‘enemy within’ for the Magyar nationalists to worry about,
as well as, in effect, fanning the flames of anti-Semitism.
Characteristic of the sly, corrupt bureaucracy that enveloped the
Austro-Hungarian Empire - a bureaucracy that has been termed
‘despotism humanized by stupidity’ —the Emperor’s namers were not
content to merely hand out the names on a first-come first-served
basis. No, there would have to be something in it for them. The
correct bribe at the correct level saw to it that your family was given a
‘good German name’, such as Ritter or Konigsmann. On the other
hand, if the bureaucrats held some secret enmity towards you, or if
you refused to pay the required amount, the result would be an
unpleasant or even repellent name such as Hundfleischer, or
something connected to a distasteful bodily function.
When all is said and done, Pressburger is not a bad name and rates
somewhere in the middle range of the namer’s contempt, being only
slightly unwieldly, but with a bourgeois ring that was much sought
after and respected at the time.
In the 1850s Benjamin Pressburger moved with his young wife
Joszefa (née Fisher) from Pressburg to Baçka Topola, a small town in
southern Hungary, near what is now Subotica in Serbia. It was here
that Imre’s father, Kalman, was born in i860, the eldest of eight
brothers and one sister. Grandfather Benjamin kept an inn, but at the
age of ten Kalman was sent to a nearby estate at Zednik to serve an
apprenticeship as a land manager. By the time he was thirty he had
married and attained a senior position on the estate near Miskolc. His
first child, a daughter called Margit, was born there. Shortly
afterwards, however, his wife died, and two years later he married
Gizella. Margit was twelve before her brother Imre appeared on the
scene.
Imre grew up on the estate, with an intimate knowledge of the finer
points of geese rearing, feeding and slaughtering cows and pigs,
8 I MR E

growing wheat and seasoning timber. His writing was forever pep­
pered with figures of speech drawn from country pursuits: he thought
he and his partner, Michael Powell, were suited to each other ‘like
two dray horses’, and compared a writer who loses his language to a
‘carpenter who loses his tools’ . Throughout his life he harked back to
his idyllic rural childhood, and was forever aware of the continuity
and values of rustic life. In A Canterbury Tale (1943), one of his most
personal films, an American sergeant, utterly befuddled by the
intricacies of the English telephone system and railways, wins over
the local wheelwright by talking to him about the ins and outs of
seasoning wood — a subject the two have in common despite the
differences in their cultures. Sheila Sim, playing a London shop girl in
the women’s land army, asks the sergeant how he managed to hit it
off so well with the locals who are so standoffish towards her:
T a lk / he says.
'I'm an English girl and I can't talk their language.'
'He knows about wood and so do I.'
That shows you.'
'Shows me what?'
That the language you're talking doesn't matter. What matters is what
you're talking about.'

Imre, who was to make a living as a writer in so many languages, was

to find the truth in this.
Kalman’s estate bordered on the famous wine-growing region of
Tokaj and Imre’s very first memory was in connection with this
sought-after beverage: ‘The upper third of the barrel had rotted away
and the wine —the sweetest variety of Tokaj aszu —now stood in its
own skin. My father told me that the sugary liquid had solidified
through age. A hole had to be cut through the thick membrane —the
consistency of which was not unlike raw liver — and a long siphon
made of glass pushed down into the barrel. When this was done it
brought up the most delicious golden fluid from the depths of the
container.’
His second recorded memory was less tranquil, but must have been
a common one for children of his generation: the first encounter with
an automobile: ‘I saw the thing hurtling towards me. I ran, not
knowing the habit of this strange monster, along the pavement, the
monster gaining on me . . . In no time, however, it had overtaken me
and did not stop to bite my head off as I had expected.’
 BEGINNINGS 9

The first memory found its way into Imre’s only Hungarian film: A
Wen Gazember (1932), about a trustworthy old estate manager. The
second recollection also lodged itself in Imre’s brain and the motif of
a car ^s an unknown quantity nearly running someone down, was to
feature near the beginning of the biographical journey in The Life and
Death o f Colonel Blimp (1942): ‘Have you ever been in one of those
things?’ asks Blimp, after their near miss. ‘ Rather!’ responds Hoppy
Hop well. ‘All the way to Epsom!’
At the age of eight Imre had his first exposure to cinema. If his
account can be trusted, it immediately made a strong impression on
him. The Pressburger family was on the move from Miskolc, going
south to Subotica, birthplace of Joyce’s fictional hero Leopold Bloom,
where Kalman had a new job. They stopped off briefly during the
journey in Debrecen - in those days Hungary’s second city - to visit
some relatives, and as a special treat the children were taken to the
cinema:
7 remember the very first scene I saw on film. You saw a chap at the
marketplace. He bought a packet o f seeds and took them home. He
filled a flower pot with earth, put one o f the seeds in it and then
watered it. Then suddenly it started to grow. And it grew and grew
and grew right up to the ceiling and then it broke through the ceiling
. . . C U T ! Into the room above where a family were sitting round a
table eating soup. The plant —well, it was a tree by now - lifted the
table up right in front o f them. The diners were surprised —shocked.
I thought about it and thought about it and then it occurred to me
that it wasn’t necessary for the second room to be above the first. I
didn’t know it was cutting, but I knew something was up.’
This type of fairground short was very much in the Melies tradition
of illusionist cinema —the tradition which Imre was to follow in films
like The Red Shoes and The Tales o f Hoffmann. What is most
remarkable, however, is his mental agility, that he was figuring out
the mechanics of the cinema, the technique behind the magic, at such
an early age. Throughout his life Imre was able to be entranced by the
beauty or magic of the cinema - and other arts and sciences - while
simultaneously being intrigued by its technique and questioning its
structure.
In keeping with this, his favourite subject at school was math­
ematics. But outside school it was music that captured his attention.
Imre played the violin. Austro-Hungarian culture was heavily biased
IO I MR E

towards music; when we think of nineteenth-century Vienna we think

of opera, operetta, waltzes and polkas. Imre’s family had its share of
musical talent: his cousin Klara attended the Conservatoire in Vienna
(with the rise of fascism she quit Europe for Argentina where she
founded her own Latin American big band), and one of the few
extravagances that Imre’s father allowed himself was to hire one of
Hungary’s famed gypsy violinists to accompany him whenever he had
to travel. The gypsies, it was said, could melt even the hardest heart,
playing and singing their melancholy-drenched songs. Imre began
violin lessons at the age of six and was playing in the town orchestra
by the time he was twelve. In his mind musical ability was linked to
writing. ‘I never sit down to write a script,’ he said, ‘until I know
where I’m going and I’ve worked out the rhythm and so on before­
hand. I’m very musical and that might have something to do with it. I
can’t work on anything until I have a certain rhythm in myself about
it . . .’
Imre’s first taste of education had been at his mother’s special
request. She was from a rather orthodox religious background and
wanted her son to be educated in Hebrew and the Jewish law. To this
effect the five-year-old Imre was packed off to live with a kosher
butcher in the nearby town of Gombos. The butcher was a pheno­
menally bigoted man and made little allowance for the youth of his
pupil. Among other pearls of Hebraic wisdom he taught Imre that
whenever he woke up in the middle of the night he should wash his
hands - ‘Was this because five year olds are only supposed to wake up
when they need to go to the loo? It still puzzles me today.’ He was
also taught to recite simple prayers which he could never get right,
much to the truculent butcher’s irritation. After about a month of
unhappiness Imre ran away one night and walked all the way home, a
distance of some 50 kilometres. The experience seems to have left him
with a life-long aversion towards organized religion.
During his first year in Subotica ( 1 9 1 1 —12) Imre was enrolled in the
Jewish elementary school. His end of year report shows that he was
an average pupil, scoring a 1 for ‘conduct’, 2 for ‘diligence’ and a
poor 3 for ‘progress’. The following year, at the age of nine, he was
moved to the secular fogimnazium, the town’s main secondary
school, which was significantly cheaper and whose headmaster was
Kosztolanyi Arpad, father of the famous Hungarian poet Kosztolanyi
Dezso. It is some indication of his parents’ poverty that they were
unable to meet even these reduced fees and Imre had to be granted a
 BEGINNINGS 11

poor student’s bursary (tandijmentesseg) which covered the full cost

of his education. He studied a range of subjects including Latin,
singing and drawing and his marks continued to be sound but unex­
ceptional'. 'Kdlman’s estate was some way from the town, in the
hamlet of Vajda, and Imre boarded with his aunt Mariska during the
week and only went home at weekends. Mariska was Kalman’s only
sister and had two children of Imre’s age, a boy and a girl, Bela and
Magda, who became his closest childhood friends.
But the family did not stay put for long. Imre was thirteen when
they moved again, this time to the east. They stayed briefly in the
town of Rekas before settling more permanently in the village of
Rudna, a Serb pocket about 30 kilometres from the city of Temesvar
(Timisoara). Kalman’s employer was a Serb, the Baron Nikolics.
In the film A Canterbury Tale, Emeric invented a character called
Thomas Colpepper who is obsessed by the desire to tell people the
history of the countryside around Canterbury. It is important, says
Colpepper, to understand your ancestors. When somebody asks
him how to do it, he replies: ‘There are more ways than one of
getting close to your ancestors. Follow the old road just as they did
. . . they climbed the hill just as you did, they sweated and paused
for breath just as you did today . . . I feel I’ve only to turn my head
to see them on the road behind me.’
In this spirit, while researching Emeric’s biography, I visited as
many of the places where he had lived as I could, in the hope that
somehow time would melt away for me, as it had for Colpepper.
Rudna can’t have changed very much in the seventy-odd years
since my grandfather and his family lived there. I approached by
the road, unpaved, little more than a track, which takes you across
the plain from the neighbouring village of Giulvaz. It is intensely,
utterly, hypnotically flat. Now and again there’s a shepherd
guarding his flock, some are wearing the huge yellowish sheepskin
coats that are typical of the region. There is a railway coming out
of the distance on one side of the village and disappearing into the
distance at the other. The train still stops there twice a day and is
virtually the villagers’ only contact with the outside world.
Like all the villages thereabouts, Rudna is built on a grid with
wide tree-lined streets. There are no cars and the streets are grass
and mud. Chickens and pigs scavenge here and there. It is a poor
place but the houses are neat, one-storeyed affairs, painted in faded
12 I MR E

pastel shades with stencils on the wall that faces inwards to a

vegetable garden.
At one end of the main street is the Baron’s residence, a shapely
white mansion, Scandinavian looking, with an elegant double
staircase leading up to the entrance. It still seemed to be in good
condition although the Baron had abandoned it and fled the
country in 1946. The communists had confiscated his property and
vandalized the house. I peered in through a shutter. The windows
had been smashed, there was no furniture and the door was off its
hinges. There were papers scattered all over the floor. The villagers
said that they rarely went in. It was strange that they didn’t want to
use it, as a school or meeting hall.
A rumour quickly spread that I was the ‘nepot de patron’ —the
Baron’s grandson —who had returned from exile in Mexico to
reclaim my property.
Unfortunately the oldest man in the village - a ninety year old -
had died the day before my visit, but there were two eighty-seven
year olds left and both remembered the Pressburger family well.
One recalled that Imre used to ‘act like a little boss’ riding around
on horseback and ‘playing the violin like a madman’. Neither of
them knew that he had become a film-maker. I was taken to the
house where the Pressburgers had lived. The front was boarded up
so I went round the back where a pair of old men were illegally
distilling \uka - the local firewater - over an open fire.
Nearby Temesvar, where Imre went to school (boarding at the chief of
police’s house during the week) was a wealthy, industrial city. The
capital of the Banat region of Transylvania, it was fed by the traffic of
the Bega canal and the river Tisza and surrounded by fertile plain. The
easternmost metropolis of the Habsburg Empire, Temesvar prided
itself on its advanced civic planning, being the first city in the world to
have electric street lighting and a regular tram service. Lying on a
crossroads as it did, many languages were heard on the streets.
Romanian, German and Serbian all vied with Hungarian for supremancy.
Imre studied at Temesvar’s central Gymnasium for three years. He
used to tell only one anecdote about his time there: One day the
school inspector from Budapest visited unexpectedly. The pupils in
Imre’s class were asked to write a short story so he could judge their
progress in language and composition. The following morning the
inspector returned and informed the class that he was satisfied with
 BEGINNINGS

the standard of the stories, but was particularly impressed by one of

them which showed genuine literary talent. He declined, however, to
tell the class who had written it. At this, Imre stood up and pro­
claimed, ‘It is my story you are referring to.’ The class gasped, and the
inspector smiled, but refused to deny or confirm the assertion.
This unnerving confidence in his own abilities, and in his right to
judge the talent of others, was to be a characteristic, though not
always welcome trait.
Imre read voraciously and uncritically, devouring Hans Andersen,
Jules Verne (for the scientific content), the ‘German westerns’ by Karl
May (Old Shatterhand was his favourite literary character) and a
variety of Hungarian authors. He particularly liked Kalman
Mikszath, who, like Bartók, drew his inspiration from peasant tales.
His books are an informal blend of sentimentality and the Hungarian
love for paradox, didacticism and ‘human truths’. It was reading a
translation of Mikszath’s St Peter's Umbrella which, according to
legend, brought President Theodore Roosevelt to visit Hungary in
19 10 —the first American president to do so. Many years later Imre
discussed making a film of the novel with Alexander Korda, who was
persuaded into purchasing the rights. Another of Mikszath’s novels,
A Wen Gazember (‘The Old Rogue’), was the source of the only film
Imre ever made in Hungary.
Weekends and holidays were spent in Rudna, where Imre’s greatest
friend was Magda Rona, whose family were grain merchants, one of
the three or four other Jewish families in the village. Imre fell in love
with her but was rejected because he was ‘too short’. Nevertheless,
they formed a strong life-long bond.
Imre spent much of his time in the village with the Serb-speaking
peasant farmers. They taught him how to plough, how to herd cattle
and how to fatten a goose - one of the great rituals of the Transyl­
vanian peasantry. The fattened goose stood for everything that made
life worth living. The feathers were washed and dried in the sun, then
used to stuff the enormous pillows and meringue like quilts (all his life
Imre had a kingly collection of down quilts, even when such things
were unknown in England and the average Englander slept beneath a
hundred weight of damp woollen blankets). The meat was eaten as a
staple, one mouthful of meat followed by one of fat - that was a good
proportion for a well-fattened goose. Any excess fat was used for
frying, for making poppy-seed cakes or as the basis for various
ointments and balms. But the glory of the bird was its liver. Fried in
M I MR E

butter and sealed in jars as soon as they were removed from the bird,
the foie gras of a well-fattened goose would weigh several pounds and
the wealth and standing of a household was measured by the size and
quality of the livers it produced. Among the most common sights in
pre-war Hungary were the old women sat out on the forecourt of the
house, gossiping to each other, with a goose in one hand and a
handful of grain in the other. Using their fingers they would force
open the animal’s beak and push the grain deep down inside its
throat, holding the bird by the neck so that it could not vomit the
food up again.
With its cucumber salads, paprika chicken, goulash and foie gras,
Hungarian cooking probably rates at the top of the secondary level of
world cuisines. What really distinguishes it is the love and affection
Hungarians lavish upon it. As George Mikes, one of Imre’s closest
friends, pointed out, ‘stomach patriotism’ is a characteristic feature of
the Hungarian in exile, and is a far stronger force than any love of
country based on politics or geography. In later years Imre’s sensual
delight in food was to be a reminder of his homeland, of an
irrecoverable time when values were not relative, when society was
well-structured, when he had a large and caring extended family, and
the Jews finally seemed to have attained a secure and equitable status
within Austro-Hungary.
With similar hindsight, the downfall of the idyll could be
pinpointed to a particular moment on a sunny morning in Sarajevo,
when Archduke Franz Ferdinand received a fatal bullet in the neck
and sparked the First World War.
In Temesvar, as elsewhere in Hungary, there was very little
enthusiasm for a war which was perceived as another imperialist ploy
by the Austrian oppressor. Moreover, the Hungarians nursed a
deep-rooted antipathy towards their allies, the Germans, whom they
considered fundamentally boorish and ill-mannered. The Germans, it
was admitted, could produce fine music, but they were certainly not
gentlemen, and to be a gentleman, with all that it entailed, was what
every self-respecting Magyar aspired to. Hungarians were naturally
more in sympathy with their enemies, the English. In an attempt to
counteract this unfortunate state of affairs the press bombarded the
populace with positive images of the northern ally. But the
Hungarians couldn’t bring themselves to believe the propaganda, and
consequently never imagined that they would win the war.
As the conflict dragged on, refusing to come to its inevitable
 BEGINNINGS 15
conclusion, Imre’s schoolmates began to disappear to the front. But for
the most part life in Timi§oara and its environs continued unchanged.
Peace, when it came, was to have far more significant consequences.
In i^ i^ Im re had one more year to go at school, after which his
ambition was to study civil engineering at Budapest University: ‘1
wanted to build railways and town halls and such things.’ His life
seemed to be laid out before him; an education, a career - a well-
ordered future for a well-ordered age.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire appreciated order. Never before or
since have the solid bourgeois values been so thoroughly respected.
Franz Joseph himself, who worked at his desk for eight hours a day
and dedicated the remainder of his time to parades and inaugura­
tions, was more like the perfect civil servant than an emperor. A
puritan, he slept in a narrow steel-framed cot, rose at five every
morning and retired at nine —or ten if a state dinner kept him up. He
ate little and his one indulgence was a baby biscuit called Lady’s
Fingers which he dipped in champagne. Rigid and conservative by
nature he saw it as his beholden duty to defend the status quo —to the
end of his days he refused to have a water closet or electric lights in
the palace on the grounds that ‘it begins with water closets and ends
with revolution.’
But in 19 16 the Emperor died and the well-ordered, but out-of-date
world he had helped engender died with him.
For the inhabitants of Temesvar the end of the war brought
disaster.
7 was a schoolboy o f sixteen when World War I ended. The Austro-
Hungarian Empire collapsed like a chocolate soufflé struck by the icy
wind o f defeat. The Serbs took the southern part o f Hungary, the
Romanians got hold o f the east, the Czechs the north, even the
Austrians took a portion in the west. Our town lay on the shipping
canal connecting the river Tisza with the Danube, slap on the new
border and we were wondering whether we were going to become
Romanians or Serbs, since rumour had it that the triumphant allies
had promised our province to both.*
Imre’s description of the process of despoliation is not only revealing
for its equation of the pre-war world with food, but because it
demonstrates his sense of helplessness in the face of politics. Someone
somewhere had decreed that he was to be Romanian or Serbian and
he would have to accept it passively. For almost two years Temesvar
16 I MR E

was occupied by the Serbs, but ultimately, along with the rest of
Transylvania, it was assigned to Romania at the infamous Trianon
Treaty of 1920, when the allies, led by Britain, distributed about
two-thirds of Hungary’s land mass and half of its population to
clamouring neighbours. It is said that Hungary’s Deputy Foreign
Minister fainted when he saw the recoloured map.
Imre was now a Romanian —a foreigner in his own country. The
pattern of his life as an eternal alien had begun. Without having to
budge an inch from home, he had set out on the circuitous journey
that would eventually lead him to England.
Although Imre never again lived in Hungary and spent the rest of
his life as an émigré, it was not by choice or temperament. Through
all his travels, and no matter how sophisticated he appeared
externally, his heart - and most certainly his stomach - remained
in Hungary.
Miskolc, the town of his birth, has changed quite radically since
his day. It is now the second largest city in the country, a grim,
industrial place. There are only a handful of Jews left in what was
once a thriving Jewish centre, site of the country’s largest
rabbinical school. Almost 17,000 Jews were deported from
Miskolc to Auschwitz in the autumn of 1944.
It is surprising then, to find that Szentpéteri Utca has kept its
name right through all the years of turmoil - communist, fascist
and liberal —that lie between 1902 and the present. Most
associations with a Christian past were severed long ago, and many
streets in the town have been renamed several times after
whichever group of heroes, revolutionaries or party members
successive governments countenanced. Predictably, the old houses
have been demolished and Szentpéteri Utca is now a canyon of
Soviet-style tower blocks. Except, that is, for No. 3. It is still an old
two-storey apartment house, forlorn and abandoned looking,
sheltering between the concrete monstrosities.
How eminently suitable, that the place of Imre’s birth, the only
place he ever lived that is part of modern Hungary, should remain
so loyally unchanged, should, as it were, be keeping his true
heartland safe and sound, untouched by the capriciousness of
history.
 CHAPTER 2

Travelling
✓
The worst things that happened to me were the political consequences
of events beyond my control. . . the best things were exactly the same.
E M E R IC P R E S S B U R G E R

Overnight Temesvar became Timi§oara and Romanian was enforced

as the city’s official language. All Hungarian-speaking institutions,
including schools, were closed.
Imre, like most of his classmates, knew some Romanian, but not
nearly enough to study in the language. The Hungarian minority
experienced an educational crisis. The Jewish community reacted by
founding a Jewish lycée (Zsido Lyc&lbom), a nominally religious
institution, within the confines of which classes could be given in
Hungarian. A subscription fund was started to pay for a new school,
but in the meantime temporary accommodation was provided free of
charge by the Lloyds insurance company in their building on the main
square. It was here, in a preposterously grand room on the first floor,
that Imre had his final year’s schooling.
Of the thirty students in Imre’s year (nineteen girls, eleven boys),
only Adolph Aczél survives. He remembers Imre as a popular, charis­
matic figure. ‘If anyone from our class was going to succeed, it was
him,’ he says. Imre’s best subjects were Hungarian literature and
mathematics and he was a particular favourite of the literature
teacher, Professor Ozerai. He was not a sporty boy, but excelled in
music, singing in the choir and playing first violin in the school
orchestra and second violin in the town philharmonic. Aczél recalls
clearly one morning when Imre arrived at school speaking an octave
lower than he had the night before - so suddenly had his voice
broken. The whole class fell about laughing when they heard him.
The Jewish lycée was academically demanding. Imre’s school
report for the year 19 19 —20 shows that he studied a wide range of
subjects for his Baccalaureat, including seven languages: Hebrew,
Romanian, Hungarian, German, French, Latin and Greek. In the final
examinations he came top of the class with ‘excellent’ in all subjects
i8 I MR E

but Greek, for which he was merely awarded a ‘good’.

One other schoolfriend of Imre’s still lives in Timi§oara. Fricy
Székely, a widow for 35 years, got in touch with me through an
advertisement 1 placed in the city’s Hungarian minority newspaper,
the Ui Szo. She had met Imre 73 years before through the school
orchestra. ‘One day we were playing and one of my violin strings
broke. I didn’t have a spare and he gave me one of his.’ She was three
years behind him at the lycée and worshipped him from afar. He was,
she avows, ‘the best-looking boy in Timi§oara’ (an opinion which
contrasts with that of Adolph Aczél who says that he was ‘pleasant
looking but slightly short - which put off the girls he was interested
in’). Fricy remembers his ‘large, glistening blue eyes with heavy
eyelids’ and recalls that all the girls at school used to call him Imi or
Pozimi, after the Hungarian name for Pressburg, Pozsnoy.
Fricy Székely was only fourteen or fifteen at the time, but went
quite regularly for walks in the park with Imre —although they were
always accompanied by one of her friends. ‘He used to pick me
bunches of violets and tell me jokes in French.’
He also used to recite French poetry to her; Mallarmé was his
favourite. In her small flat in the dilapidated Jewish quarter of
Timi§oara, she still preserves a little scrap of paper on which he had
written:
Qu’importent les nuages du ciel
Et les brouillards de la terre,
Quand on a le soleil au coeur
Et l’azur dans l’âme.
‘He was always an optimist,’ she says, ‘and that was his motto.’
Twice, she recalls, they went to the cinema together, once to see a
film starring Greta Garbo and once to see Pola Negri. ‘ I’m a little bit
ashamed to say,’ says a blushing 89-year-old Mrs Székely, i was in
love, but didn’t tell him. The next year I was sent away to boarding
school in Weimar and we never saw each other again.’
Imre himself had finished his Baccalaureat and had to decide what
to do next. Any thoughts of studying in Budapest evaporated when
the Romanian government forbade Romanian students to attend
Hungarian universities. Denied the opportunity of studying in their
own language the bright young minds at Imre’s school decided that if
they had to learn a new language that language would not be
Romanian. Much better to learn German and study in Germany:
 T R A VEL LI NG 19
'France seemed to us no country for learning, England was further
away than the moon, so we chose Germany. We were eight friends
and for weeks we spent all our time discussing the merits o f the
different Gérman universities, and eventually decided that if we were
going to go we might as well go to Berlin, the nearest real metropolis
that we knew to be a practical proposition. ’
The first hurdle to overcome was the acquisition of German visas, and
Czech ones for transit. These were only issued in the capital,
Bucharest, but in Timi§oara there was a newsagent of sorts who
travelled there every fortnight (a train journey of two days and nights,
there and back) and, for a modest fee, took passports with him and
returned with the requisite stamps. The boys all handed over their
papers and waited excitedly for the newsagent’s return. But when he
did come back, due to new regulations on numbers imposed by the
Germans, only five out of the eight passports had been stamped. Imre
was not among the lucky five. Those who did have visas waited
another fortnight, but when the three unstamped passports returned
empty a second time, they decided to go ahead, leaving Imre and the
other two to follow later. The two groups made elaborate plans about
how and where they were going to rendezvous in Berlin. They ques­
tioned all their acquaintances —did anyone know of a suitable meet­
ing place? They could not find a single person who had ever been to
the city or even had a map of the place. However, everyone had heard
of the most famous street in Berlin, Unter den Linden, and so they
agreed to meet at the first café or hotel on the right-hand side of that
street as one walks up from the Tiergarten - the other place everyone
had heard of. The first group of boys was to wait for the second every
Saturday between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. seated on the terrace at this
spot: 7 did get to Berlin. Seven years later. Only then did I find our
meeting point. There was a hotel, without a terrace, called the Adlon.
To have tea or coffee in the hall inside, with all the trimmings, would
have cost more than our budget for an entire w eek.’
The three visa-less friends waited another fortnight before giving
up the situation as hopeless. They were never going to get their visas
from the consulate in Bucharest. The ‘visa-merchant’ suggested that
they might have better luck if they travelled as far as Prague - they did
have their Czech transit visas, after all - and tried at the German
consulate there. The three were desperate to travel, it didn’t really
matter where, and readily agreed to this suggestion.
20 I MR E

In those days the journey to Prague seemed almost interminable

since the train had to go round Hungary, a detour of some 800
kilometres. The carriages had bed-bugs and there were no windows
in the stuffy sleeper. Imre, however, was glad of this. Perhaps out of
charity, or as a goodbye present, Magda, who had spurned his
advances for so long, agreed to accompany him as far as the border,
and the two made love for the first time, clandestinely, in the dark
carriage. Imre’s student years were to be punctuated by a multitude
of sexual adventures. The degree of sexual liberation sometimes
seems astonishing, but Imre was never puritanical about sex; he
took it very seriously, like his food, as both an art and a sensual
pleasure.
Arriving in Prague the three adventurers, Imre, Ernst Reitzer and
George Halmos, rented a room in a house owned by a bankrupt
braces manufacturer, then went to the German consulate where they
were curtly informed that Romanian citizens had to apply for their
visas in Bucharest. Pleading was of no avail: German bureaucracy
had its regulations carved in stone and no mere student was going to
compromise the system. They left the building in despair. How
could they return home now — pathetic failures — having spent so
much on travel and preparation? No, instead of returning home, or
persevering in the hopeless battle against Teutonic officiousness,
they would stay in Prague.
Perhaps not a modern metropolis on the scale of Paris or Berlin,
Prague was nevertheless a sizeable and elegant city of 800,000
inhabitants. And although not in Germany, it was the next best
thing to a German city. Until the rebirth of Slav nationalism in the
mid-nineteenth century, German had been the dominant language,
and even in 19 20 it was spoken daily by 5 per cent of the popula­
tion. Moreover, there was a highly respected German university -
Karl Ferdinand University — alma mater of Franz Kafka, and two
fine technical colleges, at one of which Imre and his companions
decided to enrol.
The Deutsche Technische Hochschule, though less prestigious
than the actual university, had a sound reputation for engineering.
The matriculation queues outside the main administrative building
were long, and it took a whole day to reach the front. Imre was
nervous: while his two companions were proficient in German, he
knew very little.
 T R AVEL LI NG 21

‘ When I reached the counter I was asked (in German, o f course)

"N am e?” / told the gentleman my name. Then he said, “ Geburtig?”
and I replied, as politely as I could, “ Pardon?” He repeated his
question in'a tired voice and I repeated my answer. I f he had asked
for my address I could have understood, but Geburtig was not a word
I knew. I hadnt understood and so I was handed back my papers,
and told, not unkindly, that I should return when I had learnt the
language. I walked out completely humiliated and went to a café to
think. To stay in Prague without a place at university was out o f the
question. To return home having spent so much money seemed
foolish. H ow was I going to learn the language at home? Here / could
learn it easily, in fact; I had already learnt one important word:
Geburtig — “native o f ” . I stood up and walked back into the adminis­
tration building, joined another queue and this time, with my expan­
ded vocabulary, I was accepted.*
Imre’s first year in Prague was passed in a ‘zombie-like daze’ . He
barely understood the lectures, but attended them religiously, some­
how hoping to learn from them anyway. Compared to most of the
students he was very poor. His father could only afford to send him
the most meagre sums every month. But when he did have a little
extra money there was plenty to spend it on. He enjoyed the famous
Prague hams and discovered Pilsner Urquell - the original Pils -
brewed, of course, in the Czech town of Pilsen. For the rest of his life
he persisted in believing it was the finest beer in the world, and
personally imported it into Britain for forty years steadfastly refusing
to try other brands. In Prague, when he had the money, he would
drink it at the Café Central on the street called the Graben. ‘Commer­
cial people, students, brought all the gossip. It was an establishment
where you could get all the important papers from all over the world,
local and foreign. And in every one of them, on every page, it had
been stamped s t o l e n i n t h e c a f é c e n t r a l ! - because people
used to slip the papers from their frames and take them home.’ One of
Imre’s favourite anecdotes concerned a regular patron of this same
café. A wealthy eccentric, the man would always order a bottle of
champagne for himself and his companion. When he had finished the
wine he would lick his chops and start to eat the glass. By the time he
had reached the stem the whole café was looking on and he would
proclaim with a gastronome’s flourish: ‘Ah, now for the best bit!’ and
swallow it whole.
22 I MR E

Prague was one of the music capitals of the world, and Imre could
hear his fill of good quality symphonic music, of which he had been
starved in Timi§oara. At the Narodny Divadlo they sang operas in
Czech only and its chorus was renowned for containing the most
beautiful girls in the city. At the Deutsches Theatre he once queued
for six hours to see a 12-hour Tristan, standing up — ‘and it wasn’t
even any good.’ During his days in Prague Imre saw most of the great
musical figures of the day including Zemlinsky, Szell, Bartók and even
Padarewsky, the legendary Polish pianist and statesman.
Another attraction which benefited from Imre’s meagre patronage
was football. Czechoslovakia was the powerhouse of continental
football in the Twenties and Thirties, flamboyant and often
unpredictable. The national team were folk heroes who regularly
thrashed the Germans and Austrians, and reached the final of the
1920 Olympics (though they were not awarded medals because they
walked off the pitch before the end of the game in protest at the
referee’s bias). Imre said that some of the best football he ever saw
was in the matches between the two great Czech rivals Sparta
Prague and Slavia Prague. Football is a sport of crowds, of mass
support, and perhaps Imre felt that he could belong on the terraces,
cheering for a team about whom he knew as much as any of the
other fans.
Football, music and food made up the Holy Trinity of Imre’s
pastimes. He could talk of each with equal passion, giving a lengthy
exegesis on chicken paprika as easily as on operatic composition or
the national team’s new defence configuration. But it was also in
Prague where he first became truly fixated by what he later described
as ‘my greatest hobby’, the cinema.
At the cinema he could pay one small entrance fee and sit through
the same programme three or four times. They were mainly American
films, with simultaneous subtitles in German and Czech. He liked
Harold Lloyd, Chaplin and Fairbanks, but his favourites were always
Westerns. In Timi§oara he had been unable to go to the cinema as
frequently as he would have liked, but now he made up for it. He had
plenty of opportunity to study the films and fall in love with them. He
met fellow enthusiasts, with whom he discussed the medium and
debated its future.
More often than not, though, Imre and his friends could not afford
to go out at all. Sometimes they spent the whole weekend indoors
playing cards, weirdly complex Hungarian games or poker, which
 T R A VEL LI NG 23

they had learnt from the cinema. The games would be played for
stakes — not money, but dares, which might involve climbing on to
the roof, or persuading a certain girl to bed.
Sexual ¿^counters were frequent, but furtive. There were assigna­
tions in cinemas, parks and lavatories as well as the ongoing affair
with the nanny at the braces manufacturer’s house. There was a side
of Imre that liked to play the Valentino, even if physically he didn’t
quite fit the bill. Central European bravado and ingenuity accounted
for a lot, and Imre continued to exercise them up to the end of his life.
The attitude is easily summarized: any girl not with a man is fair
game, and any girl can be conquered if only the technique is right.
One day soon after the beginning of his first year, Imre received a
mysterious letter from Hungary. The writer, a man called Rona Ede,
a retired cavalry officer, was a friend of his father’s and a wine
merchant who shipped train-loads of fine Hungarian wines to thirsty
Bohemia. The letter stated that he would be in Prague the following
week and as he didn’t speak much German, or any Czech, he wanted
Imre to be his interpreter. Imre wrote back saying that nobody’s
German and Czech could be worse than his own, and that he had
better find a more experienced linguist. Ede did not receive the letter
in time and on arriving in Prague, he sent a telegram to Imre asking
him round to his hotel:
7 called on him feeling somewhat apprehensive, but my fears were
unfounded. He thought that I was an ideal translator for him since, as
he put it, he could “follow everything I saidn, which had not been the
case with his previous interpretors. I doubted that his business con­
nections would be as generous about my shortcomings, but somehow
we made it through the entire week successfully. ’
Before he left, the merchant asked if he could give Imre anything
for his trouble. Imre mumbled that it was quite all right and a
pleasure to have been of help to a friend of his father. But the next
day, quite unexpectedly, a huge oak barrel of the finest Tokaj wine
was delivered to his modest lodgings. From the attic to the basement
of the braces manufacturer’s house ran the rumour that there was to
be a bacchanalian celebration that night at Imre’s expense. But he
wasted no time in disappointing them all, and sold the barrel and its
contents to the wine shop around the corner, netting himself a tidy
sum.
He spent days wandering about, considering what to purchase with
24 I MR E

his windfall. Would he squander it on girls - money was always a

help, even with the best technique. Go to the opera every night for a
fortnight and actually have a seat? Buy records and a phonograph so
he could listen to his favourite composers at home? An impossible
decision. But then one afternoon he sauntered by a secondhand shop
and what he saw in the window ended his procrastination: a film
projector! He bought the machine and with it a few old-fashioned
shorts, of the type he had seen as a boy of eight in Debrecen. They
showed a series of events or everyday occurrences: a man climbing
and falling down a ladder, a conjuring trick, a fat woman walking a
little dog that gets into a fight with a great Dane.
When the summer holidays arrived and Imre made the painfully
long journey home for the first time in nine months, he took the
projector with him, wanting to demonstrate it to his parents. One
Sunday afternoon his father suggested that he show one or two of the
films to the local folk who worked on the estate - ‘shepherds, coach
drivers, farm labourers, who had never seen a film or even heard of
them.’ A group of them turned up in one of the small dusty barns
where he had elected to give the show —without their wives. ‘They
had no idea what to expect and had cautioned their women folk to
stay at home.’ A couple of films were selected, and the audience
settled down with expectation as Emeric began to crank the handle.
The films ran for about ten minutes and then the improvised blinds
were drawn aside and the puzzled group were given a plate of
Gizella’s cakes and a glass of beer. Imre’s father asked them what they
had thought of the spectacle. Did they like the woman in the film?
‘Woman? What woman?’ responded the old herdsman who was
acting as spokesman. It transpired that none of the men had seen
anything recognizable on the screen. They had only been aware of the
projector’s beam and the interesting configurations of light. ‘Their
eyes saw blotches of light, but couldn’t inter-relate them. Brains and
eyes had simply no precedent and had had none of the “ training”
needed to discern recognizable forms in the patterns of light. Their
brains had never before been asked to accept anything so obviously
unreal as representing something in the physical world.’
Imre loved to theorize about this and similar matters. In his opinion
the human mind and perception were enslaved by convention and
education. In the same way, we often hypnotize ourselves into think­
ing that things are true despite the facts; we only see what we want to
see. In The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp the idea is given
 T R AVEL LI NG 25

dramatic form when Blimp sees his ‘ideal woman’ for the second
time. He is in a nunnery and he turns to the mother superior and says:
‘Do you know anything about the Indian rope trick? . . . You only
ever see it if you are expecting to see it first.’
In similar terms Imre could also understand the great revival in
interest in The Archers’ films which took place during the 1970s and
1980s. When films like A Canterbury Tale (1944) (which has a
similar dusty projection-room scene, where the audience is baffled by
the show) or The Tales o f Hoffmann (19 5 1) were first shown, they
were greeted with bemusement. There seemed to be no guiding
thought behind them, only a random pattern of events and images.
But the ‘magic’ in the films could lie dormant for several decades
before an audience that had the cognitive equipment to understand
them was found. At the retrospective of his films at the Museum of
Modern Art in New York in 1980 he spoke about this phenomenon:
Tt happens with modern music as well, older people who adore Bach
and Mozart so much, cannot get used to the new tonalities o f say
Bartók and Stravinsky, and cannot even understand them. There are
generations who will never understand Picasso, who can never
believe that others genuinely find him as great an artist as Rembrandt.
N o w , when we made our Tales of Hoffmann in 1 9 5 1 - and Tm not
suggesting you compare it to all those great artists —we attempted to
blend ballet and opera together on film. Most people thought it was a
hotch-potch, not worth the celluloid it was printed on. N ow , how­
ever, I know several people who think it is our best film. There’s
hardly any story in it, it’s not opera, the ballet is understandable only
in the Olympia Act, but together it means more than opera, ballet and
film singly. When all those journalists asked me, “ What does it mean,
this hotch-potch?” I wish I had said: “ Wait! Wait thirty years! You're
the victim o f the shepherds' syndrom e!" '
Imre’s mind was stimulated by life at the technical college: ‘1 clearly
remember that I started to think for myself in Prague. Previously I had
only thought about problems that were given to me, but real thinking
is when you choose the subject yourself.’ Apart from thinking about
hypnotism, mass hypnosis and conditioning, Imre’s favourite subject,
naturally enough, was the nature of language and the strangeness of
words. ‘1 discovered that some words are like archaeological artefacts,
you brushed off the dust and they yielded information about the
character of an era, or more frequently, the character of an entire
26 I MR E

nation.’ He sat for long hours in the university’s painted medieval

library, flicking through dictionaries.
‘For example, I took the word “earning” . In the English dictionary I
found that the w ord originated in the old German word emte, meaning
“harvest” . Subconsciously, for an English speaker the word conveyed
“you have sown something (your work, your time) and expect to yield
a harvest.” Abundant or not, but still a harvest. But the Germans
themselves don't use the word ernte for “earning” . Erdienen is the
word in German. Dienen means “ to serve ”, you serve and you are paid
for it. Aren't the Germans basically a little subservient? In French the
equivalent is gagner, to win. To win at the roulette table is gagner. And
doesn't that tell us something about the French attitude to earning? In
Hungarian the word is keres. It is also the word for “search ” . Being a
little country with few opportunities, you have to search for them . . . *
A fascination with words for their own sake is almost inevitable for
the exile. Words and meanings become slightly detached from each
other and the meanings seem less secure and definite. Someone who
writes in a foreign tongue endows his adopted language with fresh
nuances of meaning and often breaks through the barren clichés of the
native writer.
In his second year, now that his German had improved, Imre could
follow the lectures and become involved in his studies, not only in
private philosophizing. Unfortunately, neither the German university,
nor its technical colleges exist any more and all records of Imre’s
passing seem to have been destroyed. It is impossible to tell how he
fared in examinations, or what his professors thought of him. What is
certain, however, is that one day in late 19 2 1, he had the opportunity
to exercise his intellectual capacity to the full. The German university
of Prague had been the first to offer Einstein a full professorship in
Physics back in 1 9 1 1 . He had not remained there long, returning to
take up the same post in Zurich, his own alma mater, when it was
offered the following year. When, in 19 2 1 he was awarded the Nobel
prize, Prague was among the innumerable institutions that invited the
diffident theorist to deliver a guest lecture - and it was one of the few
invitations that he accepted, perhaps out of a sense of gratitude. Imre
for ever after spoke of it as the time he almost met Einstein.
7 1 was a tremendous evening. The house was packed and quivering
with expectation. The students were crushed like sardines into the
 T R A VEL LI NG 2-7

body o f the hall and the professors were up on the stage, putting the
finishing touches to the questions they had been preparing for weeks,
but which Einstein had to answer on the spot. Later in the evening the
students 6n the floor were to be allowed the opportunity to ask
questions, but although we had all heard o f relativity, few o f us really
understood it. All the professors* questions were answered promptly
and with great ease by the charming Laureate. Then the event was
opened to the floor. George, my great friend, stuck up his hand and
asked a question. Einstein pondered it, teased it, considered i t . . . for
almost an hour he talked in answer to that question, looking directly
at George (I, o f course, was sitting next to him, and basked in some o f
the reflected glory). They were flying at such rarefied heights that the
normal mind could only gasp with awe. After about an hour, Einstein
broke o ff and turned to the audience, and said: “ This was the most
interesting question o f the evening” ’
The following morning Imre saw his friend, the hero of the night
before, in the street. He ran to congratulate him. George told him that
the excitement had not ceased with Einstein’s compliment. After the
lecture was over the physicist had sent word that he would like
George to be present at the little reception which the university staff
had arranged to honour their ex-colleague. It was an intimate affair,
half a dozen professors and George, held at the house of one of
Einstein’s old friends. ‘And did you talk with him more about
relativity?’ Asked Imre. ‘Oh, no,’ said the other, ‘Einstein got out his
violin and played to us all. You know that man is quite a fiddler!’
George was a legend among the other students, not only as the
recipient of Einstein’s compliment, but also as an inventor in his own
right. His great invention had been a way of obtaining unlimited free
gas to heat freezing student rooms during Prague’s bitter winter. The
gas company eventually paid him a substantial sum to reveal his
secret. It was quite simple. He took a piece of ice, fashioned it into the
right shape and put it into the gas meter instead of a coin. The ice
would melt and the water evaporate leaving no clues of the
misdemeanour for the gasmen to find. ‘I think I witnessed the greatest
days of George’s life,’ said Imre. ‘He ended up as a station master in a
little town near Strasbourg. I once planned to pay him a surprise visit
on my way to the south of France when I was living in Berlin years
later, but the train was running late and didn’t stop at his station.’
Near the end of the second year Imre had one of his last
28 I MRE

conversations with the remarkable George. ‘1 warn you, Pressburger,’

he said, ‘the currency of this country is about to rise so much, and so
suddenly that none of us will be able to afford to stay here another
term.’ Imre responded that the day before, when he had changed some
money, the Romanian lei had, in fact, been rising against the Czech
currency - not much, but a bit. George shook his head —he was the
genius after all, ‘It is like when you want to jump high, you bend down
before you jump.’ He was right. The next term none of the Romanians
could afford to return to Prague.

Back home in Timi§oara, Imre and Reitzer lost no time writing to all
the technical universities in Germany. The regulations had changed
and it was again possible to get a visa. The difficulty now was to be
accepted by one of the colleges; numbers were severely restricted, and
there was a clamp-down on foreign students. By the end of 1923 the
pair had received a rejection from every technical school in the country,
except Stuttgart, which had failed to reply. Grasping at straws, they
decided to travel there, hoping to turn disinterest into acceptance.
Imre’s father sold most of his household possessions and livestock
and bought four crisp new 100-Reichmark notes to finance a whole
year’s study. His mother opened up the lapels of his jacket and sewed
in the notes for safe-keeping. Lying down in the dark train Imre could
hardly sleep for the noise of the rustling bank notes. It seemed
intolerably loud to him, and he imagined that everyone else in the
compartment could hear them too. He convinced himself that there
was a thief among the other passengers (prefiguring the story of Emil
and the Detectives which he was to help bring to the screen eight
years later) and got up to hide the lovely clean notes under the lid of a
rusty old lavatory. In this way both he and his notes arrived safely in
Stuttgart. But within a few weeks the great German inflation had
begun and the value of his jealously guarded money was wiped out
overnight.
In spite of possessing a recommendation from the Ausländsdeut­
schen in Banat which read, ‘Although Herr Pressburger is a Jew he is a
reliable and conscientious student . . . ’, both Imre and Reitzer were
refused admission to the technical college in Stuttgart. They went to the
chief Rabbi who made a religious test-case out of their predicament.
(Later, in One o f Our Aircraft is Missing (19 4 1), Imre chose Stuttgart
as the target for an English bomber. As they drop their load, the crew
discusses the city. One says that he once had a girlfriend from Stuttgart,
 T R AVEL LI NG 19
a nurse who used to sing that popular song, i Kiss Your Little Hand,
Madam’. ‘She wasn’t allowed to sing it in Germany,’ he says, ‘the
composer was a Jew I believe.’)
While awaiting the results of the rabbi’s appeal, the two boys
travelled to Weimar, the spiritual and cultural centre of the German
Republic. The great inflation had just begun when Imre left a deposit
on a new violin with the understanding that he would pay the
outstanding sum at the end of the month. Since inflation was soon
running at several thousand per cent a week, and since the store owner
had agreed a price in writing and could not alter it, the instrument
changed hands for a pittance. Imre began playing the cafés and
arcades, collecting a few coins and several admirers.
Soon he was invited to lead a string quartet and for a couple of
months they had great success, playing at clubs and society functions.
They advertised themselves in the local paper as The Pressburger
Quartet and caused quite a stir. For the first time in his life Imre was
earning a lot of money. Reitzer acted as their manager, and the group
were booked out solidly for months. It seemed that Imre had found his
vocation quite by chance. But the luxurious living was not to last. A
certain section of the population objected that this new virtuoso was
not pure Aryan and boycotted his concerts. The bookings soon
stopped.
In Stuttgart the rabbi had pleaded well and the two young men were
admitted to the technical college, much to the resentment of some of
their contemporaries. Many of the right-wing students were members
of the Burschenschaften, elitist social and political clubs which Imre
later parodied in the café sequence of The Life and Death o f Colonel
Blimp.
The enormous rate of inflation made it hard for anyone to survive in
19 20s Germany, but it was particularly tough on students. Imre was
soon entirely dependent on the generosity of his extended family, his
father having already stripped himself bare buying the now worthless
100-mark notes. Three of the wealthiest uncles, Marco (who manufac­
tured shoes in Subotica), János (the cattle exporter) and Károly (who
had a shop in Budapest selling silk and leather), bought a house
together in Subotica as an investment. Marco’s son József recalls:
‘When I was twelve or thirteen, one of my chores every month was to
collect the rent from this house, take it to the post office and send it to
Imre in Stuttgart. . . the whole family was proud of Imre and wanted to
help him along. We all expected great things from him.’ Middle-class
30 I MR E

Hungarian Jews were enthusiastic about education. The uncles prob­

ably saw their nephew as an investment for their old age.
A life does not happen in narrative: it is the small things, the slight
occurrences, the sights and smells, that make up the patchwork of
real experience. Sometimes in conversation, telling me his fabulous
stories, Imre would slip in a few incongruous, extraneous details,
that told one far more about his life than all the extravagant tales
and bizarre happenings, which formed the core of his storytelling.
Once he mentioned that while he was in Stuttgart he received a
weekly parcel from his mother, in addition to his uncles’ rental
money. It contained some of his favourite home cooking —perhaps
a jar o í foie gras, two or three goose drumsticks, a few cakes, some
dried apricots, and always a little posy of his favourite flowers
from the garden, violets wrapped in greaseproof paper. T h e
drumsticks smelled of violets and the violets of drumsticks.’ He
remembered. Sometimes, there would also be a 20-lei note, living
money during the hard times, but in better times enough for half a
dozen cinema tickets.
When my grandfather died in 1988 my brother and I cleared out
his small country cottage. On his desk, surrounded by piles of
manuscripts and correspondence, there was a scrap of paper on
which he had been scribbling some notes, memories of his life in
Stuttgart sixty-five years before. Perhaps he had some vague idea of
writing an autobiography, or perhaps he just wrote them down
because he had some vague yearning to remember those days to
himself. The notes are not coherent, but they give a flavour of his
life there, almost like title cards on a silent film:
Girls, manners and cardsharpers. Sex. Communicating with
nice girls from opposite windows. The old landlady. Other
girls. In the cinema. The little actress. My cousin Bandi. Better
times. A new room. The Lehmanns. Use, Lili. The Café
Konigsbau with orchestra (later used in Blimp).
Rotebuhlstrasse. The Restaurant. My Albanian colleague.
The waitress’s mistake with Zickenbraten. My uncle Károly
in Bad Nauheim. I get an assignment. Bandi moves into hotel
Marquardt. The Don Kosacken choir in the gardens near
Hochschule . . . Bringing back money in suitcases after weekly
changes in Ludwigshafen. The Albanian’s $10 0 note. The
two boyfriends of the Lehmann girls. I dress up as a girl. The
 TRAV E L L I N G 31

empty new building, I with Use. The sledge ventures every

night and coming down through the streets right home. Up,
on the ridge, you could slide down (away from town) for
miléí, but policemen would wait for you at the end of the
road. Our lovely old professor, who lived up on the ridge.
When we had theodolite practice we could go into his garden
and eat the fruit from his trees. A visit to Berlin. A
tremendous night. Back in Stuttgart. The loveliest girl 1ever
met (Margot?), her father is a saddlemaker. I take her to the
cinema, hold her hand. But never even kiss her. The young
actress who takes revenge on her actor boyfriend by making
love to me. The little cafés. Chess . . .
The major preoccupations are obviously girls and music - not
much has changed since Prague.
A letter from Imre to Magda Róna back in Timi§oara reveals an
energetic and optimistic young man of 23 whose time is occupied by
music and science, not the frivolities of the notes. His imagination is
tangibly active:
11 Feb. 1925 Stuttgart
Dear Magda
Why do you again start your letter by saying, ‘Pm not very
happy’ ? Can you be anything other than happy in the spring?
And why do you finish your few lines by saying that the next
time I shouldn’t write to you as ‘loathsomely’ as I did the last
time? Did I write to you in a loathsome way? Can one —when
the laughing sun is shimmying on the writing paper (where is the
girl who would shimmy and laugh like that?) - can one do
anything else than write a letter? Of course, you can! For
instance, one could take a trip on the p e r g u n t - a beautiful
snow-white luxury liner —on the round-the-world voyage that
starts just now. Among haughty misses and doe-faced Scan­
dinavian ladies I would stare at India, the Azores, the Brazilian
shores. Or I would follow that crazy English colonel, who, with
two partners, is now crawling through the Brazilian jungle to
find those fantastic white Indians who live deep in the forest and
whose culture is magnificent and who have some artificial light
source which we don’t yet know about.
Just imagine how wonderful it would be to spend a few weeks
32 I MR E

among mossy trees whose tendrils touch one another and then
arrive after this adventure, perhaps in the moonlight, and see
among the sparse undergrowth unknown and wondrous things.
Honestly, I would never come back, but would create enormous
publicity to double the guards in the forest so that no civilization
could reach them . . .
I saw Jannings yesterday in person. He came to the première
of his new film, Der Letzte Mann pleasant, smiling benign face,
and the film is absolutely first class.
We have a very good string quartet here. We meet once a
week and play Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Ditters and Haydn
—we enjoy ourselves in such a way as only fools like me (I could
say loathsome) can enjoy themselves.
At the moment I am building a radio for myself and if I sit
among the wires I look like Captain Nemo as he appears in the
illustrations of old Jules Verne books. It will work tomorrow.
The radio station in Stuttgart is the only one in Germany which
transmits from America, and tomorrow evening, in my room, in
front of the window, between the bed and the wardrobe, I will
listen to the Philadelphia Hotel’s jazz band and I shall be quiet.
I send you my greetings,
Your loathsome (you can’t withdraw that!) correspondent,
Imre
p.s. I have almost forgotten to be surprised and say something
about your chances of getting married. I would lose a good
correspondent who, though with reservations, reads the
stupidities that I write. I would be very sorry to lose you, but on
principle 1 do not correspond with young wives. Of course, that
will spur you on to marry as soon as possible!
Beneath the bravado Imre was almost certainly hurt by Magda’s
marital prospects. She had been his first love and he continued to feel
close to her. Much later he wrote to her: ‘I have been in love several
times since then, but never so clearly and so much as at that time.’
During all the years of exile that were to come Magda remained the
one connection with youth. They corresponded almost without pause
until his death in 1988. Magda’s letters are filled with regret. Her
marriage was not a happy one and life in Romania became harder as
the years went by; she died in Timi§oara a few months after Imre, just
one year short of the now notorious slaughter there, that sparked the
 TR AVEL LI NG 33

Romanian revolution and Ceau^escu’s downfall.

Imre’s characteristically curt judgement of Der Letzte Mann (‘The
Last Laugh’) as ‘absolutely first class’ masks what was apparently a
seminal experience. Directed by F. W. Murnau for the German com­
pany Ufa in 1924, Der Letzte Mann was a hugely successful and
influential film. Its major innovation - very substantially the work of
the scriptwriter Carl Mayer, whom Imre was later to know well in
Berlin and in London* - was to tell the entire story without a single
title card. To this end, the cameraman Karl Freunde invented a fluid,
mobile camera style that was profoundly expressive. Together, the
script, the decor, the lighting and the camera create a subjective
reality within the film — reality as seen through the eyes of the
protagonist, somewhat akin to the effect created in The Red Shoes or
Black Narcissus, by The Archers many years later. Michael Powell
later acknowledged his admiration for this film as an attempt at ‘pure
cinema’. Murnau’s cinematic objectives were remarkably similar to
those of Powell and Pressburger. He spoke of film in terms which they
understood:
‘Our whole effort . . . must be bent towards ridding motion pictures
o f all that does not belong to them, o f all that is unnecessary and
trivial and drawn from other sources —all the tricks, gags, “ business ”
not o f the cinema, but o f the stage and written book. That is what has
been accomplished when certain films reached the level o f great art.
That is what I tried to do in The Last Laugh. We must try for more
and more simplicity and devotion to pure motion picture technique
and material.*

In May 1926 Imre’s studies were once more curtailed, this time for
good. At the age of 66 his father died of a heart attack in Rudna while
working in the fields.
Imre was now responsible for his mother and had to find a job as
quickly as possible; the reckless student days were over. Few options
were open to him: his education was incomplete, he spoke no more
than a smattering of Romanian — what was he to do? His uncle
Karoly came to the rescue. He was the wealthiest of the uncles and
barely worked any more, leaving his shop to be run by a manager,

*M ayer died in poverty in London in 19 4 4. Possibly the most influential screenwriter ever,
he had not received a screen credit in over a decade. Out of gratitude and friendship, Imre
had been helping to support him for several years with a regular allowance.
34 I MR E

and spending a good proportion of the year at the fashionable Euro­

pean spas and resorts. Károly’s major heart-ache, however, was his
son Bandi, who had a terrible reputation as a rake, spendthrift and
rascal. Károly had lavished the best of everything on his son, a fine
education, the opportunity to travel, a wonderful wardrobe, but
Bandi did not respond well. On several occasions he ended up in
prison. His most famously foolhardy exploit was to steal a plane from
an aerodrome and fly it to Budapest. He dive-bombed the city for a
while and then landed on the central shopping avenue, sending the
pedestrians running for shelter. On another occasion he stole some
money from his father and hired a Rolls-Royce and two beautiful
prostitutes and turned up at the opera house pretending to be a
Ruritanian prince. The whole family spoke of ‘poor Károly’ and ‘the
rascal Bandi’, and it was acknowledged that one would drive the
other to an early grave. Imre had precisely the opposite reputation
from his cousin. He was perceived as reliable, sensible, intelligent.
What better opportunity, then, for uncle Károly to set his son on the
straight and narrow, than to put him into business in partnership
with the golden boy Imre?
Imre was sent a first-class rail ticket and summoned to Budapest.
He had never been there before (travel restrictions for ‘ Romanian
Hungarians’ had only recently been lifted) and the metropolis he
experienced was one of the most cultured and sophisticated in
Europe. In particular it was a literary city. For such a small country,
Hungary has a strong literary tradition. Literature allowed the Hun­
garians to express their independence and strengthened their sense of
difference. In the early years of the century Budapest had a thriving
journalistic world similar to Britain’s in the age of Addison and
Defoe. There were more journals, reviews and papers, more journal­
ists and essayists than in any other European city. There were also
great novelists: Mikzath, of course, Frigyes Karinthy and Gyula
Krudy; great playwrights - Molnár and Melchior - and poets such as
Sándor Petófi and János Arany. This place must have seemed
immensely inviting to Imre, who had lost his heartland, literary and
otherwise, at such an impressionable age. Here at last was a place
where he understood everything that was going on around him, could
share the jokes, talk with writers, scientists and perhaps even film­
makers, in his own language.
Károly collected his nephew from the station and took him to one
of the city’s most splendid Art Nouveau cafés, the Café New York.
 T R AVEL LI NG 35

Budapest’s cafés were institutions like English clubs. Writers, lawyers

and journalists all used their favourite café as a kind of office-cum-
livingroom-cum-games room. Different cafés attracted different
clienteles,' and people could be comfortably pigeon-holed by the café
they frequented. Károly loved the New York because it was opulent —
suitable for business meetings and consultations with lawyers - yet at
the same time had an artistic, bohemian air, which he appreciated as a
man of leisure. He sat his nephew down in one of the plush chairs and
told him that he was prepared to finance him in any business venture
he wanted to undertake —within reason —if Imre would agree to take
Bandi on as his partner.
It was a generous offer and Imre knew precisely what he wanted to
do: he would become the first person in Romania to manufacture and
sell radios. He had been passionately interested in the new medium
ever since he had built his own set at Stuttgart, drawn it seems by the
same combination of technology and entertainment that would later
attract him to movies.
A workshop and a small retail outlet were rented in the centre of
Timi§oara and the necessary components imported from Germany.
Nobody in the city had seen or heard a radio before and there was a
good deal of curiosity about them. Adolph Aczél recalls that he ran
into his old schoolfriend at a café one afternoon and was invited back
to the shop for a demonstration. Quite a few people had gathered
around and Imre gave a showman’s speech telling them that they
were going to witness an époque-making event. He looked at his
watch and, with a flourish, switched on the radio. As the valves
warmed up the audience heard the sound of bells striking and a voice
which boomed: ‘This is the six o’clock news from the BBC . . . ’ ‘We
were all amazed,’ recalls Aczel. ‘It was as though London was sud­
denly there with us in the room!’
For all the attention it undoubtedly attracted, the venture did not
flourish. Imre was, ultimately, more interested in building and
demonstrating the radios than in selling them, and Bandi was more of
a hindrance than a help, preferring to take girls to the cinema and eat
long lunches, than stand behind the counter. Additionally, the
Romanian authorities disapproved of the endeavour, not only
because it was run by two Hungarian Jews, but because they
imagined the radio to be an ungovernable conduit for ‘unhealthy’
foreign influences. After less than a year the business folded.
To make matters worse, adding to the bitterness of failure, Imre
36 I MR E

was summoned for military service, which he had avoided while away
at university. He went through a week of basic training before he
managed to extricate himself, convincing his superiors that he spoke
too little Romanian to understand orders. He was granted a year’s
leave to learn the language, and returned home to Timi§oara.
He didn’t stay for long. ‘Home was Hungary occupied by Romania
and what sort of home is that?’ He decided to leave for Germany. If
he had to live in a foreign country, to speak a foreign language, it was
better to be there, where at least there were opportunities and he
stood a chance of earning enough money to support his ageing
mother. This time he knew that he was leaving for good. He could
never return to Romania without being charged as a deserter.
 CHAPTER 3

Down and Out in the Tiergarten

In his old age, my grandfather did everything with a kind of slow,

meticulous care that I sometimes found infuriating. If I was staying
overnight we would have to go through the long ritual of making
up the spare bed. The sheets had to be fixed to the bed —not tucked
in —and the ties tied perfectly and neatly. Then out came the quilt
and the quilt cover with twenty or so buttons to be fastened along
the bottom. If I had dared to suggest that I was only staying for one
night, that the quilt would not work its way out of the cover even if
all the buttons were not fastened, he would have looked at me in
sorrow. At the end of each visit, he always gave me £50. He would
reach into his pockets and withdraw a rolled up £5 note, slowly
unroll it, before reaching in for another one - and so on, until he
had handed over all ten crumpled notes.
He did everything like that, as though conducting a delicate
surgical operation, meticulously, deliberately, concentrating on
every little action. Things had to be done just right, and had to be
enjoyed, or they weren’t worth doing at all. It was the same when
he told his stories. They were his way of communicating with a
grandson with whom he had little in common. We would sit there
after lunch, he would look at me with his big, watery eyes and offer
me - perhaps aged fourteen - my choice between a fine French
marc or an armagnac, before the anecdotes started to flow with
relish. The best ones, and the ones he told most frequently, were
about the period of time he spent in Germany as a penniless down
and out, before he got his first job in films. They must have been
the hardest times he ever had, but they were also the ones he
remembered most vividly. Those were the truly formative years.
Always, when he told these stories, he would say: ‘ It sounds
terrible, doesn’t it? But really it wasn’t so bad to actually
experience.’
So many times I heard those stories, I remember them almost
word for word. In setting them down here, I hope that I have
retained some of his conversational tone, though, of course, I
38 I MR E

cannot hope to reproduce the gentle deliberateness of his voice or

that most Hungarian of accents, the idiosyncrasies which bring
him most clearly to mind.
What was there for me in Romania? I was burying myself there. I
decided to go to Berlin, my German was good, and it seemed sensible
that if you wanted to make a go of it in a foreign country you should
go to its capital. 1 packed up my books and a few other possessions,
bought a railway ticket, and bade farewell to my mother.
The journey took forever. We waited a whole day in Vienna.
Germany had changed since my last visit, things were terribly expen­
sive, and everything looked run-down. I left my books in the left
luggage and that was the last I saw of them: I could never afford to
get them out again. Every day the cost mounted and my meagre
supply of money dwindled. I found a cheap boarding house in a
Gartenhaus run by a Czech woman and her daughter. One of the
other guests came to sleep with me on the first night, a very nice girl.
The landlady made a terrible fuss and told me that I was lowering the
tone of the establishment. I told her that it wasn’t my fault, the girl
had come to me. She looked me up and down and said, ‘Impossible.’
Within a few days it became obvious that I was not going to be able
to pay my rent. I gave two weeks’ notice and the landlady once more
became terribly upset, saying that I ought to give four weeks’ notice
and that I was only acting out of spite. She didn’t believe me when 1
said 1 wouldn’t be able to pay after a month. 1 felt very depressed
about the whole situation —in Berlin with no money and no prospect
of a job, and an abrasive landlady to boot. The only positive aspect of
those days was a bittersweet encounter with a lovely girl who lived on
the opposite corner. I waited outside her door for hours; she came out
several times to walk the dog but I never had the courage to talk to
her.
When the fortnight was up I left the room, with the landlady’s
protestations ringing in my ears. I didn’t know where I was going to
sleep and the landlady had kept all my belongings as some kind of
ransom. My few remaining possessions were stuffed into a bulging
attaché case. I think there was a spare shirt and a lot of useless junk.
For a period I was absolutely miserable and slept on park benches and
shop doorways. M y only income came from a few translations that I
did for a fellow Hungarian called Ujhelyi Nandor. I suppose that
earned a mark or two.
 D O W N A N D O U T IN T H E T I E R G A RT E N 39

After some time my cousin Bandi turned up, doubtless on the run
from the Hungarian law after some escapade. Of course, he could
afford a room. Once or twice he allowed me to sleep on his floor. This
was a^frightful ordeal: 1 had to be quiet as a mouse for fear of
arousing the suspicions of his landlady, and hid in the cupboard in the
morning when she brought Bandi his coffee and toast.
I was often very hungry in those days and used to stand outside the
most expensive restaurants and cafés looking at the food, dreaming of
a time when 1 would be rich enough to go into one of those places and
eat as much as I wanted. I spent my time mainly in the park, the
Tiergarten, where I met some very interesting characters. There was a
chap who could whistle double tones, and there was Treffer, a man
with a very sweet smile who had sent his war decorations to Mrs
Roosevelt in exchange for an entry permit to the USA. Unfortunately
she sent them back saying that she had no right to help him. Treffer
was a passionate ballroom dancer and I was a passionate watcher of
pretty girls. So, as often as we could afford we went to the Palais am
Zoo to hear an Italian big band with a very good clarinettist, and to
dance. Although I know how to dance I have never really mastered it,
and modern dancing is something beyond my abilities. I am also
terribly shy and I find it unbearably uncomfortable to ask a girl to
dance. However, I always admired the snooty, well made-up crea­
tures who wouldn’t even deign to talk to me. Still, to be a foreigner in
those days was a great thing with the girls. To read a foreign news­
paper in a Berlin café had almost as much cachet as to own a car.
One day I heard of an Austro-Hungarian charity organization
which maintained a refuge, a home for ex-citizens of the ex­
monarchy, somewhere on the Friedrichstrasse. Such information cir­
culated among us tramps now and again, some of it proved to be
accurate, some inaccurate. On this particular occasion the informa­
tion was accurate. The board of directors of the organization met
regularly in a flat on the Budapesterstrasse, so there I went. I was
received by a young secretary, a Hungarian student called Imre
Revesz. He was a pleasant fellow and told me to sit and wait until the
members of the board, particularly one illustrious banker, had
arrived. I sat watching waiters carrying large trays covered in sand­
wiches and other delicacies through the ante-room where I waited. I
was, of course, very hungry, and I remember again that desperate
longing to gorge myself on food, to quell my appetite - the appetite of
several hungry wolves. At last the important banker arrived and he
4o I MR E

was informed of my case and I was ushered into the plush offices. I
can’t remember what I was asked and what I told them, but they
seemed to be rather impressed. 1 must have told them that I played the
violin but that I had no instrument at that time, for a few days later I
was informed by Revesz that the organization was going to buy me a
violin.
They also provided more immediate help. I was given a chit which
allowed me to have a bed in the Friedrichstrasse home for a whole
week. Nobody enquired how 1 was going to get there, although it was
some two miles away, even if you walked through the park. I had
about 30 pfennigs (enough for a single bus fare), but not wanting to
spend good money on such luxury I set out to walk there. It must
have been 8.30 when I found it. I rang the bell and a retired Prussian
sergeant (at least he looked like one) opened the door. When I told
him that I had come for a bed he bawled me out with his regulations
which laid down that no lodger was allowed to enter later than
8.00 p.m. and that I should return with my chit in the morning. He
slammed the door in my face. 1 was blind with anger. I kicked the
door and hammered against it as hard as I could (which wasn’t very
hard), but there was no reply. Now was the time to spend my 30
pfennigs. I went to the nearby station and from there telephoned the
association. I got through to Revesz and he called the president, who
couldn’t believe his ears. He told me to go right back to the home and
by the time 1 got there he would have spoken to the sergeant. I did as
instructed and this time I was admitted, though one does not need a
rich imagination to guess the kind of reception I received. But the
main thing for me was that 1 was admitted.
I was shown to a room where eight beds stood, seven of them were
already occupied. My neighbour was a Hungarian and he started to
tell me why the association did as it did. Apparently many
poverty-stricken Hungarians seeking handouts used to lay seige to the
homes of their well-to-do ex-compatriots, whose names and
addresses could be bought for cash from those who had already
harvested the crop. The association was a necessary self-defence. My
companion himself had just come from Paris where, he said, there
was a mounting hatred of Hungarians due to one Graf Festetich who,
replete with misplaced patriotism and unable to find a way of actually
helping his own country, had decided to ruin the French economy by
flooding the country with counterfeit francs. Ridiculous stuff, but
serious enough for France to expel all Hungarians who were not vital
 D O W N A N D O U T IN T H E T I E R G A RT E N 41

to the economy. Of course the poor and helpless were kicked out first.
1 drifted off to a warm and comfortable sleep but in the early hours
of the morning I was woken by a scraping sound coming from my
neighbour’s bed. I asked what he was doing. In whispers he told me
that he was scraping his violin clean. Some Frenchman, in search of
revenge, had shat on it and the poor Hungarian had felt embarrassed
to clean it in front of the others.
Towards the end of the week I received my violin and some
splendid news: the director of the association himself had found me a
job. And what a job it was! From the following day onwards I would
play as a holiday substitute in the Capitol cinema orchestra under
Schmidt-Gentner! The Capitol was one of the most elegant cinemas in
the west end of Berlin. It was famed throughout the country for its
orchestra of about forty musicians. And I was to be one of them!
The following morning I arrived at the cinema and introduced
myself to the shrewd conductor, who nodded but said nothing and
watched the leader of the orchestra show me to my place. Now, I
happened to be quite a good violinist, I had played in my home
town’s symphony orchestra, had formed my own quartet during my
student days, in both Prague and Stuttgart, and I had been quite a
success in Weimar. However, I had had no violin for about three
years and he who calls himself a violinist and has not played the
instrument for three years must either be a megalomaniac or just
plain crazy. I had said nothing of this when they gave me the violin, it
would have been crazy to put such a good job in jeopardy. I thought,
I’ll get permission to stay at home for a few days to recondition
myself by practising. Although I had these noble intentions I never
had the opportunity of carrying them out. The accompaniment to
silent films in a large cinema had become inordinately complex. The
score we were to play had been cobbled together by the conductor
from innumerable bits of existing scores according to well-known
markings. Well-known to the others, not to me. I got into trouble
during the rehearsals on that account and because of this the conduc­
tor began to listen to me playing. Then, quite suddenly he stopped the
whole orchestra and said, ‘You! New boy! Alone!’ At that moment
and for a long time afterwards I thought of how cruel it was of him to
show me off in front of the whole orchestra, but of course, he was
right. His job was to produce a good orchestra and a fine sound. I
played my little piece atrociously and was dismissed on the spot.
I went straight to the Budapesterstrasse to tell of my failure and
42 I MR E

hand back my violin. I tried to explain but had the impression that no
one understood. 1 saw on their faces as they looked at each other an
expression which said: What did I tell you? That’ll teach you to trust
these chaps, vagabonds the lot of them.
I was allowed to stay on at the home for another week and then it
was back to the streets. Still, I said to myself, you had almost a
fortnight with a bed and those large hunks of bread with margarine
and, after all, spring is only a few months away. On top of this,
miracle of miracles, I had 12 marks in my pocket, the day’s pay for
my inglorious performance at the Capitol. With this I could have a
tiny cabin at the Salvation Army in their huge dormitory, and when
my fortune had sunk to a couple of marks I could sleep on a rope.
‘Sleeping on a rope’ was a service offered by second-class pubs after
they had closed to normal customers for the night. You sat in a row of
chairs in front of which a rope had been strung, so that you could lean
on the rope and support your head while sleeping. Sleeping on the
rope had its climax in the morning when the time came to be rid of us
sleepers. The cleaner, or the publican himself, came and cut the rope
and we fell forwards, dazed, angry and helpless, to the onlookers’
mirth. Strangely, there were always onlookers, probably they too had
to pay for the pleasure of the entertainment. 1 didn’t really mind that
though. It was the Salvation Army lot that I detested. I disliked their
holy talk, their charity-minded bearing. I often pleaded with them to
let me stay overnight when I had nothing, or not quite enough, for a
bed, but they were pitiless. They chased away anyone who did not
possess the few coins necessary. I have never forgiven them.
On the coldest nights it was unbearably uncomfortable to sleep in
the station, let alone on a park bench. On one particularly bitter night I
hatched a desperate plan. I knew of a synagogue (the famous one on
Fasanenstrasse), which had, in the courtyard of the main building, a
small prayer hall where the few who never missed the early morning
prayers could assemble. Above it there was a library with a reading
room attached which closed at 10 p.m. - later than any other reading
room in town - and it was well heated: an ideal place to sleep. All I had
to do was to hide until the man whose job it was to lock the place up
had left, then I could descend to the reading room and stretch out on
one of the padded benches and sleep while the central heating blazed all
night. To make my plan foolproof I would rise at about 7.30, join the
praying few downstairs, and leave the premises when they did.
At about five minutes to closing time 1 left the reading room and,
 D O W N A N D O U T IN T H E T I E R G A R T E N 43

softly as a thief, hid in one of the lavatory cabins. There I sat in the
dark and waited. It didn’t take long, perhaps half an hour, before the
guard came. There were four cabins, I sat in the third, I could see the
light oix his "flashlight, he opened one cabin, then another, then he
stopped. 1 knew (as I knew when Bandi’s landlady stood in front of
the cupboard, with me inside) that he felt something was wrong, but
he didn’t care to, or didn’t dare to, open the next door and find out
what it was. He went away. When I heard him locking the door
below 1 walked into the reading room and looked out of the large
windows which faced on to the railway tracks that ran into the
Zoologischer Garten station. Then I chose a bench and lay down to
enjoy the warmth and cleanliness of the place.
I slept in fits. I had no watch but didn’t worry, the famous Geda-
chtniskirche was only 200 yards away and you could hear the clock
strike every quarter of an hour. I heard the quarter, the half, the three
quarters, but each time when the hour was struck a train thundered
into or out of the station below. I began to worry; I couldn’t go down
before the service had started; nor could I afford to miss the service
and it only lasted about fifteen minutes. I started to listen to every
noise that came from below. At a Jewish service the faithful chant
their prayers aloud and 1 hoped to catch a phrase of this chant. I lay
down on the floor and strained my ears. I couldn’t hear a thing.
Whenever the clock struck outside I ran to the window opened it,
only to find that the station noise was too great and completely
drowned out the chimes. 1 began to despair. It was dark outside at
7.30 in the winter and so 1 had no clue at all as to what the time was.
Then, as though my prayers had been answered, I heard clearly from
below the congregation’s chanting. No train came to drown it, I
didn’t have to stick my ear to the floor, it came as clear as day. I
opened the door and still heard the chanting. I quickly descended the
stairs. But in the prayer hall there were only two people, they couldn’t
have been chanting. The service couldn’t have started: a Jewish
service needs at least twelve people, to form a quorum. The two
greeted me with smiles - now there were three, only nine more to
come. The heavenly chorus that had brought me downstairs was
surely a miracle!
Now, in those days I was somewhat accustomed to miracles. For
instance, one day, in the early morning, I was at a brand new post
office on the Lietzenburgerstrasse. I watched a well-dressed lady buy
some stamps, and saw that somehow she let all the change, several
44 I MR E

marks, fall on the stone floor. I shall never forget the sight of those
coins rolling along the floor in every direction and the exciting metal­
lic noise they made as they hit the cold stone; but apart from myself,
nobody in the post office seemed to have heard or seen anything.
When the lady left 1 got down on the floor and picked up every single
coin and nobody even questioned me, not even my own conscience.
One day Treffer, my good friend from the Tiergarten, told me his
great secret. He was a secret author. He gave me his collected —
handwritten - works and I read them all. I was appalled, he really had
no talent and no idea. I was certain that, although 1 had never tried, I
could write far superior material. The idea grew on me and I decided
to become a writer. I wrote furiously and everywhere: in stations, on
park benches and, mainly, in post offices. In warm post offices I wrote
on the back of telegram forms and sent my handwritten efforts to
newspapers and magazines. I gave my address Poste Restante and
started keeping files (in my already stuffed attaché case) of all my
short stories. Within a few months 1 knew that the Vossische Zeitung
took 23 days to read and send back my stuff, the Berliner lllustrierte
four weeks, the Munchener a few days less, the Frankfurter Zeitung
only two weeks. In all those months only one of my stories got lost
and was not returned to me, and even this one turned up eventually; I
had sent the B.Z. am Mittag two stories and, true to form, after 20
days 1 received the usual printed slip which said: ‘We regret that we
cannot make use of your two short stories entitled, “ Die Strasse” and
“ Auf Reisen” , and we are sending them back to you together with our
thanks.’ When I saw that only one of the stories had in fact been
returned I wasn’t even angry. 1 had plenty of time and I started the
following morning to copy the story out again. By lunch time, or
rather, the time when other people had their lunches, I had another
copy, probably better than the one the paper had lost.
And so it was that, at the end of March, the biggest miracle of all
occurred. That particular March was much better than most; the
snow had melted and occasionally a pale sun warmed our limbs. 1
knew of a nice little café - the Café Am Knee - where, for 20 pfennigs
one could get a glass of hot milk. In German cafés, according to
ancient custom, a glass of water was served with each order, and
sugar lay on the table, free for anybody and in unrestricted quantities.
Every customer like myself knew that if you ordered a glass of hot
milk you could fill it up to the brim with so many lumps of sugar that
the whole thing became solid, you could eat it with your spoon, and it
 D O W N A N D O U T IN T H E T I E R G A RT E N 45

represented the best value for 2.0 pfennigs that you could get any­
where. Of course, sitting in the pale sun just outside the café with a
copy of the first edition of the evening paper - the B.Z. am Mittag —
which^alscr cost 20 pfennigs, was not a proposition to be sneezed at
either. Still, the mental picture of that pulpy, sugary, hot milk won the
day. I went inside, gave my order, loaded the glass with lumps of
sugar and sat back to enjoy my surroundings, happy to do nothing
but scoop a spoonful of that heavenly stuff into my mouth from time
to time.
Perhaps half an hour later a newspaper vendor came in and some
people bought papers. It sometimes happened that customers
(millionaires, no doubt) bought the midday paper, ran through it in
no time and went, leaving the 20 pfennigs’ worth of newspaper on the
table. You had to keep a lookout and grab it before the waitress got
her hands on it. A man sat at the next table, bought a paper, glanced
at the headlines and turned the page. I was contemplating whether he
was one of those types who didn’t take his paper with him, when I
glanced at the page he was now reading. There - my heart stopped
still —there, was my short story, ‘Auf Reisen’, printed in the paper.
M y name after the title and words — my words! — in column after
column. I had to close my eyes, I couldn’t bear the blinding aura of it!
Immediately, I dashed out of the café and hurried towards the
Ullstein building, where the paper had its offices, to tell one of the
cashiers the wonderful news and ask for my honorarium. The cashier
began to tell me that they always paid a few days after printing, then
he stopped and looked at me, realizing that I was a somewhat out of
the ordinary case. He told me to sit down and went off in search of his
superior. I did not sit down, wanting to create a good impression: my
trousers were worn so thin at the knees that you could see straight
through them when I sat down, though standing they appeared quite
all right. When the cashier returned he brought with him 80 marks, in
crisp new notes. Never before and never since have I earned that
much. And this was the story they printed:

B Z am Mittag, 28 March 1928.

a u f r e i s e n (Travelling)

At that time a village stood on the site of this town, the mail
coach was running instead of the fast train and my grandfather
46 I MR E

was travelling instead of me. A young lady and an old man were
sitting opposite him. The man was snoring, drawing deep heavy
breaths. A signet ring glittered on one of his fat fingers. The lady
was reading poetry. Grandfather did not take his eyes off them;
he wanted to fix this image of them in his head, an image which
seemed of little significance, but which for him was to become
the beginning of a veritable adventure. Such an image could be
elaborated upon, embroidered with fantasy and then dreamed
of. At least until the next coach station. Suddenly a tear fell on
to the book. There was no mistake: the beautiful lady was
crying. The man next to her was still snoring, the wheels were
rolling joyfully along the road, the sun was shining, and grand­
father still had a long way to go before becoming grandfather.
He leant forwards and asked her quietly if she was not feeling
well. The lady did not answer, but simply took out a handker­
chief. Trembling, she clumsily wiped her nose with it and
released a stifled sob, a tiny sluice into the ocean.
‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ Had grandfather had two
lives he would gladly have sacrificed one of them for her. At last
she raised her eyes and, in a scarcely audible whisper, she said,
‘I’m so unhappy.’
The horses’ hooves thundered over a wooden bridge and the
first house of a village appeared. The coach would be stopping
in a few minutes.
‘Come with me,’ grandfather begged her. ‘We could leave the
coach without being noticed.’
She said neither yes nor no, but the two of them got out in
front of the post office building. The other carriage, which was
travelling north, was ready to go and soon its wheels were
rolling for a second time over the little bridge.
The old man with the signet ring was travelling in the carriage
going south. He began to snore again, even louder this time, so
that the two students who got in at the next station had to wake
him. The first one asked, ‘Did we disturb your sleep?’
‘Heavens!’ The old man rubbed his eyes, ‘where’s the young
lady?’
The students roared with laughter and looked under the
bench.
‘My, you did sleep well!’ said one of them. ‘There’s nothing
better than a good dream,’ said the other.
 D O W N A ND O U T IN T H E T I E R G A R T E N 47

The old man cursed, flung open the door, leapt from the
carriage and found himself standing in the middle of a dusty
street in a place he didn’t know, a cloud of dust behind him and
in frontof him the village which is now the town towards which
I am heading today.

The telegraph poles were hurtling by outside and the young

woman to whom I was telling this story looked at me
enquiringly, while the fast train hurried rhythmically across the
plain.
‘So what happened in the end? What became of the runaways
and the poor old husband?’
‘Nothing special. The lady became my grandmother.’
‘And the husband?’
‘But my dear, he was her father. The young girl was a
sentimental thing.’
The woman laughed. ‘So this will be the first time that you
have visited that town?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What time do we arrive there?’
‘In about half an hour.’
‘Aren’t you frightened that something similar might happen
to you?’
‘My dear, unfortunately the circumstances today are entirely
different. Your companion is not asleep and you are not reading
poetry.’
‘But my husband is in the restaurant car,’ she smiled.
‘. .. and these days one doesn’t read much poetry.’ I finished
off the sentence and then kissed her on the lips, and then again,
as if to make a colon. Outside it was getting dark.
‘How quickly it gets dark in the summer,’ I said, ‘and how
long your husband is away.’
She looked at me whimsically. ‘The train will be stopping
soon, history could repeat itself.’
‘I doubt that, my dear. These days we may well travel faster
but we act more slowly.’
She did not look the least bit angry. ‘So that our story will
have an ending,’ she said, ‘I’ve lied to you about having a
husband. He’s my lover.’
‘I thought so. Women deceive their husbands much more
48 I MR E

readily. We’ve been travelling together for the whole day and
you didn’t so much as look at me before 1 began telling my
story.’
‘ Your grandfather’s story,’ she corrected me.
‘No, no, it’s really my own story. A well tried and tested
story.’ The brakes were bearing down upon the wheels and I
lifted my suitcase from the rack.
‘And what about the town?’ she asked.
‘ I tell this story about every town.’
‘What a strange person you are!’ She laughed. ‘When you get
back to Berlin you must give me a ring.’
I told her that I would take down her phone number immedi­
ately, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t want to alert my wife to my
travelling adventures.
I can’t remember now what I did with my new-found wealth. I
probably bought a paper and went to a restaurant, but I certainly
looked at some ‘To Let’ ads that very afternoon, since the same
evening 1 took a room, in Helensee. The flat belonged to a taxi driver
and looked out on to a Gartenhaus. From my room 1 could see, every
night, a pretty girl doing gymnastics in the nude in the house
opposite. But she had young men with motor cars as her boyfriends,
and I could not compete with that. I was allowed to use the bathroom
and spent long hours in it after my landlord and landlady had gone to
bed, as if I wished to bathe off all the dirt I had assembled over the
past year and a half. She was a dear soul, the landlady, very fat and
very jolly, a typical Berliner. She could (and would) roast wonderful
belly of pork for me when I bought a piece, and she would pull my leg
about my love life, while her husband, who had the solemn bearing
and lofty air of discontent of taxi drivers everywhere, looked on
disapprovingly.
The day after my story was published I decided to call on the
editor-in-chief of the B Z am Mittagy to introduce myself to him and
thank him personally. His secretary persuaded me that it was the
literary editor whom I ought to visit and directed me to his office. The
literary editor was called Norbert Falk and he had red hair that
looked like a wig. He received me kindly and listened curiously when
I told him that I had just come to introduce myself to him formally.
He watched me, obviously thinking that he had never met a young
fool quite so foolish as this one. Then he said, ‘Instead of coming
here, wasting my time and yours, you should have sent some more
 D O W N A ND O U T IN T H E T I E R G A RT E N 49

stories.’ I opened my grimy old attaché case and spread out my

collected works. From time to time he printed them and I got tremen­
dous amounts of money (or so it seemed to me), not quite 80 marks,
but not much less. Certainly, I became one of those very few young
writers who could make a living on what they wrote.
For some time afterwards 1 continued to write short stories, but
really my heart was lost to films, and had been for a long time. Talkies
had just started (The Singing Fool had begun its run in Berlin), so I
decided to start an offensive against the script department at Ufa, the
best known of the German production companies, and the biggest in
Europe. I sent them what I thought, in my innocence, was a
wonderful film story. It would be wrong to say ‘then I waited and
waited’ - I had no time for that. I wrote and wrote, furiously. I sat in
parks - the weather slid slowly into spring - I had got so used to
working in parks that I could do more work there than anywhere else.
I only paused in my scriptwriting to give thought to the theory of film;
I was a pensive young man in those days. There were few books to
learn theory from and anyway I couldn’t afford to buy them, so I
concluded I would have to tackle the subject on my own. I often came
to conclusions like that: when I had no crossword puzzles to solve, I
always found making them just as amusing as solving them. I finished
the first chapter of my theory of film, called it ‘The Subject’, and
decided that I would see what the experts thought of it. I copied it out
in a neat longhand and sent it to the trade journal of the German­
speaking film world, Film-Kurier. In my accompanying letter I said
nothing about who I was, I simply stated that I had the intention of
writing a series of articles on every aspect of film-making, this being
the first part - the others would be on ‘Writing a film script’ , ‘Acting’
and ‘Directing’. I asked whether they would be interested in printing
them. A week later I received a reply. Certainly, they wrote, they
would be very interested and wanted the remaining articles by return
post. So, there was nothing else to do but to write them. They were
printed too, in four parts, just as I wrote them.* And that, apart from
my day in the Capitol cinema orchestra, was my first contact with the
world of film - as an expert in acting, film-writing, editing and
producing, who had never seen a script, met an actor, or set foot in a
studio.

*The first of these articles appeared on 2 November 19 2 9 , and the second three weeks later.
The final two do not seem to have been published.
50 I MR E

The occasional short stories in the paper were a great help, but they
were a most irregular income. I would sell two in one month and then
not sell anything at all the next. When I couldn’t pay my rent and felt
I was cheating my nice taxi driver and his jolly wife, 1 felt ashamed
and came home late so that I wouldn’t meet them, taking a bath in
silence, hanging a rag from the taps so that they wouldn’t make any
noise when they dripped, like a thief who binds cloth to his feet when
stealing about the house. I got into the habit of frequenting a fashion­
able café on the Kurfürstendamm, sitting on the terrace and writing
and writing. I think I suffered from over-concentration when working
and needed something to draw part of the intensity of concentration
from my work. I watched people coming and going quite oblivious to
them, always writing more and more. The few people I met in the
café, the regulars, soon became used to my hypnotic state, and didn’t
attempt to disturb me when I was working. 1 remember a painter
called Scheurmann who had a studio higher up the Kurfürstendamm,
with a pleasant wife and a pretty daughter of about seventeen. One
afternoon the painter’s wife arrived at the café without her husband
or daughter. 1 saw her coming and noticed her distractedly. She took
off her coat, laid it aside, and then suddenly screamed and started to
bash at me with her newspaper. Fortunately her husband arrived and
he, together with the blows and the general merriment, brought me
out of my trance. It transpired that when she had sat down and taken
off her coat she suddenly realized she was clad in nothing but her
underwear! People had gasped, and she had directed all her embar­
rassed fury at me for not warning her immediately when she began
removing her coat. I swore to her that I hadn’t noticed anything was
wrong - certainly nothing so extraordinary. This made her even more
furious.
The Scheurmanns were lovely people, artists as they are described
in books, and 1 was soon forgiven my inobservance. I was really quite
fond of them and for some reason they adored me. They frequently
invited me to their studio, to eat my fill and talk about the world. The
daughter, I believe, fell in love with me, but I was quite oblivious to
this - for I too had fallen in love, but with another girl. She was one of
the great loves of my life and her name was Traute.
I met her through Lord Klein, a man who represented to us
worldliness, elegance and ease, and who was a commercial traveller.
When I say ‘us’ I mean a small group of young Hungarians who, it
seemed, never had anything to do and sat about all day in the cafés of
 D O W N A N D O U T IN T H E T I E R G A R T E N 51

Berlin. One afternoon Lord Klein told me that he had just returned
from Czechoslovakia (a former Hungarian territory), where he could
travel about without restrictions, which ordinary ex-Hungarian citi­
zens co*ild ñot. He spoke the language and had been doing excellent
business. During the trip he had visited the town of Zilina for the first
time, and had taken a room in the main hotel. On arriving in his room
he had phoned reception and told the lovely red-headed telephonist
that he was having some trouble with his phone and needed her
immediate assistance. She came, he kissed her, and a few minutes
later they were in bed, both forgetting the telephone. Some time later
she opened her pretty eyes, looked at the ceiling and, half to herself
and half to the Lord she said, ‘It’s very strange this; the majority of
guests treat me like a lady - rightly so - but when a Hungarian arrives
in the hotel, after the shortest possible time, he somehow contrives,
under a web of deceit, to trick me into his room and before I can say
“ knife” , I’m in his bed. How do you explain it?’ Lord Klein remained
silent for a moment, weighing up the pros and cons of betraying his
countrymen. Finally, he couldn’t resist the temptation. He confessed
(thus debunking the origins of a legend), ‘In the men’s lavatory,
scribbled on the wall in Hungarian, it says: The red-headed telephon­
ist can’t resist making love.’
I have never forgotten this story - not because it is an unforgettable
story - but because at that moment I saw the most lovely girl arrive in
the café. Lord Klein rose, and telling me he had an appointment with
her, left me. I watched her as they greeted each other and the memory
has stuck in my mind: she wore a full, dark taffeta skirt, a white silk
blouse and a heavy, tight black leather belt over her tiny waist. She
and Lord Klein seemed so worldly together, as though they belonged
to a different race from common people like myself. They sat down at
a table some distance away and I saw the Lord make a remark about
me to her and she glanced over at me and smiled. A few minutes later
the Lord paid his bill and they rose. She smiled at me again without
provocation and her companion, being behind her, could not see it.
He touched her on the arm and then strode over to me. ‘I have a
business appointment,’ he explained, ‘I wonder if Traute could sit
with you for a bit?’ 1 stammered something, got up and followed him
over to where she stood. The Lord introduced us and winked at me,
‘Don’t get impatient, it might take some time,’ he whispered. I
assured him that I had plenty of patience.
We sat down together and started to talk, about what, I can’t
5Z I MR E

remember, but the most significant part of the afternoon was that
Lord Klein never returned, and when Traute and I eventually parted 1
had her telephone number. I would have phoned her that very
evening, but even if 1 had scraped together the few coins necessary for
the phone call I could never have afforded to take her out. So I waited
for better times.
About this time I received a note from Revesz at the ex-Hungarians
association, saying that he had found a job for me. It was with a
Hungarian building contractor who managed about a dozen apart­
ment houses for their foreign owners. I was required to look after the
accounts, collect the rent, deal with complaints and relieve him of his
troublesome tenants. I had never had anything to do with house
management, and until quite recently 1 had had no experience of
renting a room either, but he said I only had to write into a ledger
when a tenant sent in his rent and write threatening letters to those
who failed to do so. He assured me there was nothing to it. But, of
course, there was. During the great German inflation several
foreigners bought up a lot of property in Berlin at dirt cheap rates.
After the currency had been stabilized the government and tenants,
quite understandably, began to turn their attention to these
properties: special taxes were introduced, tenants demanded repairs
to be carried out by the absentee landlords (whose sole aim was to
squeeze as much profit as possible out of their properties); the atmos­
phere between owners, authorities and tenants got worse and worse
and in a couple of years most of the houses had been resold. How­
ever, when I became a ‘house agent’s clerk’, this sort of business still
existed and was in its most sordid death throes. Everything about it
was corrupt, and I was constantly being offered bribes by crooked
builders, or getting into squabbles over the rent.
I sat in an office with a young female secretary called Fräulein
Dahne; in the next room two young Hungarian civil engineers
worked, one called Antos and the other with a name I forget. Any­
way, Antos was the more interesting of the two; a young man whose
great hobby and passion happened to be railway timetables. One
could ask him, ‘Antos, how would 1 get from Berlin to Shanghai by
rail?’, and he would say, ‘Which day of the week would you start?’
He knew that some trains were not running on certain days and when
you told him your proposed day of travel he would start belching out
information like a computer. He knew everything; you could even
choose cheaper trains if you had not sufficient means for the direct
 D O W N A N D O U T IN T H E T I E R G A RT E N 53

connections, and he was always up to date. He was also a magnificent

mathematician, and I would love to know what he ended up doing
with his life.
When my father died in 1926 my mother had gone to live with
childhood friends in Hungary. But she always longed to be with me,
to look after me, not realizing that children grow up and are better off
not being looked after. However, I was longing to make her happy,
and as soon as I had saved a little money, 1 sent her the fare and took
a little furnished flat in the Anspacherstrasse (just around the corner
from the department store in Tauentzienstrasse) in one of those Berlin
specialities, the Gartenhaus. Here we lived together and I told her
about Traute. She listened to me somewhat frightened. I could read in
her eyes what she was thinking: I have just found him only to lose him
to someone called Traute, whom I had never even heard of until a few
days ago.
As my financial position improved I saw Traute often. I learnt that
her parents owned a bakery shop and she often sat at the cash desk,
but I gathered she found this a little degrading. I took her out once to
a dancing place, but I could never master the intricacies of the tango,
or the foxtrot. The tango tune ‘1 Kiss Your Little Hand, Madam’ was
new then and everybody sang it. In one of these dance places we met
Lord Klein. He was with one of his innumerable young ladies and we
chatted most amiably, thus sealing the peace between us (which had
never really been broken), the Lord never mentioning the right of
conquest.
One Sunday Traute and I went on a picnic. We took a train
travelling, I think, due north, got off at a small station and walked.
Traute suddenly looked like a very young girl. She wore glasses and a
tweed skirt with a thick pullover. She brought sandwiches, two
thermos flasks (one with hot coffee, the other with cold tea laced with
rum) and pastries from her parents’ shop. I brought a rug and plenty
of good spirits. We found a lake, walked along the bank, running
about like schoolchildren, ate everything, lay in the soft grass, rolled
into the rug making love again and again, arm around arm, legs
around legs. The day drifted into evening: 1 had never before been so
in love. As we sat in the train again her head fell on my shoulders, her
light brown hair brushing my face. I didn’t dare move, thinking she
had fallen asleep. Then I heard her whispering something so softly I
couldn’t quite catch it. Again she murmured something, moving
closer to me and now I caught what she said: ‘ I’m going to die.’ She
54 I MR E

turned her head slowly so that I could see her face. Her lips were
smiling, but her eyes were swimming in tears.
One evening Traute came to visit us for dinner so that she could
meet my mother. Anxious to like her, and anxious to please me,
mother cooked dinner (she was a wonderful cook) while 1 surveyed
the place with a critical eye, covering up darned patches in the
tablecloth with cruets and an ashtray, moving the chairs to cover a
stain in the carpet and saying a quick prayer that the two women in
my life would like one another as much as I liked them. They didn’t
converse much, since my mother spoke poor German and because she
wanted me to be alone with Traute; she spent most of the evening in
the kitchen. I told Traute that mother always worried about her
cooking, never about the quality - she was like all true artists,
absolutely confident about that - but as regards quantity. If the food
was all gobbled up, she was convinced there hadn’t been enough; if
the guests left something over she was still worried it had not been
enough. After dinner I took Traute home and then sat with my
mother on her bed, holding her hand. She said little, just squeezed my
hand as though she felt she were losing me.
The following day Traute had no time to see me. Her mother was
ill, she said, and so she had to look after the shop. But when I phoned
her about lunchtime, her mother answered the phone and told me
that Traute was not in and had gone out for a while. I spoke to her the
next evening and she sounded gay, singing bits of a popular song
down the phone, teasing me, telling me not to be so serious all the
time, so impatient, so tense - one ought to be light-hearted, live for
the day, she said, don’t always try and plan into the distant future. I
never saw her again.
At first I thought she had been surprised by our poverty, now I’m
convinced it was because, as she said on the train, she was sure she
was going to die. 1 used to lie in wait in the dead of night, standing in
doorways from which I could see her flat above the bakery. Watching
the chimney smoking, observing men in white carrying freshly baked
bread into and out of the shop, 1 lurked there until a taxi arrived, with
her inside it, always very late, sometimes after three in the morning,
always with a man who kissed her goodbye, rarely the same man
twice. I would walk back to my tiny flat with a poisoned heart, angry,
jealous and helpless. Once 1 recognized Lord Klein bringing her
home. I phoned him that very night; he was a little across at being
woken up. He told me that Traute knew that I waited in doorways for
 D O W N A N D O U T IN T H E T I E R G A RT E N 55

her return at night. He said that he wanted to talk to me about her. I

said I would come straight over, but he persuaded me that the next day
would do.
I liecLat the office, saying that I had to pay a visit to a troublesome
tenant. Lord Klein came late, he had a very difficult middle-aged virgin
to look after: she was very rich and wanted to marry him, but that
wasn’t what he wanted at all. Then, at last, the conversation turned to
Traute. ‘I have nothing to do with her,’ he insisted. ‘She is very sick -
tuberculosis. I hope you’ve never kissed her on the mouth, have you?’ I
told him that I had and that I didn’t care, 1 would even like to kiss her
again. He tried to persuade me to go to a doctor at once, but I wouldn’t
hear of such nonsense. He told me that she never kissed anyone on the
lips any more, perhaps on the cheek. Klein then tried to change the
subject, he said he would introduce me to a very nice girl, the brooding
sort, just how I liked them. I told him I only liked Traute. He told me
that I would soon forget her, time would heal, so why not help it along?
I felt sick and had to go to the lavatory where I vomited for half an
hour. I tried telephoning her frequently after that, but she never
answered the phone and instructed her mother to say she was not in
when I called.
Now, I would like to think that she did not want to take any risks on
my behalf, that she didn’t trust herself to resist the temptation when she
was with me —but really I don’t know why she left me in the cold. Some
time later, when I had my first success in films, I called her again, with a
tremendous yearning to share my good fortune with her. I spoke to her
mother, who cried as she told me that Traute was staying in a
sanitorium, not far from Berlin. I asked for the address, but she said her
daughter refused to have visitors. She promised to take some flowers
from me and tell me about Traute’s progress if I telephoned from time
to time. When, a few months later, I bought my first car, longing to
show it to her, I phoned her mother once more, determined to worm
the address out of her. She told me the name of the cemetery: Traute
had died the week before.
But all that was in the future. Four weeks to the day after sending my
first story to Ufa, I decided to call at the film company’s head office in
the Kochstasse, to enquire about its fate. Ufa had a large Dramaturge
department with about eight employees who did nothing but sift and
read and send back manuscripts. They didn’t keep me long, and a
rather luscious-looking lady of about 28 or 29 came to ask me what I
wanted. I told her about my story and she asked me how long ago I had
56 I MR E

sent it. ‘Exactly four weeks ago,’ I said. She shook her head, ‘It takes
four weeks for them to read and send the stuff back.’ ‘Don’t you ever
keep anything?’ 1 asked. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Occasionally we keep
one, the odd one, for a week or two longer, but - and I’ve been here
over four years - we get an average of 80 manuscripts every week and
Ufa has never bought a single one of them.’ She smiled, I sighed and
said, ‘I’ll call again in a fortnight.’ She assured me that by that time
the manuscript was sure to have surfaced, she would look for it
personally, and it was highly improbable that their foolproof filing
system could go wrong in any way.
I did as I was told and returned a fortnight later. Frau Lulky (that
was the luscious lady’s name) was in a fluster. She had indeed found
my manuscript, it turned out that one of the readers had passed it on
to a dramaturge and he had handed it (miracle of miracles!) to the
chief of the department, Fritz Podehl. Perhaps I would be good
enough to contact him in a week or two? I promised I would.
Herr Podehl was a splendid man, genuinely anxious to do a good
job and be a true friend to writers. He fought for them and for their
work, supporting them when they were ground up in the huge mills of
the organization. He liked me, I believe, and I certainly took to him at
once. He explained, with a total lack of condescension, how produc­
tion worked at Ufa. There were six production units, each with a
leader, and they chose and developed about twelve subjects a year
from each of which about half were actually made. It was the Drama­
turgie department which found subjects, wrote treatments, doctored
scripts, and made contact with writers, before handing the material
on to the production units. Herr Podehl said that he had liked my
story and had circulated it among some of the production heads, but
he couldn’t generate a lasting interest in it. I immediately opened my
battered attaché case and handed him another treatment. A fortnight
later he contacted me again to say that he liked this one too but that,
again, the production chiefs had been lukewarm. When a third story
met the same fate I was again summoned to Podehl’s office. He
admitted that he was a little worried by the situation: ‘ You have
brought me three decent stories, I encouraged you, and yet you
haven’t earned a thing from us yet. So, if you want to do it, take a
look at this book. If you like it, write me a short film treatment. That
would be a commission, of course. I can pay 200 marks.’ I took the
book from him and left the office, trying not to appear too eager,
although I knew, and he probably did as well, that it wasn’t a case of
 D O W N A ND O U T IN T H E T I E R G A RT E N 57

liking it, or even reading it —I would do it.

When I had completed my assignment, 1 took the treatment to
Podehl and he seemed pleased with it. But I don’t think he ever
imagined if would get made into a film. It was one of those dud
properties which every film company has which are given out to
young writers just to let them practise and earn a little money. My
mother couldn’t believe her eyes when I showed her that handful of
crisp, new, io-mark notes, and she shook her head in awe and
disbelief when I said, ‘Mother, I’m going to leave my job as a house
agent’s clerk, I’m going to be an author.’ ‘Don’t rush it, darling,’ she
pleaded. ‘Don’t throw away a good job, a lasting job . . . ’ But I had
already made up my mind.
The next time I went to see Herr Podehl he told me that he had still
had no luck with my stories. However, a new young director working
in Bruno Duday’s production group, had been very interested in one
of them called ‘Mondnacht’ (‘A Moonlit Night’), a romantic trifle
about the effect of the moon over the lives of ordinary Berlin folk:
One should not think that the moon only sets the huge ocean in
motion. It also stirs up the smallest droplets, causes them to foam and
crash against each other as it whips up the waves. Under the influence
of the moon people become irritable, women seem more attractive
than usual, and small events take on the significance of fateful omens.
The sea of feelings rises ever higher. This is when people say, 'It is
time for the high tide to come in.'
Playing on this moonlit night are:
The banker, Maidoerfer, who was waiting for his latest lover;
His chauffeur Mr Hedeman, who wanted to go out with his friend
today;
Whose sister is the maid of Maidoerfer's who lost the 50-mark note.
Miss Kranich is one of the banker's former lovers and she should have
received the note,
Which her brother, Mr Kranich, found.
Mr Finder, a labourer, arranged to go out with the chauffeur and
Miss Finder is his elegant sister and the banker's newest lover.
A full Moon also plays,
And the Night, And the Spring, And the City,
And the Uncertainty, which hangs in the air.
58 I MR E

That was the introduction. Anyway, Podehl wanted me to go and

see this new director who had been under contract for months but
who had not yet found a subject which he found sympathetic. I
found the director in his office, quite depressed. His first film had
been an avant-garde success called, Menschen am Sonntag (‘People
on Sunday’), a short, silent documentary-style film about the
ordinary adventures of four ordinary working-class Berliners. Ufa
had hired him on the strength of it and now he couldn’t find any­
thing to follow it up with. Did I have any ideas? I told him that I
did, and rushed straight home.
Of course, I hadn’t had any ideas when I was in his office but by
the time I arrived home I had the whole story mapped out in my
head. I stayed up all night typing and retyping and first thing in the
morning I went to see the director. I waited in his office as he read
the treatment, and when he had finished he looked at me and said,
‘This is my next film.’ I was overjoyed, stunned, speechless. In his
autobiography Robert Siodmak, for that was the director, says that I
started to cry. I don’t remember that, but it is quite possible.
To write the script I was given a collaborator by Herr Podehl, a
wonderful lady called Irma von Cube, an experienced writer who
would teach me how to write in the proper style. One of the first
things she asked me was what 1 wanted to call myself on screen;
Ufa, a nationalist company, encouraged foreign employees to adopt
German names. I told her that I would become Emmerich, the Ger­
man equivalent of Imre. The name stuck and soon even my old
friends started to call me Emmerich.
The company paid for Frau von Cube and 1 to travel first class -
Ufa employees always travelled first class - to the south of France to
write it. 1 still remember the excitement 1 felt, looking out of the
window waiting to catch sight of my first palm tree. And when I saw
it 1 knew that the hardest period of my life was over.
The film was called Abschied (‘Farewell’ ) and was set in a board­
ing house of the type I knew well. It was about ordinary Berliners
and the tragic misunderstanding which splits up two lovers. The
great invention in it, and what Siodmak particularly loved, was that
it was a film that took place in real time. It was a two-hour film and
concerned itself with two hours in the life of the boarding house.
The critics loved it. Audiences shunned it. But on the strength of it
1 was employed by the mighty edifice of Ufa, as ‘Lektor und Drama­
turg’. 1 was given my own little office, and on my first day there I
 D O W N A N D O U T IN T H E T I E R G A RT E N 59

bought a camera - being an Ufa employee you got terrific discounts at

the camera shops - and photographed myself at work. And that was
how I got started in films.
PART II

Emmerich
 CHAPTER 4

Ufa and the Weimar Movie Brats

/■ "
There is an unjustified suspicion of the younger generation and that
is an enormous, perhaps the worst mistake. After all, the future
of German films lies in their hands . . . pay
attention to the younger generation of screen writers!
e m m e r i c h p r e s s b u r g e r , Film-Kurier, 2 November 1929

Robert Siodmak was one of the first generation of what we now call
‘movie brats’. He didn’t come from business or from the theatre, but
had been brought up on movies, and had no intention of working in
any other medium. His film education came from working as a hack
editor for poverty row distribution houses. His brother Curt remem­
bers that Robert would be given old Harry Piel films to re-cut into new
ones. Piel always used the same actors, and so Robert could cannibalize
ten old films to create perhaps six new ones, restructuring and invent­
ing new story lines out of the second-hand scenes. This was fabulous
training for an aspiring director: learning how to manipulate your
existing footage - whatever it might be - into an entertainment story.
But Robert was desperate to get behind the camera himself and
started casting around for a project. It was Kurt — renowned as an
‘ideas man’ —who came up with a subject: to make a documentary-
style film about five ordinary people and what they do on an ordinary
Berlin Sunday. He also thought of the title: Menschen am Sonntag
(‘People on Sunday’). Robert immediately began looking around for
finance and organizing a crew. The Siodmaks had a major advantage
over the average first-time film-maker in that their uncle, Seymour
Nebenzal, was one of Europe’s most successful independent pro­
ducers —his company, Nero Films, produced for Fritz Lang and G. W.
Pabst, among others. Robert tried to persuade his uncle that he would
deliver Nero a complete feature film for the even then ridiculous sum
of 5000 Reich marks (the average film cost somewhere in the region
of 200,000 RM ). Uncle Seymour smiled indulgently at his nephew,
but he was no easy touch, and gave him 50 marks ‘to start with’.
Undaunted, Robert somehow managed to film for two or three days
64 EMMERICH

with this pittance. And when Nebenzal saw the results he was so
impressed that he agreed to finance the rest of the project.
Arguably, no more talented a crew has ever worked together on a
single film. Without exception, every member went on to win inter­
national acclaim and recognition in their own right. Billi (soon Billy)
Wilder scripted some of the sequences, although much of the action
was improvised. The cameraman was Eugen Schüfftan, who later
shot many of the classics of pre-war French cinema and won an
‘Oscar’ for The Hustler. (Schüfftan had previously been a special
effects man on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and had invented a celebrated
trick shot that was used to create that film’s gigantic city using the
reflections of tiny miniatures.) Schüfftan’s assistant was Fred Zin­
nemann, who admits that he ‘did little more than carry the camera’.
And finally, the co-director was Edgar Ulmer, later darling of the
Cahiers critics for his prolific exploitation movies.
The film took advantage of real locations such as the Zoo Banhof,
the beach at Wannsee and the Romanisches Café, a favourite hangout
for film people. The ‘vérité’ aspect was embodied by the cast, all of
whom were amateurs and actually worked at the jobs which their
characters were assigned in the film, and went back to them after
shooting was completed. The story was a simple romantic adventure
that captured a sense of everyday life and people in the Weimar
capital. The spontaneity of the rough documentary style must have
been so attractive and refreshing at a time when fairytale costume
extravaganzas and coy operettas were glutting the market.
Menschen am Sonntag was a small-scale surprise hit. ‘It was a tiny
little picture,’ recalled Billy Wilder, ‘but for some reason it caught the
public’s imagination.’ Nebenzal got a wonderful return on his mini­
mal investment, and Siodmak was critically lauded and tagged a
‘young avant-gardist’ by the film press. Major producers were stun­
ned that material so realistic could find any audience at all. It wasn’t
long before Siodmak was offered a contract by the giant film combine
Ufa to repeat his success, this time on a munificent salary, and
incorporating the revolution that was sweeping the industry: sound.
In 1930 Ufa (Universal Film AG) was by far the largest and most
powerful film company in Europe. Its recently revamped studios were
second to none, and it held the patent to the important Klang-Film
sound system that would assure it a future in the age of the talkies.
The studio compound at Neubabelsberg was composed of 43 separ­
ate buildings and covered an area of 450,000 metres. At any one time
 UFA AND T H E W E I M A R M O V I E BRATS 65

the company employed 5000 people, including 500 working full time
building sets for the four new giant sound stages. It was an operation
on a truly monumental scale.
Ufa -had been founded at the tail end of the First World War as a
propaganda machine for the German Ministry of War. When hos­
tilities ceased it was sold on to private and corporate investors, but
forever retained an image as the official state film company —an image
that would solidify into a sinister reality after the ascent of Hitler. In
the twenties its influence grew rapidly, controlling as it did both
production and distribution facilities, and owning a hundred prestige
cinemas in key sites throughout the country. Its true heyday was in the
early and mid-twenties when Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau produced
their great films for Ufa: Die Niebelungen, Spione, Metropolis, Dr
Mabuse, Der Letzte Mann, Nosferatu - the films now associated with
the golden age of German cinema.
The unstable economic climate of the times provided a boom period
for the German film industry. The effect of massive inflation on
exchange rates meant that an ordinary film could make back its entire
production cost in a country as small as Switzerland. Erich Pommer,
the man behind the expressionist masterpiece Das Kabinett des Dr
Caligari, was appointed head of production at Ufa and initiated many
of the dazzlingly grandiose projects of the time, including Metropolis
and Lubitsch’s huge costume epics. In the mid to late twenties, when
inflation finally stabilized, many production and distribution com­
panies went bankrupt; exports were no longer the virtual licence to
print money they had been. At first, Ufa viewed the collapse in the
market in a positive light. It gave the combine an opportunity to snap
up, at bargain basement prices, many smaller companies, and thus
strengthen its dominance of the industry. However, it soon became
apparent that the mighty edifice of Ufa itself was overreaching.
Ironically, it was the vast expense of Lang’s anti-totalitarian Metro­
polis that nearly bankrupted the company and precipitated its take­
over by the arch-reactionary anti-Semite, Alfred Hugenberg, in 1927.
By rescuing the flagship of Germany’s precious film industry from what
was seen as the avaricious clutches of the American-Jewish capitalist
conspiracy, Hugenberg — president of the ultra-right Deutsch­
Nationale Volkspartei — earned himself the title, Der Retter — The
Saviour.
In the late 1920s Hugenberg’s cost-cutting measures and conserva­
tive policies, together with America’s desire to buy up any German
66 EMMERICH

talent it could lay its hands on, meant that although Ufa continued to
make more films than anyone else in Europe (and the German indus­
try was relatively healthy - 1 5 1 of the 305 films shown in Germany in
19 30 were ‘home-grown’, a far better proportion than Britain, for
example, could claim), they no longer had the big box-office names to
count on. Lang and Pabst moved to Nebenzal at Nero Films. Lubit-
sch, Murnau and others took up lucrative contracts in Hollywood, as
did many stars, including Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt and Lilian
Harvey. Ufa desperately needed to discover a new crop of film talent.
Robert Siodmak was one of the first names on their shopping list.
But now that he was installed at Ufa, Siodmak faced a crisis
common enough among artists who have had a great success with
their first work. What should his second film be like? How could it
live up to the first? Siodmak spent several tortured months looking
for that elusive subject. (Billy Wilder had severed his association with
the director: ‘ Robert Siodmak and I did not get on very well. 1 was
very suspicious of him. He was a very good director - but not the
most trustworthy of persons.’ ) So Emmerich Pressburger’s outline for
Abschied was the answer to his prayers.
Abschied (portentously subtitled So Sind die Menschen —Thus Are
Men) probably appealed to Siodmak because it was, to a degree at
least, a continuation of the realist, socially conscious Neue Sachlich­
keit (New Objectivity) style he had explored in Menschen am Sonn­
tag, but simultaneously contained enough that was new and daring to
maintain his reputation as a brash and brilliant experimenter.
The film explicitly conforms to the three classical unities: the action
takes place over 1 hour 15 minutes (the actual length of the film), it
concerns itself with a single main story (the break-up of a love affair),
and the camera never leaves the confines of the Pension Splendide in
which the characters live. Emmerich, of course, had experienced
boarding houses and their inmates first hand, but the Pension is
altogether a typical part of the bohemian Weimar scene. At the same
time as Emmerich was writing Abschied Christopher Isherwood, then
working as an English teacher, was making notes for Goodbye to
Berlin, a substantial part of which is also set in a boarding house.
The Pension Splendide is a rather worn and tatty establishment
decorated with bizarre wallpaper and an assortment of lumpy furni­
ture. The landlady, the plump and cheery Frau Weber, is past caring
about the state of her domain and just smiles at everyone, except her
nervous housemaid, Lena, at whom she screeches frequently. The
 UFA AND T H E W E I M A R M O V I E BRATS 67

tenants are an eccentric bunch: Herr Bogdanoff, the White Russian;

an unemployed pianist who spends his day dreamily fantasizing at the
piano and helpfully providing the background score to the film; a
businessman who never has any business, and who needs a pair of
patent leather shoes; the Lennox sisters - who aren’t sisters at all, and
very probably aren’t the cabaret performers they claim to be — and
who constantly fret about their vanishing sex appeal; and the Baron,
a strange figure, half-guest, half-employee, who says he is a painter
and cadges cigarettes off the lodgers and is happy to earn a bit of
money by running errands.
At the centre of the film are the two young lovers, Peter and Hella.
He is a travelling vacuum cleaner salesman, she is a sales assistant in a
department store. They are desperate to marry but don’t have the
money — a very unromantic situation. Peter has just been offered a
good position in Dresden and doesn’t know whether to take it; he
doesn’t want to leave Hella. When he eventually tells her she gets
angry because he has kept the news from her for so long. Her sulks
lead Peter to suspect - totally without justification - that she is having
an affair with another man. When he discovers that she has borrowed
money from Bogdanoff, he takes this as proof that she is being
unfaithful: he leaves before Hella returns to show him the new dress
she has bought with the money. The Baron, a petty thief, finds Peter’s
gold ring - a present from Hella - and pockets it.
Hella returns in her new dress and finds that Peter has gone. The
Baron — trying to make a kind gesture - gives her the ring. She
interprets this to mean that the engagement is off, and bursts into
tears as the rest of the lodgers gather round and try to comfort her.
lllustrierter Film-Kurier summed up: ‘A very small, silly mistake - the
absence of an open discussion, has torn two people apart. They are
not at all bad, just thoughtless, superficial and a bit “ knocked off
balance” by life, like the Pension Splendide. Thus the little bit of
happiness wanders off - farewell - perhaps for the rest of life - who
can know for certain?’
The cast was young and inexperienced, apart from the M ax Rein­
hardt regular Vladimir Sokoloff (the Baron) —and without exception
turned in convincing performances. It was the first film of the
seventeen-year-old Brigitte Homey (Hella) who went on to be one of
the great figures of German cinema, and also of the young Czech
Aribert Mog who later caused controversy as Hedy Lamarr’s lover in
Extase (1933).
68 EMMERICH

Siodmak was assigned Productionsgruppenleiter (production

group leader — more or less a producer) Bruno Duday, a retired
cavalry officer and a new recruit to films himself. An arrogant,
hard-drinking man, Duday was exceptionally tall, and enjoyed the
fact that everyone had to look upwards when they spoke to him.
Abschied had been allowed a modest budget of 80,000 marks by the
board of directors. The filming began at the Neubabelsberg studios,
in the suburbs of Berlin, at the end of July 19 30 and was finished in
ten days - in time to release the actors for the new theatre season.
They worked with extraordinary enthusiasm from eight in the morn­
ing until twelve at night. Emmerich was present all the time on the set,
learning about the filming process and on hand in case script revisions
were necessary.
There was a minor disaster on the final day of shooting. The crucial
love scene between Hella and Peter, the only tender moment in the
film, was ruined by the labs, and there was no money to reshoot and
pay the actors for an extra day. Emmerich came up with the idea of
just filming a corner of the room, which includes an ashtray with a
smouldering cigarette in it, and laying the soundtrack of the two
lovers —much of the time silent —over the top. Eugen Schiifftan was
again the cameraman (he and Emmerich were to build up a close
rapport, working together on numerous films over the next few years)
and surpassed himself in endowing a poignant romance to the scene
in which the camera explores the room and follows the tapering
cigarette smoke, as the lovers discuss their future. He attains an
atmosphere bettered only in his masterpiece Marcel Carne’s Quai des
Brumes, eight years later. One critic at the time called it: ‘the most
beautiful love scene which yet exists on screen’ .
Considering that it was among the first batch of sound films to be
made in Germany (Melodie des Herzens, the first Ufa sound film, had
been released only six months earlier, in December 1929), the use of
sound to create a realistic and cohesive backdrop to the action is
impressive. Bootz - who plays the unemployed pianist - was in fact
the composer of the music and the music, and all other sound effects,
were recorded directly on set. The repeated banging on doors, start­
ing and stopping of the vacuum cleaner, the ringing of the door bell
and phone and Frau Weber’s piercing cry, ‘ l e n a ! L e n a ! ’ are a major
contribution to the realistic style of the film: a documentary atmos­
phere created entirely by artifice, as opposed to the real documentary
technique used in Menschen am Sonntag. Lotte Eisner, the renowned
 UFA AND T H E W E I M A R M O V I E BRATS 69

German film historian, and a severe critic of what she has termed the
‘mawkish perfection of the Ufa style’, singled out Abschied as one of
the few sound films which experimented with sound yet lived up to
the standárds of the German silent film.
Perhaps predictably, the film was not a great popular success. The
public had been willing to embrace the realism of Menschen am
Sonntag, laced as it was with a whimsical, light-hearted sense of
romance, but it could not stomach the heart-rending failure of Peter’s
and Hella’s relationship. Nevertheless, Abschied was given an extrav­
agant première at the Ufa Theatre, Kurfürstendamm on 2.5 August,
and the critical response was enthusiastic. The Variety man opened
his review in the typical upbeat jargon of the day: ‘This talker is a
very good technical achievement of the young avant-garde man
Robert Siodmak, an artistic step in the development of talker possi­
bilities.’ He marvelled that the film had only cost $15,0 0 0 and been
produced in such a short time. Of the actors he says, ‘apart from
Sokoloff, all the others are beginners . . . the ensemble is of an
astonishingly high level’ . Overall he thought the scriptwriters had
captured ‘the tone of Dostoyevsky’s short stories or Daumier’s
drawings’.
Hans Feld, editor of Film-Kurier, praised the imaginative use of
sound and the script, saying of Siodmak, ‘Silent Film made him
known, Talkies will make him great’. ‘The best sound film since Sous
les Toits de ParisV opined Wolfgang Petzet in Kunstwart. Emmerich
himself wrote a piece on the film for Licht-Bild-Biihne, in which he
termed Abschied, ‘the first milieu sound-film’, and defended the seem­
ingly mundane subject and the use of sound effects to create a realistic
ambience.
There is a final twist to the tale of Abschied. In 1 93 1 Ufa re­
released it with a tacked-on happy ending, which neither Siodmak
nor Pressburger knew anything about. In it three of the inhabitants of
the boarding house meet some time later in a café. One of them tells
the others how Peter and Helia are now happily married in Dresden
and have a clutch of children. Ufa’s attempt at sweetening the bitter
pill did not, however, pay off and the film found as little popular
success in its altered state as it had in the original.
On the strength of the innovation of Abschied, Emmerich joined
Siodmak on Ufa’s shopping list of young talent. Ufa was structured
very differently from any other film company, either in Germany or
abroad. Most major decisions were taken by a board of directors, not
70 EMMERICH

a single individual as in America, and the entire company was divided

into sections: Production, Distribution, Cinemas, Patents etc. Produc­
tion was headed by Ernst Hugo Correll, who was a member of the
board of directors. The production section was in turn divided into
six groups, each headed by a Productionsgruppenleiter —Erich Pom­
mer headed one, Giinther von Stapenhorst, Bruno Duday and Alfred
Zeisler (an American) others. Each Productionsgruppenleiter had
virtually complete control over the projects he wished to film and the
crew and actors he wished to use. There were no contract directors,
actors or major technicians, but each producer hired on a freelance
basis and issued personal - not company - contracts. The same went
for writers. There were no staff writers as there were at Paramount or
Warner’s or any of the major Hollywood studios, no rows of offices
filled with clicking typewriters, busy five days a week, nine to five.
Every screenplay was sold as a one-off.
Walter Reisch, perhaps the most prolific of all German script­
writers (he went to Britain in the Thirties and then settled in
America), spoke amusingly about his method of selling an idea to a
producer. He would approach them in the canteen at Ufa and say, off
the top of his head, ‘I’ve got a great idea for a spy picture.’ The
producer - his face full of food - would say, ‘I don’t want a spy
picture, I’ve got to find something for Renate Müller’ (one of the most
glamorous female stars). Without batting an eyelid Reisch would say,
‘What a coincidence! I just finished doing something that would suit
her down to the ground!’ The producer would become excited, and
wipe the food off his face, ‘ Really?!’ Reisch would then invent the
beginnings of a plot, saying, ‘1 won’t tell you any more than that -
you’ve got to read it.’ If the producer said he would read it, Reisch
would rush home and start writing.
Instead of having to live the precarious, though often extremely
lucrative life of the freelance writer, Emmerich accepted a post in the
small Dramaturgie department and was given his own little office at
the company’s city office on Krausenstrasse. It paid 400 marks a
month and was secure, and security was what he needed now that his
mother was living with him. There is no real equivalent for the
Dramaturgie department in the English-speaking film world. Perhaps
the closest position is that of the script editor, or head of the script
department at a major studio. The Dramaturgie department liaised
between the literary and production ends of film-making. The
Dramaturge was an expert on film structure and the technicalities of
 UFA A ND T H E W E I M A R M O V I E BRATS 71

screen writing. He collaborated with the scriptwriters and kept his

eyes open for film ideas and new talent, working closely with the
directors and Productionsgruppenleiters to decide which scripts were
to be filmed and how. The Dramaturge was always on hand to alter
and rearrange a scene or the entire script. It was a small department
headed by Fritz Podehl and Robert Liebmann (who wrote many of
the greatest hits of the early German sound period for Erich Pommer).
Carl Mayer, the author of Der Letzte Mann —the film Emmerich had
written to Magda so enthusiastically about from Stuttgart - also
worked in the department.
An inexperienced young film-maker could not have hoped for a
better place to learn his craft. Ufa placed special emphasis on training.
Young writers and directors were offered courses in art direction,
camera and editing. Emmerich certainly took the course in editing,
and ever afterwards affirmed that he thought editing, the final struc­
turing of the film, merely a continuation of the writer’s work. For a
few weeks he worked as an assistant to Herr Professor Nick, a White
Russian who sang out of tune all the time as he worked. Another
student remembered the professor’s favourite saying: ‘There is one
golden rule - cut it out. What is not in the film cannot flop.’
Emmerich received credit as a co-editor on at least one film, a comedy
starring the ‘Danish Laurel and Hardy’ Pat und Patachon.
The other great advantage of working in the Dramaturgic depart­
ment was that Emmerich met all his fellow screenwriters. They passed
through his office all day and gathered round him at lunch in the
canteen to hear the latest ‘insider’ gossip about the kind of material
the various Productionsgruppenleiter were looking for. He was a
popular but somewhat shy figure, as Billy Wilder remembers: he was
not an assertive guy - as opposed to me - he was really quite
withdrawn. But when you got him talking he was one of these
wonderfully interesting people, with so many stories. I thought the
world of him.
Being employed as a Dramaturge did not prevent Emmerich from
working on his own stories and scripts. Altogether he received credit
for nine films apart from Abschied during his two and a quarter years
at Ufa, although he later said that none of them was as truly his film
as that first: ‘I would say that Abschied was the only film really worth
mentioning. 1 know some of the films on which I collaborated, but
they were not my films. You know, I was enjoying myself - growing.
If your life changes suddenly to such an extent as my life changed
72. EMMERICH

then, you are . . . you enjoy life. That is something that will never
come again. The following year 1 bought my first car, and I remember
it was a Mercedes, a sporty Mercedes. 1 used to drive to the studio at
Neubabelsberg —7 kilometres - as though it were a race track ..
As fate would have it, Abscbied is one of only two films made by
Emmerich under Ufa’s employ which is extant (the other is A Ven
Gazember - the Hungarian version of a bilingual film made in 1 93 2).
Although he could later be dismissive about his Ufa work,
Emmerich always acknowledged that it was a great learning experi­
ence: collaborating with the best directors, actors and technicians in
Germany. Doubtless the finished products, if they existed, would for
the most part, be examples of the ‘mawkish Ufa style’ Lotte Eisner
deplored. The Ufa films of the sound period have been critically
lambasted and excluded from the canon of ‘serious’ German cinema
because they are mainly comedies and operettas of the flimsiest
nature, and do not have the chiaroscuro lighting effects which Eisner
and others find the most emotive and profound aspect of the expres­
sionist and social-realist German cinema. But the films were certainly
successful in their day, and were influential on the Hollywood cinema
of the Thirties and Forties, if for no other reason than that many of
the actors, directors and producers who made them ended up in
America after the rise of Hitler.
It was some eight months before Emmerich’s second screenplay
Das Ekel (The Scoundrel), went into production. But in the meantime
he was not idle. He produced reams of treatments, including one for
the famous actor Hans Albers and a couple with Irma von Cube.
Several of these were bought by Ufa, but none was produced.
One of Emmerich’s notebooks from the period survives and illus­
trates in precise form the kind of material he was working on. Jotted
down between addresses, lists of debts and train times are literally
hundreds of half-formed story ideas and observations:
The Stranger - about a clairvoyant who knows everything
beforehand.
Radio broadcasters must sit together when the official pro­
gramme has ended . . .
Titles: ‘Girls to fall in love with’, ‘The woman without a man’.
Comfort for Henriette.
Gymnasium film.
Image: Pot on the edge of table, fly flies off - the pot falls down.
 UFA AND T H E W E I M A R M O V I E BRATS 73

A pessimist who goes into a hotel with 20M and dreams that a
glass of water costs 10DM .
Mass murderer.
A bank director seems to commit suicide, yet goes on living and
sees people who were close to him.
Albers film: the detective has come from London to solve a
mysterious case. They set a woman on him who appears to be
his helper, but actually isn’t.
Language-learning by gramophone. One has to hear it 10 times
- man doesn’t buy it - goes into ten different shops on 10 days
and listens to it.
Someone has two sons. Asks the hand in marriage of a girl for
son A. But son A is already engaged - man is not put out, says he
wanted girl for son B.
Film of an amateur cyclist who becomes the 6-day champion.
Detective story about a false prophet (fanatic).
Film about a famous magician.
Project: how to create people.
Story of a short love affair. A girl comes to the man’s house for
the first time. She realizes that he wears reading glasses. He
slowly becomes horrible to her and she leaves.
A 1Capone/Diamond. Two gangs against each other.
Title: ‘Frost in M ay’
Mecca Pilgrimage film.
The man who always tells jokes for once wants to tell serious
stories.
Someone claims to have found the square root of a circle
(impossible?) but the prize for the solution is not for another
three days. In three days time he has forgotten it.
Someone goes to the theatre director - he has discovered a
particular chair in the theatre in which people always laugh.
Beginning of a film: a statue makes funny movements —as the
camera pulls back we see it is a child who is causing them.
Das Ekel was again made by the Duday production group. The
screenplay was based on a popular, but rather old-fashioned farce by
Reimann and Impekoven, which had attracted Emmerich’s interest
because of its sporting background, and the satire on middle-class
Germany. The story concerns a typically German petit-bourgeois
official, Adalbert Bulcke, overseer of a Berlin market place, who
74 EMMERICH

objects strongly to the plans (proposed by the energetic young Quitt,

who has become engaged to his daughter) to turn his stuffy old
bowling alley into a running track and gymnasium; his protestations
land him in jail. There he becomes a reformed character, growing
enthusiastic about gymnastics and the outdoor life and goes into
training. When he is released from prison he enters and wins a race at
the new running track, and is carried off a redeemed figure by his
cheering supporters, who include Quitt and his daughter.
Das Ekel was a vehicle for M ax Adalbert, one of Germany’s most
popular comedians, who had made the role of Bulcke his own on the
stage. The film was greeted enthusiastically. Emmerich’s reworking of
such a well-known play was admired: ‘Right down to the smallest
parts the actors fit the roles which Emmerich Pressburger, the talented
writer, has given them,’ said one reviewer. The film was premiered at
the Ufa Theatre on the Kurfürstendamm, and six months later opened
in America.
While writing Das Ekel, Emmerich made the acquaintance of a
young writer from Dresden, by the name of Erich Kästner, who seems
to have contributed to the film’s dialogue, but did not receive a credit.
Kästner had written journalism, poetry and a radio play, but his real
fame rested on a single book which he had published three years
previously: Emil and the Detectives. It is the story of a thief who
steals from Emil, a young boy. Emil organizes a group of young
rascals to join him as detectives, and together they track down the
thief. Ufa had bought the rights to the book and Kästner was under
contract to Günther von Stapenhorst, one of the six Produk­
tionsgruppenleiter, to collaborate on the screenplay. Since Emmerich
and he had got on so well working on the dialogue of Das Ekel, and
since Emmerich seemed to be in sympathy with Kästner’s perception
of children, it was decided that the two should collaborate again on
the script for Emil.
Emmerich was given time off from his Dramaturgie duties and he
and Kästner took the train down to Kitzbühel in January 1 9 3 1 , where
they took long walks in the snowy mountains, talked, drank and
wrote. Kästner remembered:

‘Emmerich Pressburger and / made my Emil into a screenplay. With

diligence and enthusiasm. A good screenplay. It had a single failing:
in our zeal we delivered it too early! The director in chief Liebmann
was his name, could not, o f course, remain indifferent to the fact.
 UFA AND T H E W E I M A R M O V I E BRATS 75

Something had to be done. He used the time which we had kindly

donated to Ufa to have our screenplay reworked by another man. His
name was Billy Wilder. He embellished the story and he vulgarized it.
There was tfouble. There was a fight. There were referees. There were
compromises. *

When Wilder’s script was finished, von Stapenhorst, the producer,

Lamprecht, the director and Liebmann, agreed that credit would be
given to all three writers. But when the film premiered only Wilder’s
name appeared, and Emmerich missed being associated with one of
the most successful films of the year, and certainly the most successful
children’s film of the period. There was, as Kastner’s account of some
forty years later makes clear, a good deal of resentment.
The Stiftung Deutsche Kinematek in Berlin holds copies of both the
Pressburger/Kastner script and the Wilder one. More interesting than
comparing the relative closeness of each to the finished film (in fact
they both differ substantially from it) is to look at how they relate to
the later work of each author. The openings (neither of which was
filmed) are a case in point. Wilder opened his script in a classroom. In
the detached, ironic style that was to characterize his Hollywood
films, he has Emil standing at the blackboard, drawing a diagram on
it, explaining to the children seated in front of him what they are
about to see, as though he were giving a lesson. He introduces the
main characters such as his mother and the other detectives, who are
shown sitting proudly on the benches among the children: ‘So, now
we will begin,’ he declares in a teacherly manner and the story proper
unfolds.
Emmerich’s version not only reflects his preoccupation with fan­
tasy and with trick shots, but also prefigures the dream sequence in
the train in I Know Where Tm Going twelve years later:
A train is seen shooting towards the camera, the noise is getting
louder and louder until - whoosh! it passes right over the camera. We
read a sign that says 'Richtung Berlin - Fierichstrasse' and a voice
says: 'Neustadt in one minute!'
Another train passes the first so closely that we can read the sign:
'Direction Grandmother' sticking out of its chimney.
Then trains start to pour into the frame from all directions. Again a
voice cries out: 'Neustadt in one minute!'
All the trains suddenly standstill, the locomotives forming a small
circle in the middle:
 EMMERICH

A voice calls: 'Emil Tischbein-g e t on board!'

Inside the little circle the picture fades into Emil's head and hands on
a pillow. The boy is sleeping. He is lying on his back. He sits up. The
trains drive off, startled. The circle widens so that the whole bed
becomes visible. Emil falls back, the trains pull in again, closer.
'Emil, Hurry up!'
Emil throws his eyes open. The trains dash back and disappear. The
picture has totally changed to Emil's bedroom.

While arguments over Em il were still raging, Emmerich was intro­

duced to a young theatre director, whom Ufa had recently hired. Herr
Correll, the head of production, gave this novice director a free hand
to choose whatever subject he liked for his first short film. The
director was M ax Ophiils, who became one of the cinema’s great
stylists.
For the basis of his first film, Ophiils found a short poem by Erich
Kästner with the curious title, Dann Schon Lieber Lebertran (‘I’d
rather have cod liver oil’). The story and script were to be the third
collaboration between Emmerich and Kästner.
According to Ophiils, for eight nights he, Emmerich and Kästner
met together in a café to discuss the script and within two weeks they
were in the studio making a 25-minute film with a budget of
46,000RM . The plot concerns two children who are tormented every
bedtime by being forced to swallow a spoonful of ‘health-promoting’
cod liver oil by their parents. One night they pray that God might
rearrange the world order, just once, so that the parents have to obey,
and the children can be in command. God is already asleep and St
Peter grants the request. Everything is reversed: the children pack the
parents off to school, while they go to the office, they invest all their
money in sugar shares, eat only puddings for breakfast, lunch and
dinner and smoke cigars while the parents have French lessons, have
 UFA A ND T H E WE I M A R M O V I E BRATS 77

their knuckles rapped by the teacher and have to take cod liver oil at
bedtime. But after only a single day the children are utterly fed up,
they can’t cope with the responsibility and they pray that everything
be returnedti) normal.
It is a great pity that no print of Dann Schon Lieber Lebertran has
survived. Not only would it be fascinating to observe the inception of
Ophuls’s famously fluid style, but also to see how much the film
prefigures Powell and Pressburger’s own celestial film, A Matter o f
Life and Death of 1946. The matter-of-fact presentation of Heaven -
more akin to a machine shop than a pearly sphere of harmony — is
common to both films, as is the satire on heavenly bureaucracy. They
also share a deep conservatism in reaffirming ‘universal laws’ ; neither
film seriously challenges the status quo, but aims merely to humanize
the regulations.
Only very recently was a complete pre-production script for Dann
Schon Lieber Lebertran discovered in Moscow, where it had arrived
as part of the Soviets’ Second World War booty. It is worth
reproducing a portion of it to demonstrate the precise, shot by shot,
scriptwriting style in which Emmerich was trained at Ufa. It is a style,
heavily influenced by the work of Carl Mayer, which assumes that a
film’s visual quality is as much the writer’s concern as the director’s.
The script opens with a shot of a lone cloud moving across the sky.
In the distance we can hear men singing ‘The Song of the Volga
Boatmen’ . The camera moves up behind the cloud and we see that it is
constructed out of cogs and wheels and that a group of singing angels
—erstwhile furniture removal men sporting workmen’s aprons, hard-
hats and wings - are pushing it through the sky:

SOUND PICTURE
SHOT 15
Close: A small angel, a so-called
'heavenly apprentice', paints a
symbol or number on to a cloud
which is already hovering away.

SHOT 16
The cloud is drawn past in front
of the window of the heavenly
workshop.
EMMERICH

PICTURE
SHOT 17
The rope can be seen. But the
worker-angels remain unseen.

SHOT 18
Panning shot: The camera
moves backwards and shows
the whole engine room with:

SHOT 19
Wheels

SHOT 20
Switches

SHOT 21
Levers

SHOT 22
Loudspeakers and gadgets of all
kinds.

SHOT 23
Half close-up: St Peter, with a
bunch of keys, full beard and
angel wings - we take Peter for
an amateur radio enthusiast-
he sits at his worktable.

SHOT 24
Close: shot of his table, upon
which many different bits of
equipment and components are
lying around.

SHOT 25
Big: Peter looks up . . .

SHOT 26
Half dose-up: . . . and goes
angrily to the window.
 UFA A ND T H E W E I M A R M O V I E BRATS 79

SOUND PICTURE
SHOT 27
Peter moving away. He opens a
^ " pane in the dormer window.

SHOT 28
Peter from behind.

SHOT 29
Close: Peter seen from outside.
He cries:
'You have surely gone
completely mad! Let the clouds
stand still for a while!'

SHOT 30
Medium long shot: Peter looks
at a dial fixed on the wall next to
the window.

SHOT 31
Big: The dial points to 'No
Wind'.

SHOT 32
Medium long shot: Peter shouts
in explanation:
'There is no wind!'

SHOT 33
Medium long shot: While Peter
looks out of the window:
The Volga Song breaks off and a
deep voice calls up in a Berlin
accent: 'Have it your way, Mr
Peter! We'll be off for our tea
then.'

SHOT 34
Medium long shot: The cloud
stops in front of the window and
half blocks it.
8o EMMERICH

SOUND PICTURE
SHOT 35
Falling rope.

SHOT 36
Medium long shot: the crowded
Jushny group, which has been
pulling the heavy cloud, breaks
up at the same moment in an
easy movement, with the
words:
'Dinnertime!'

We see the worker angels

disappearing in different
directions, indeed they are
fleeing.

SHOT 37
Medium long shot: Peter closes
the window quickly, looks at the
clock on the wall.

SHOT 38
The wall clock showing 19.30.

SHOT 39
The camera pans away from the
clock and back to Peter. Peter
says:
'Is it as late as that already?'

SHOT 40
Long shot: At that moment his
angel assistant, Michael, comes
through the door and shouts:
'Mr Peter, we completely forgot
- we must let darkness fall at
once. It's still daylight!'
 UFA A ND T H E W E I M A R M O V I E BRATS 8l

Ophuls was a twitching, nervous wreck as the first day of filming

approached: he had absolutely no knowledge of the technical aspects
of film production. Fortunately for him one of the two cameramen
assignecLto the project was the knowledgeable and reliable Eugen
Schiifftan. After the rehearsal of the first scene Schiifftan came up to
Ophuls and said, ‘Don’t be nervous, 1 can already tell that you’re
O K .’ But after he had completed the first two shots Schiifftan again
approached the director and whispered, very quietly so nobody else
could hear: ‘There’s something you should know: when the man over
there - the small one with the clapper boards - when he’s clapped
them together, you can’t talk to the actors any more. Otherwise it
goes into the film.’ Ophuls turned a bright scarlet. ‘The two shots
we’ve already taken,’ continued the cameraman, ‘I didn’t let the film
run, so that the people watching the rushes don’t kill themselves
laughing.’ Ophuls recalls that he found out several years later that
Schiifftan had been told to take over the direction of the picture if
Ophuls couldn’t cope — an opportunity the cameraman had been
awaiting for some time.
Ophuls also recalls how he learnt the true beauty of directing for
the cinema as opposed to the stage: ‘The new means of expression
which I suddenly had in my hands, the camera, had carried me away,
like a lover carries a man from his wife. And I was very much in love.
I began to score out dialogue, because I felt the picture already
expressed it. Someone went out of a room and said, “ I’m tired” , I
crossed the sentence out, and the camera focused on the door, which
didn’t even fall into the lock behind, it was so tired . . . ’
Not that the executives at Ufa recognized Ophuls’s brave attempts
to communicate visually. ‘ You are still full of mistakes,’ said one of
the board members on viewing the rushes, ‘but the nicest thing about
you — and we have been studying this minutely — is that you never
sacrifice the dialogue to the camera. Never is the picture the most
important thing to you!’ But when the completed picture was shown
to the board they didn’t seem so pleased. They walked out of the
viewing theatre without even acknowledging the director, ‘as though
they had come from a deeply shocking funeral’. Only Erich Kastner
congratulated him. The writer had an old lady on his arm. ‘My
mother liked it,’ he said. ‘ Yes,’ continued the mother, beaming, ‘do
you know, I’ve never seen a film before.’
Dann Schon Lieber Lebertran opened at one of the crummiest
cinemas out in the suburb of Wedding, but was so well received that it
82 EMMERICH

was shortly transferred to the Ufa Palast Theatre at the Zoo — the
prime cinema for premières - and enjoyed a successful run and
positive reviews.
 CHAPTER 5

Friends and Mentors

Schiinzel: Tack your bags, Pressburger, we’re going to Monte Carlo.’
Pressburger: ‘But Herr Schiinzel, the film isn’t set in Monte Carlo.’
Schiinzel: ‘ It will be by the time we’re finished with it.’

Within the space of a year, Emmerich found himself catapulted from

the desperate poverty of the Lumpenproletariat into the glamorous
heart of the city. ‘Decadence’ is, of course, the word most frequently
associated with Weimar Berlin, and not entirely without cause. There
was no shortage of cocaine sniffing, gambling dens and transvestite
clubs. Anything was possible, it seemed, if you had money to burn.
‘The ruling class,’ wrote Louise Brooks after her visit in 1928, ‘pub­
licly flaunted its pleasures as a symbol of wealth and power.’ And she
ought to know, having seen Josephine Baker dance naked but for a
girdle of bananas in a show called ‘Chocolate Kiddies’.
In reality this sort of behaviour was restricted to a minority even of
that small stratum of society that could afford it. Billy Wilder is on
record as saying that his favourite Berlin recreation was playing
dominoes and eating cold Leberwurst sandwiches. Similarly
Emmerich watched football, went to the opera, or just sat with
friends on the terrace of the Romanisches Café. His circle included
many Hungarians, from the film world and elsewhere: designers,
scriptwriters, editors, journalists, musicians and directors. As much
as he liked the city and its population he still felt most at home with
other émigrés.
In the late Twenties and early Thirties Berlin could stake a claim as
the cultural capital of Europe: Bauhaus-influenced design was in
evidence; Brecht and Weill were penning their shocking ‘jazz operas’,
The Threepenny Opera and Mahagonny; in the visual arts Dólbin
and Grosz were perfecting their stark sketches, while Moholy-Nagy
was revolutionizing sculpture. Few had any notion of the horrors that
were to engulf Germany within such a short space of time, and which,
from today’s perspective, hang over Weimar Berlin like some omin­
ous Goyaesque shadow. To Hitler, the fermenting creative cauldron
84 EMMERICH

of Berlin was ‘the red pigsty’ of Germany, and it would be his first job
to muck it out.
For the moment at least, it was easy enough for Emmerich to ignore
the unpleasant underbelly of the city. He had moved into a luxurious
apartment at 155 Kurfurstendamm, and had it equipped with moder­
nist furniture and all the latest gadgets; he always appreciated con­
temporary design. His mother had her own little flat around the
corner. And when he felt like leaving the city he would take his
Mercedes convertible, perhaps with a girl for company, and go
driving in the country.
The very first trip he took in his new car, the day after he passed his
test, was to Prague. He arrived and booked into the best hotel in
town. He recalled how only a few years before he had been a penni­
less student who could never afford to eat those beautiful Prague
hams and sausages which the gastronome in him so appreciated. ‘I
went up to my room and ordered the biggest and finest cold plate the
hotel had. I sat down on a couch and waited. I woke up at 2 a.m., a
huge plate of the finest things on the table, dry and curled up, and I
was not hungry either.’
On the same trip he experienced what was forever called ‘the
rollmops phenomenon’ . Rolls of pickled herring are a speciality of
Prague. Emmerich bought a jar of them for his breakfast and placed
them on the windowsill overnight to keep them cool. In the morning
he was awoken by the maid and prepared for his breakfast. But on
going over to the window he saw that the rollmops had disappeared.
He looked everywhere for them, but without success. Perhaps they
fell out the window? he thought to himself. But that evening, when he
returned to his room he saw that the rollmops were again sitting
where he had left them the night before. How odd! Well, at least he
could have them for breakfast the following morning. But when
morning came, the rollmops were missing again. Now, this was not
unusual, this was supernatural! The phenomenon continued for
several days.
On his final evening, Emmerich decided to have an early night and
went over to the window himself to pull the blind down, instead of
waiting for the maid. Lo and behold! The rollmops came down from
the ceiling where they had been caught up inside the blind when it
was raised. From that day on Emmerich referred to any apparently
supernatural phenomenon, which the sceptic in him was sure could
always be explained rationally, as a ‘rollmops story’. Arthur Koestler,
 F R I E N D S A ND ME N T O R S 85

a friend and neighbour of Emmerich’s many years later in England

and a great investigator of the paranormal, loved the story, and
adopted the term as part of his own scientific vocabulary.
✓ ”
The one positive outcome of the Emil fiasco at Ufa was that
Emmerich became associated with Produktionsgruppenleiter
Gunther von Stapenhorst and no longer had to put up with the
haughty dipsomania of Colonel Duday. Von Stapenhorst was a dili­
gent, hardworking man who expected complete dedication from his
collaborators, and in return offered them honesty and loyalty.
Like so many pioneering producers, Stapi (as he was known to his
friends) fell into films by chance. By nature he was an adventurer. An
inveterate gambler, he had explored the casinos of Deauville and
Monte Carlo at an early age, before joining the Imperial German
navy and rising to the rank of flagship commander at the battle of
Jutland. In 19 19 70 per cent of Germany’s armed forces were dis­
charged under the treaty of Versailles and Germany’s economy was in
tatters. Stapi, like many others, experienced unemployment and hard­
ship. Emmerich used Stapi’s descriptions of post-war conditions to
write Theo’s speech in The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp (1943):
‘You see, after the war, we had very bad years in Germany. We got
poorer and poorer. Every day retired officers or schoolteachers were
caught shoplifting. Money lost its value. The price of everything rose
except human beings. We read in the newspapers that the war years
were bad everywhere, that crime was increasing and that honest
citizens were having a hard job to put the gangsters in jail where they
belonged. Well, in Germany, the gangsters started to put the citizens
in jail.’
Soon, though, Stapi scraped together the money to buy a seaworthy
clipper and established trade links between destitute Germany and
revolutionary Russia. The business flourished. He brought home
gold, jewellery, furs, oil paintings and antiques, bought for a pittance
from penniless White Russians. But as Lenin tightened his grip on the
country trade became difficult, and eventually Stapi was forced to flee
the country - apparently under a death sentence.
One of the items which he had traded with Russia was raw film
stock. Arriving back in Germany his old suppliers suggested they go
into business together actually producing films. So was founded the
grandiose sounding IFCO - International Film Exchange Company.
They produced and distributed a string of low-budget, low-quality
86 EMMERICH

melodramas and provided inauspicious film debuts for Conrad Veidt,

Werner Krauss and Hans Albers.
Before long the inevitable bankruptcy occurred. Stapi’s more street­
wise partner vanished overnight and he was saddled with huge per­
sonal debts which he religiously paid off over the next ten years. He
was happy to accept a steady job with Ufa when it was offered in
I 927 *
Emmerich spent a lot of time at Stapi’s house, often in the garden,
ten minutes from the Neubabelsberg studios, attending Regiesit­
zungen: long, detailed pre-production meetings, which were one of
the keys to German film success. The designer, cameraman, writer,
producer and director would all attend. Emmerich took the tradition
with him when he arrived in England and The Archers’ films are
unusually collaborative affairs. Emmerich recalled with great
fondness how Stapi made him feel, for the first time, that he belonged
to ‘the team’ :
7 was very young, very shy and utterly inexperienced. However, on
the first day when 1 began working for the Stapenhorst group, I felt
my shyness fade. I was asked my opinion and what I said was (to my
surprise) given serious consideration. All o f a sudden I was not only
1present’ but —for the first time in my life - recognized as part o f the
team. It happened on a hot day; we were sitting in Stapi’s garden at
Neubabelsberg, under his big tree, drinking his refreshing wine.
Couldn't it be the wine? I thought, doubting my recently acquired
self-confidence. It was not the wine but the host. Stapenhorst has
always been a man to respect other men and let them know it. A
broadminded man, patient, cultured, understanding. Someone who
stood up for his fellow workers, who chose his friends for a lifetime.
All but one of Emmerich’s remaining Ufa films were to be collabor­
ations not only with Stapenhorst, but with Ufa’s star director of the
day: Reinhold Schiinzel. Remembered now, if at all, for his role in
Fritz Lang’s Hangmen Also Die and as the writer-director of Viktor
und Victoria in the early thirties, he was at the very height of his
profession as a writer, actor and director, specializing in musical
comedies.
Schiinzel was a flamboyant character, and a gambler like Stapi. But
unlike Stapi he did not play safe, and would often lose considerable
amounts of money. He started his career as an actor and achieved
considerable success, on a par with Hans Albers and Conrad Veidt.
 F R I E N D S AN D ME N T O R S 87

During the silent period he directed several films and in 19 3 1 arrived at

Ufa with the idea for his first sound film, Der Kleine Seitensprung (‘The
Little Escapade’ ), a light comedy of marital infidelity. The board
accepted the proposal and gave the synopsis to Emmerich, who
suggested a few alterations which so impressed Schünzel that he asked
him to co-write the screenplay with him:
‘Pack your bags, Pressburger, we’re going to Monte Carlo,’ said the
director.
‘But Herr Schünzel, the film isn’t set in Monte Carlo.’
i t will be by the time we’re finished with it!’
So began their partnership, Emmerich’s first really close collabor­
ation with a director. Schünzel liked to visit Monte Carlo at any
opportunity, and took great pleasure introducing his protégé to its
pleasures. The pair would always do their writing there, in a hotel
overlooking the casino, which goaded them as they worked.
Stapenhort’s daughter, Marga, remembers how Schünzel appeared
to her at the Regiesitzungen in her father’s garden:
‘Schünzel, when I knew him at Ufa - being a schoolgirl then - drove a
flashy white car which we called ‘the white sw an. My father drove a
grey-beige Chevrolet called ‘the grey duckling\ My father did not care
about flashy cars and he was paying back his debts. . . Schünzel was all
but infatuated with his daughter Anne-Marie (then about ten years old)
and when something was wrong with her the whole studio suffered. I
also remember that he had two or three versions o f every suit made: for
fat, medium and thin. He was inclined to get fat and then slim down in
a hurry! He had been an actor before he directed - a very successful one
- hence his little vanities. *
Schünzel had a reputation for extravagance. On at least two
occasions his willingness to spend the company’s money for his own
pleasure was commented upon in board meetings. On location in Paris
for Das Schöne Abenteuer he stayed in the Ritz Carlton and ate, drank
and entertained lavishly. He had no qualms about presenting the
company with an enormous bill of 1,475 francs per day. Again, after
the premiere of the same film, he took the cast and crew to Berlin’s
‘Latin Quarter’ and ran up a bill of 1000 Marks which he likewise sent
to his employers. It is some mark of his prestige that the generally
parsimonious and puritanical board members paid up without ques­
tion on both occasions.
As a director, Schünzel’s ‘light’ style was often favourably compared
88 EMMERICH

to Lubitsch. Indeed, he had acted in two of Lubitsch’s early films,

Madame Dubarry (1918) and Das Madel vom Ballet (19 19 ), and
directed a script - Alles Für Geld (1923) - by Lubitsch’s regular
screenwriter Hans Krahy. Like Lubitsch he could take the risqué to
the edge of acceptability. In Das Schöne Abenteuer (The Beautiful
Adventure’, 1932), the last of the films Emmerich made with him, a
young couple elope just before the girl’s arranged marriage to an
unattractive old bore. The young lovers stay with the girl’s grand­
mother, who naturally assumes that they are married, and lets them
sleep together. The act of love confirms their bond to each other and
they are allowed to marry. Variety said: ‘A bit naughty that, but
deftly handled so that it couldn’t possibly offend. And most of it’s
genuinely funny.’
These two men, Stapenhorst and Schünzel, were to be Emmerich’s
mentors during the remainder of his German career, and influenced
his ideas on film-making ever after. It was also these two who chris­
tened Emmerich ‘Press’, the name by which he was always known to
his continental film friends.
Der Kleine Seitensprung, starring Renate Midler, was an enormous
success and Emmerich’s second film with Schünzel was scheduled as a
big budget, prestige affair. For some time Ufa had been wooing the
celebrated operetta composer Emmerich Kalman to pen a work
especially for them. When a contract was finally signed it was natural
that they should choose Schünzel to direct, and Pressburger to write.
Perhaps they took into consideration that besides being a namesake
of the famous composer, Emmerich was a fellow Hungarian and
possessed considerable musical knowledge himself.
The two film-makers caught the first-class sleeper down to Bad
Ischl in Austria, the summer resort of Habsburg Emperors in days
gone by and, consequently, a favourite retreat for successful operetta
composers - a kind of Malibu Beach for wealthy music lovers.
Besides Kalman, Oscar Straus, Leo Fall, Franz Lehar and Robert Stolz
all had residences there, and sat in their villas, behind closed shutters,
composing next season’s hit.
Emmerich spent several weeks working with Kalman, his wife and
two librettists, Schanzer and Welisch, stout and respectable men. He
wrote a story entitled Ronny, which is, in most respects, firmly within
the confines of the genre. Where it differed was in an element of
self-parody. This was a sophisticated late addition to the operetta
genre.
 F R I E N D S A ND ME N T O R S 89

Operettas, light-weight, energetic and sophisticated, were at the

height of their popularity in the first quarter of the century, before
jazz offered a non-serious musical alternative. (During the Third
Reich, when jazz was banned as ‘deviant’, operettas gained a second
lease of life. Hitler’s personal favourite was Lehar’s Merry Widow; he
was so enamoured of it that he declared Lehar’s Jewish wife an
‘honorary Aryan.’) For Emmerich’s relatives, the association with
Kalman — a household name in Hungary — was the greatest of his
achievements.
Operettas were characteristically set during a dewy-eyed version of
the Habsburg Empire’s golden age and concerned the exploits of
handsome cavalry officers, Ruritanian princes and pretty young girls
who inhabited a world of leafy suburban restaurants, Baroque decor,
tender flirtations and gentle archdukes; a coy, bittersweet place for­
ever resonating to the sound of polkas and waltzes. Operettas, like
Hollywood musicals, clearly offered an escape from the drab realities
of republican life. As the review in Licht-Bild-Buhne indicates, Ronny
provided all the escapism anyone could possibly want:
The sound film operetta genre is celebrating a new triumph!
This type of film gives the public what they want above all else:
excitement! They want their nerves to be tickled in the cinema.
Sweet illusion . . . A roaring ovation followed the 100 minutes of
enchantment. The music will make audiences in packed film
houses even more happy. There are so many amusing and
charming aspects. Teenage girls will dream of Ronny and her
Prince . . . the technical quality of the film is first class. The
waltzes and polkas have Viennese rhythm and spirit!

Variety was more knowing:

The rich Prince falls for the poor modiste again. But this time the
Germans have made the whole thing so lightly and in such a
tongue-in-cheek manner that Ronny evolves as a completely
amusing and entertaining film. It’s cinch box office for any
German theatre . . . Some swell ironic touches. The Prince’s
army dances when it marches, The Minister of State wears his
hat down over his eyes and always scowls, everybody peeks
through key-holes, and the Prince and the maid go on as though
nothing were wrong . . . and all the girls, just for a change from
the usual German standards, are thin and pretty.
90 EMMERICH

The reviewer could almost be referring to The Archers’ own playfully

ironic operetta film, Oh . . . Rosalinda!! (based on Strauss’s Die
Fledermaus) of 23 years later.
In fact, Emmerich brought more than the ironic tone of his Ufa
operettas to England. He also brought some of their techniques. As
Thorold Dickinson noted: ‘In the brief period from 19 2 9 -19 3 3 the
German attitude to the sound film was anything but conservative. In
visuals they had the tradition of design and as for sound, music was in
their blood . . . The Germans gambled on the international appeal of
their music. They reworked operettas and musical comedies into film
continuity, recorded the music separately and played it back in the
studio for the actors to match in mime. In these musical sequences the
camera work could be as free and flexible as a silent film.’ This was
the same technique which was to give such grace and expressivity to
The Archers’ pre-composed musical films, The Red Shoes and The
Tales o f Hoffmann.
Ronny featured the biggest stars of the moment, the gamin Käthe
von Nagy, in her post-jazz bob, and the dashing Willy Fritsch. There
was also an enormous cast of extras and dancing girls and a set -
extravagant even by Ufa standards - with real marble statues. But all
this was not enough to make the film a hit, no matter what orgies of
enthusiasm the popular press was indulging in. The première at the
Gloria-Palast was self-congratulatory, but the public were growing as
tired of operettas as they were of the inefficiency and economic
mismanagement of their own government. They were soon to find a
less attractive form of escapism in political fanaticism.
The French version was more successful. Four of Emmerich’s Ger­
man scripts were made simultaneously in French versions. Two separ­
ate casts would alternate on the set. Sometimes, as in the case of
Käthe von Nagy, the German actors were able to speak French and
would appear in both versions. Emmerich and Schünzel would spend
time in Paris before filming began, casting actors and liaising with
A C E, the French branch of Ufa. Emmerich’s connections with it, and
the fact that his name was not entirely unknown to the French
cinema-going public, were to stand him in good stead in the future.

Emmerich’s collaboration with Schünzel, and his increasingly shirked

duties at the Dramaturgie department, did not prevent him from
working on other projects. He wrote scores of synopses and treat­
ments with a variety of collaborators, who aided him with dialogue —
 F R I E N D S A ND ME N T O R S 91

still a problem after eight years in Germany. Among them was a

young playwright called Felix Joachimson (later Jackson). He recalled
Emmerich as a ‘nice, bright, unassuming man’. They worked together
day ancLnight for several weeks on a script called The Flying Dutch-
many ‘about an opera singer who loses her voice, or some such thing’.
Emmerich also wrote other scripts with Irma von Cube. One that
was produced was Fine von Uns (Gilgi) (‘Gilgi - one of us’), which,
as the title suggests, was a commission on the strength of Abschisd; a
sombre, realist piece starring Brigitte Helm, the erstwhile heroine of
Lang’s Metropolis, and based on a novel by Irmegard Keun, author of
After Midnight, according to many the first and best satirical novel on
the Nazi party.
Another Cube collaboration, Sehnsucht 202 (‘Desire 202’) was a
musical comedy produced in Austria by Emmerich’s namesake,
Arnold Pressburger, and Gregor Rabinovitch through their company
Cine-Allianz which had a production deal with Ufa. The film is
notable now for its two leading ladies, Magda Schneider (mother of
Romy) and Luise Rainer, who before the end of the decade was to
win two consecutive American Academy Awards (for The Great
Ziegfieldy 19 36, and The G ood Earth, 1937). The music was conduc­
ted by none other than the fiery perfectionist from the Capitol
cinema, Willy Schmidt-Gentner, who had fired a starving Emmerich
from his orchestra a few years previously.

In mid 19 32, thanks to currency exchange restrictions, Ufa had the

equivalent of $100,000 frozen in Hungary. The company decided to
utilize this money by producing a film there. Emmerich, the only
Hungarian on the staff, was asked to provide a script. He presented a
treatment of one of his favourite novels, A Ven Gazember (‘The Old
Rogue’ ) by Kalman Mikszath. The board accepted it and paid him
4,50 oRM to write two scripts - the film was to be made simultan­
eously in two different versions —one in German, the other in Hun­
garian.
Heinz Hille, a relative novice, was chosen to direct. Because of his
lack of experience the board asked Hille to direct a short film first,
which Emmerich also wrote. Called Wer Zahlt Heute Noch? (‘Who
Bothers to Pay Nowadays?’), it was a 20-minute comedy about
inflation, with a tiny budget of 20,oooRM.
The results were satisfactory and in mid 19 32 Emmerich returned
to Hungary for the first time since his meeting with Uncle Karoly in
92. EMMERICH

the Café New York some six years previously. He and Hille did
location scouting and casting together, aiming to present the German
public with a picture of ‘exotic and colourful Hungary’. Interspersed
throughout the finished picture are documentary sequences showing
the agriculture of the great plain, the Gellért Turkish baths, dancing
on Margaretan island. A Vén Gazember is a distillation of ‘typical
Hungary’ ; it presents us with an intense portrait of the ‘national
identity’ that at times verges on caricature. This is perhaps not what
one would expect from a writer with Emmerich’s cosmopolitan mind,
a Hungarian who had not lived in Hungary for twelve years. But this
ability - and desire - to go straight to the heart of a nation’s identity,
no matter how much of an outsider he may have been, was to remain
a crucial characteristic of Emmerich’s work.
Rosy Barsony, the local singing and dancing sensation, starred in
both versions, opposite Wolf Albach-Retty (Magda Schneider’s hus­
band) in the German version and Tibor Halmay in the Hungarian.
Magda Kun, part of a cabaret double-act with her husband Steve
Geray, had a supporting role and seems to have had an affair with the
homecoming scriptwriter.
The background to the film has more than a few parallels with
Emmerich’s own rural upbringing: an old estate manager works for a
scurrilous, spendthrift baron who is more often to be found in pursuit
of thrills in the gambling halls of Budapest than at home on his estate.
His own excesses are driving the estate to bankruptcy - but the baron
suspects that the old estate manager is stealing from him. Meanwhile,
much to her parent’s distress, the baron’s fun-loving daughter is
having an affair with the estate manager’s grandson, who is at the
officer training academy in Budapest. It turns out that the old man
has indeed been stealing money from the estate, but only to save it for
the daughter, whose inheritance would otherwise be gambled away
by her father. The story ends happily with the reformed baron conse­
crating his daughter’s marriage to the grandson.

By the time Emmerich returned to Berlin in October 19 32 the politi­

cal pressure was already building. Hugenberg’s ultra-right
Nationalist Party was rumoured to be seeking an alliance with the
National Socialists, and Hugenberg had started actively to propagate
anti-Semitism in his companies. In an industry which was estimated
to be over 50 per cent Jewish, Ufa had never had a large Jewish
contingent. Nevertheless, before the end of the year, Emmerich was
 F R I E N D S A ND ME N T O R S 93

informed that Ufa would not renew his contract for 19 33:
‘The bad news o f my dismissal was revealed to me by my boss, Herr
Podehl. We were both a little disturbed, he because he had always
regarded'me as his own “discovery ”, me because I was anxious about
the future. I most feared having to learn a new language. A writer
who is torn from his working language can be seized by the same
frightful panic as a carpenter whose hands have been cut off. *
Emmerich’s fear of losing his writing language, combined with a
passivity in the face of political events, was enough to stop him
emigrating straight away. Like many others, he refused to believe that
the situation would not improve. On 22 February he asked the Berlin
police to renew his residency permit for another year. Initially, there
was no real problem finding alternative work. As an established name
he signed up with an agent and had no shortage of commissions. He
even wrote scripts indirectly for Ufa. ‘Meine Schwester und Ich’ (‘My
Sister And I’), commissioned by Gregor Rabinovitch, was a Cine-
Allianz production for Ufa. It was scripted and budgeted but never
made. Another uncredited contribution, according to writer Rudolph
Katscher, was on Alfred Zeisler’s naval spy film Stern von Valencia
(‘Star of Valencia’, 1933).
Meanwhile, political events were careering out of control. Thanks
to a conspiracy master-minded by Hugenberg, President von Hin-
denberg had appointed Hitler Chancellor of Germany on 30 January
19 33. Moderates still hoped to keep him in control since he only had
a minority of supporters in government. But on 27 February, a week
before the emergency elections, the night time skies went red and the
streets were filled with the ominous wail of fire engines. The Reichs­
tag had been set ablaze. The Nazis rounded on the communists, using
the event to clamp down on political freedom and evoke public
hysteria. Even then Hitler did not gain a sufficient majority at the
elections on 5 March. Only after an alliance was formed with Hugen-
berg’s Nationalist Party did he take power, legally and constitution­
ally. Hugenberg, Ufa’s chief shareholder, was appointed Hitler’s first
finance minister.
One of the secrets of the Nazi Party’s success was its iron grip over
the media. They realized early on —as other governments had not -
that film was a powerful and neglected conduit for propaganda.
Goebbels, the propaganda minister, was a would-be actor and loved
films — even on his busiest day he saw at least one and wrote a
94 EMMERICH

comment on it in his diary. In an early speech he stated: ‘We are

convinced that film is one of the most far-reaching means of influen­
cing the masses; a government can therefore not possibly leave the
film world to itself.’
On 28 March Goebbels gathered all Germany’s non-Jewish film
producers together in the Kaiserhof Hotel to outline the ‘right direc­
tion’ for future German film production. The soon-to-be-suppressed
Film-Kurier covered his speech: ‘He repeated, in a way which could
not be misunderstood, the maxim of the fascist state. He also
intimated sanctions that would be imposed upon deviant action. A
precondition in all German film after 19 33 “ is always a very close
connection with the new Will. Nothing artistic will exist without
this direction of Will, without this aim and purpose . . . Outside
these guidelines there is no pardon. That is where dangerous experi­
ments begin, which are only too often outbursts of a sick mind.” ’
In the same speech Goebbels stated the National Socialists’ anti­
pathy towards Jews working in the industry. Because film was such
a powerful tool of communication and employed such a high pro­
portion of Jews it was to be the first of the media to be purged.
The very next day Ufa’s board called an emergency meeting. The
minutes to their discussion, lodged with other Ufa documents at the
Bundesarchiv in Koblenz, record the cold-blooded expediency with
which they acted:
29 March 1933
[List of those present]
Decisions will be made and what is written down will not be
made public.
The question of the further employment of Jewish workers and
employees at Ufa.
With regard to the National Revolution in Germany, which
has pushed the question of continuing to employ Jewish
workers at Ufa to the foreground, the board has decided that,
if possible, Jewish workers and employees are to be released
from their contracts. It has furthermore been decided that steps
must be taken immediately to release certain individuals from
contracts.

Every board member will have to decide for himself which

 F R I E N D S A ND ME N T O R S 95

workers and employees in his department to sack immediately

and which ones must be released more slowly from their service
at Ufa. As the harder ones might protest, they should be handled
very carefully. Severance payments after notice has been given
should be discussed with Mr Klitsch.
In individual cases the following decisions have been made:
[Examples]
ERICH POMMER
It has been decided that the contract for Pommer should be
dissolved, as under the current conditions, it will be impossible
to make any of his films. His film Walzerkrieg will be made, the
script is ready. The film Ljubas Zobel will be abandoned.
CHARRELL
It has been unanimously decided that in the prevailing condi­
tions, the contract with Charrell to direct and co-write the film
about Odysseus, which is a production planned by Pommer,
must be dissolved. Not only does the personality of Charrell
stand in the way of production, but more importantly, the
distribution of the film will stir up considerable resistance
among the National German public. The board asks Mr Donner
and Dr von Boehmer to take over the legal aspects of ter­
minating Charrell’s contract, following a policy that will be in
the best interests of Ufa. The people who are working with
Charrell on the script, Schulz and Staemle, must be told that no
further work will be done on the script. Their contracts should
be terminated, in the light of the changed conditions.
THE D IRE CTO R ERICH ENG EL
Taking into consideration the information supplied to us by Mr
Wendhausen about remarks made during his employment at the
German theatre, which were directed against Christians and
which revealed him to be a blatant communist, his contract
must be terminated. First of all, though, Mr Wendhausen will be
questioned about the accuracy of his statement.
WERNER HEYMANN
In the light of the decent character Heymann has and of the fact
that he served at the front during the war, the board has decided
to ask the government for his continued employment in the
96 EMMERICH

services of Ufa, especially as he has been baptized and belongs to

the Protestant faith.
ROBERT LIEBMANN
The board has decided that in the light of the present conditions,
it wants Robert Liebmann to go. Mr Correll is asked to deal
with him.
DR HANS M U L LE R
His contract is to be terminated as well if there is no possibility
[crossed out] to keep him as a writer of Fatherland works.
DR B E R G E R - D I R E C T O R
His contract should be ended as the film he is currently directing
is finished.
ROSY BARSONY
Taking into consideration the shortage of young actors, we will
try to arrange for her continued employment.
JULIUS FALKENSTEIN AND OTTO W ALLBURG
As no objection can be raised against their characters, even by
the governing party, nothing stands in the way of their further
employment, but they should not be given leading roles.
One typical story from those days was of an American director
filming in Berlin with several Jewish technicians and actors. One
morning a group of Nazi party members appeared on the set demand­
ing that the Jews be immediately dismissed. The director refused. The
Nazis took the ‘good Aryan’ actors aside. When they came back on
set, instead of speaking their lines at the appropriate moment they
spouted Nazi doctrine. The director was forced to give in.
Until 3 1 March only a tiny handful of Jews, communists and
political liberals with some sense of foresight, or a rare sense of
political integrity, had left Germany. On 3 1 March, Jewish Boycott
Day, the flood began. Rudolph Katscher recalls that he was warned
by Emmerich’s old Ufa secretary, Frau Zunz, a party member, that he
was on a ‘pick-up-list’ and fled that same evening on a train to
Vienna. On the same train were Sam Spiegel, Marlene Dietrich and
Joseph von Sternberg.
At the beginning of April Emmerich decided, like many others, to
leave for France. He had some contacts there and it was a country
with a thriving film industry. But he had more difficulties than most.
 F R I E N D S A ND ME N T O R S 97

First of all there was his mother. He didn’t want to take her with him
into the storm. It was decided that she should stay with a childhood
friend in Miskolc until such time as he had established himself. A far
greater problem, though, was that Emmerich did not have the neces­
sary papers to leave Germany and take up residence in France. Ever
since he had skipped his military service in Romania in 1926, he had
been deprived of nationality. The Polizeipräsidium in Berlin had
issued him with a stateless passport, but that was not recognized by
other countries for purposes of residency, and besides, he could not
leave the country without the prior permission of the police - now
synonymous with the Gestapo.
Emmerich sat up all night in an increasing state of agitation, trying
to figure out what to do. He hit on a plan. Since he had recently been
working in Hungary he still had a police travel permit to visit that
country. If he could get to Budapest it was possible he could buy
himself a Hungarian passport, particularly since his birthplace, Mis­
kolc, was still in Hungarian territory.
At the last minute various complications arose. First of all he
needed a transit visa through either Austria or Czechoslovakia. The
Austrians flatly refused him and the Czechs would only give him a
three-day visa. Since it took nearly twenty-four hours on the train
between Berlin and Budapest, that left him only a day in Hungary to
secure a passport. The second complication reared its head just as the
train was about to pull out of the Friedrichstrasse station. George
Ramon, a Hungarian friend of Emmerich’s, had heard of his mission.
He was in a similar situation and pleaded with Emmerich to get a
passport for him as well.
Back in Budapest Emmerich put his mother on the train to Miskolc
and set out to find two passports to enable himself and Ramon to
leave Germany. He tried first of all to go through the proper channels,
but was informed that even if they decided to issue him with a
passport it would take upwards of two weeks —he only had twenty-
four hours. As he sat desperately hunched over a cup of coffee in one
of Budapest’s all-night cafés, he recognized a journalist acquaintance
sitting at another table. He told him of his predicament. The reporter
looked him up and down and promised to do what he could; after all
he knew most of the senior officials in the city. Emmerich handed
over a substantial sum of money to ease the operation. The journalist
disappeared into the night vowing that he would meet Emmerich in
the same café the following day, with the passports.
98 EMMERICH

Almost immediately Emmerich regretted what he had done. Some­

thing told him that he shouldn’t have trusted the reporter. He remem­
bered that he did have one other friend who had offered to help if he
ever needed anything in Budapest: the manager of the city’s grandest
cinema, the Ufa Theatre where A Vén Gazember had premiered, a man
called Vero Sanyi. He rushed over to the cinema which was still playing
into the night. Vero told him he had been foolish to trust the journalist.
‘Did you tell him that you have to leave the country tomorrow night
by the latest?’
‘Yes,’ replied Emmerich. Vero looked worried.
‘Well, he might do it, but I doubt it. Promise me to come back here
tomorrow.’
Emmerich nodded. The next day he waited for the journalist at the
café but he didn’t show up. He returned to the cinema only a few hours
before his train was due to leave. Vero called the captain of the police, a
great patron of the cinema, and explained Emmerich’s situation,
stressing that he was a Hungarian by birth and a film-maker —‘Yes, it
was he who wrote that wonderful A Vén Gazember which you enjoyed
so much.’
Emmerich was asked to go round to the police headquarters. The
film-struck chief greeted him amiably and after a few questions and a
telephone call to the registrar in Miskolc, he was issued with not just
one, but two passports. He could hardly believe his good fortune, and
handed over the sizeable ‘gratuity’ which Vero had lent him, since he
had given his own money away to the crooked reporter.
He hurried back to the cinema to thank the manager. Just as he
walked in the door the telephone rang. It was the police chief.
Emmerich must return to his office at once. Expecting the worst, his
heart pounding, Emmerich complied. But the policeman looked just as
jovial as before. ‘Ah, Pressburger!’ he exclaimed, ‘I thought you might
have already left for the station. I was just thinking; you don’t want to
stay in Berlin, do you?’ Emmerich shook his head. ‘So where do you
want to go?’ ‘Paris.’ ‘So why didn’t you say so before!’ shouted the
chief. ‘We have friends in all the embassies. I’ll send the passports over
to the French legation now by car!’
An hour or two later the Berlin train pulled out of the station with
Emmerich on board, clutching two passports with lovely fresh French
visas stamped in them.
Back in Berlin, things seemed to have calmed down. It was, as
Emmerich later said, like being in the eye of the storm, a quiet,
 F R I E N D S AND ME N T O R S 99

untroubled period before the winds resumed with redoubled ferocity.

Instead of travelling straight on to Paris as he had planned, Emmerich
waited. He was still reluctant to leave, as he would be reluctant to leave
every cpuntry he lived in. His agent told him not to worry, the political
situation was going to improve, the general public wouldn’t put up
with Hitler for long. And besides, there was plenty of work.
For a few weeks Emmerich settled down to writing again. The town
felt strangely empty. Most of his friends had already left for Vienna and
Paris. Suddenly, he was the only Jew among his circle of acquaintances.
The lull did not last long. One night he received a visit:
7 hardly knew von Neusser although we had worked together at Ufa.
He came with half a dozen friends, late at night, I ’ve never found out
who brought him along. He wore his Nazi uniform. He didn’t speak to
me, but kept his light blue eyes fixed on me all the time. He seemed to be
particularly interested in one o f the girls, an ex-girlfriend o f mine. My
agent was running about with her these days. They left together and I
went to bed.
The doorbell woke me. It was von Neusser, tall, blue eyes, and
smiling. Can I come inf
He entered the flat without bothering to wait for an invitation. I still
remember clearly the feeling I had about him: he acted as if he had
taken a lease on my flat and was just waiting for the few days until I had
packed my belongings and cleared out.
“I need some money. I ’m with Else, she’s downstairs in the car.
Could you lend me som e?”
I was just about to tell him that I hardly knew him and that it was the
middle o f the night, when he added:
“ I ’ll repay you. ”
He accentuated the words “ repay you ” in such a way which meant:
not in money.’
Erich von Neusser was an Aufnahmeleiter (production manager) at
Ufa and had worked on Das Schöne Abenteuer. Emmerich gave him
the money and took the promise of repayment to mean that he would
be warned if he was ever in any danger from the Gestapo. Only a few
days later he received a mysterious phone call from a man muffling his
voice:
4“ D on’t go to the bank. D on’t call your agent again, ” said the voice,
which seemed to know so much about me. “ The Propaganda Ministry
IOO EMMERICH

will release the ban on you to the papers tomorrow. After that it will
be much more difficult. ” He hung up.
I rang my agent. He tried to reassure me. “ D on’t worry, we have
von Neusser’s word that nothing will happen to you. You stay till you
can. ”
I sat in my flat, among the billowing sheets o f newspapers that
proudly proclaimed the recent calamities, like a ducky still alive but
plucked o f all its feathers. The phone rang once more. The same
strangely disguised voice came down the line:
“ I hear you spoke to your agent. D on’t be silly, man. Pack your
suitcase and take the train to Paris! Your passport is all righty your
French visa is all right. ”
He knew so much that I blurted out: “ Von Neusser has
prom ised. . . ! ”
“ I am von Neusser! ” he replied, cutting me short, and hung up. ’
It had been foolish to stay so long. Later he felt guilty, shameful, that
he had been so reluctant to leave.
It was i M ay 19 33. He packed two suitcases, locked up the
Mercedes in the street below - it was impossible for a Jew to sell such
things at short notice - and left the key to his apartment in the door.
It would save the Gestapo the trouble of breaking it down.
He went to the station and bought a second-class sleeper to Paris.
 CHAPTER 6

La Vie Parisienne
Paris, which had always amused me on holiday, was too lovely . . .
emigration was no hardship, it was an outing. It offered the shining,
wet boulevards under the street lights, breakfast in Montmartre with
cognac in your glass, coffee and lukewarm brioche, gigolos and
prostitutes at night. . . an attic room in the old and wonderful hotel in
the rue Lord Byron, where I lived. It captured me with its pleasant
carefreeness. The night porter down in the plush entrance hall, whom
I saw more often than the day porter, invited me to a coup de rouge
and prophesied ‘ It will sort itself out, sir, 1 am sure of it. Everyone in
the world has two fatherlands: his own and Paris.
m a x o p h u l s , Spiel im Dasein

Ophiils casts a characteristically bittersweet ambience over the hard­

ship of exile. Being a fluent French speaker and possessing French
papers he was not submitted to the same humiliations as his fellow
refugees. For the majority, the queue at the Préfecture for the all­
important residence permit, the récépissé, was merely a foretaste of
what was to come in the following years: endless waiting, kow­
towing to uninterested or openly hostile officials, ignoring barely
hidden xenophobia, trying to find enough to eat and somewhere to
sleep without thinking about the luxury in which you used to live.
In his novel The Glass Pearls Emmerich put his own experience of
the Préfecture into the mouth of a refugee character:
I remember best the queues around the Préfecture, where every
foreigner had to report. And I see before me the silly staff
photographer from Berlin, who arrived in Paris a few weeks
ahead of me. When we shook hands in the Paris café he asked:
‘How much money did you bring with you?’ I told him; about
three thousand francs. He shook his head sadly. ‘That’s not
enough to die!’ They were full of these expressions. 1 knew what
he meant, but he explained all the same: ‘You’ll have to find an
apartment. That’ll cost you five hundred. Just the premium!
102 EMMERICH

You’ll have to pay rent. You’ll have to live while you’re learning
the language. Without that they’ll sell the skin from your back
and the flesh from under your skin. The chap who’ll help you get
your permit to stay here will want 200 to begin with. Got
anybody to do it?’ I told him I had no one. He promised to send
someone who was as good as any, and cheaper. I asked why 1
couldn’t do it on my own. He was full of indignation. ‘Man!
Have you seen the queues at the Préfecture? You’ll spend the
next fortnight there doing nothing, just standing in that queue.
You can’t even learn French there for everybody speaks
German.
. . . One morning the chambermaid told me by sign language
that somebody was waiting downstairs to see me. I found no
one at all in the hall, but the concierge pointed towards the
entrance. In front of it stood a taxi and in the taxi sat my visitor,
a friendly young Frenchman. He explained, once again with
gestures, that 1 should fetch my passport and money and he
would take me to the Préfecture to get my permit. He seemed
very sure of himself and I thought perhaps he had an uncle
working in the permits department. The greater was my
astonishment when he stopped the cab at the very end of the
queue, bade me pay the driver and get out. He, himself, made
elaborate preparations to do likewise. Only now did I realize
that his army greatcoat, thrown over his lap, hid a pair of
crutches and, there where everyone ought to have his right foot,
he had nothing but an empty trouser leg, turned up halfway and
secured with two large safety pins. He declined my help, got out
on his own, dragged himself with unexpected agility to the very
end of the queue, and planted himself on the tripod of his one
leg and two crutches. I followed him, astonished, my anger
growing with every step.
I was fuming. The money I gave him - which I so sorely
needed - the cheery attitude with which he went about cheating
me, made me blue with rage. The inability to swear, since I had
even less knowledge of the necessary French swear words than
those needed for conversation, had almost choked me. 1 tried to
gesture to him that I expected to be taken inside the building for
my money, and not line up outside. He countered with a flow of
soothing French words and mollifying gestures, not unlike how
grown-ups try to deal with the tantrums of children. His
 LA VIE P A R I S I E N N E 103

pantomime became even more expressive when he spotted a

policeman approaching, pleading with me to shut up. 1 did not. I
wanted to go up to the custodian of the law, to put my grievance
before him. He might even speak German since they had put
him on the special duty of keeping order among us German
refugees. He came straight to us. He addressed my French
friend, patting his crutches in the nonchalant way Frenchmen
converse among themselves. My Frenchman thanked him and,
almost as an afterthought, he pointed to me. The agent eyed me
with some suspicion, finally nodded. My French guide took my
arm, thanked him again, and pulled me towards the main
entrance. Miraculously, I understood the meaning of their con­
versation. The policeman had been instructed to give prefer­
ential treatment to invalids. My Frenchman told him that I came
with him, there was an unbreakable bond between the two of us
and so I, too, was allowed to pass. In simple words, my French­
man carried out a profitable business, based on two assets: his
disability and his country’s courteous attitude towards the
disabled.
Emmerich was not quite in the same position as his fictional counter­
part. He at least possessed a reasonable knowledge of French. He
moved into cheap lodgings in a good neighbourhood, initially on 5
rue Cognacy Jay in the sixth arrondissement. The Hôtel Ansonia, the
favoured flop house for film people, was only just down the road.
Rudolph Joseph, for a while Pabst’s assistant, remembers living there
‘with Billy Wilder, Hans G. Lustig with his first wife, Peter Lorre and
his wife Cilly Lvosky, Frederic Hollaender with one of his wives,
Franz Waxman, Irma von Cube and many others.’
The émigrés formed tight little cliques. The café Colisée was
patronized by the same faces who had hung out at the Bristol Café or
the Neubabelsberg canteen a few months previously. Initially, the
majority looked on their exile as a temporary affair. They imagined
that they would soon be returning to their villas in Dahlem and their
chauffeur-driven Mercedes. But as ever more refugees flooded out of
Germany and into France and Austria, and the political situation so
obviously deteriorated, this was revealed as mere wishful thinking.
The more astute realized that the sooner they forgot all about
Germany the better. The desire for integration was often accom­
panied by a change of name to accommodate the French palate.
104 EMMERICH

Among the chameleons were M ax Ophüls who merely dropped his

umlaut, his frequent collaborator and scriptwriter, Hans Wilhelm,
who became (briefly) Jean Villème, Kurt Bernhardt transformed into
Curtis Bernhardt and Eugen Schüfftan who became Eugène Shuftan.
Unlike many other careers, film at least was ‘international’ . Mur-
nau and Lubitsch had already proved that it was possible for Ger­
mans to work in Hollywood, so why not in Paris? German trained
technicians were recognized as the best in the world, and there was an
international demand for their expertise. It was the professionals and
intellectuals - a large proportion of the first flood of exiles - who
suffered most. How could a German lawyer practise French law?
How could a German journalist write for French papers? Not surpris­
ingly, there was a degree of resentment in some émigré circles towards
the ‘film Jew s’ who appeared politically unprincipled and financially
acquisitive.
Of the ‘artists’ the predicament was toughest for actors and writers.
Theatre work, at least initially, was out of the question and in films
there were only so many roles as a German spy. Stories of despera­
tion, even of suicide, abound. Many who had once been household
names in Germany found themselves unknown. ‘What’s your name?’
and ‘How do you spell that?’ were not questions they were accus­
tomed to, they whose faces and names had once appeared in hun­
dreds of magazines and gossip columns.
The plight of the professional writer was equivalent. In losing their
homeland they had lost their language, the only tool they possessed.
Karl Stern wrote: ‘All, even the oldest amongst us, learned the lan­
guage. However, the city gave us only the hand-me-down, the second-
rate words . . . the infinite in language is something quite beyond
public convenience. We used with great dexterity and cunning inex­
haustible variations of nouns, adjectives, verbs, sentences, while all
the time the language gazed down on us remotely.’ Among the writers
exiled for a period in France were Heinrich and Thomas Mann,
Ernest Toller, Walter Benjamin, Irmegard Keun and Bertholt Brecht.
‘To be a writer is not easy;’ wrote Herbert Friedanthal, ‘to be a Jew is
very difficult; to be a Jewish writer amounts to a minor tragedy. But
what about the Jewish writer who, on top of that, comes from
Germany?’
Film scripts lie somewhere between technical blueprints and works
of literary art. By their very nature they do not contain so much of the
untranslatable as a novel or play. Emmerich, and others like him, had
 LA VIE P A R I S I E N N E 105

already proved this pragmatically. But still, even directors, let alone
screenwriters, felt that exile had deprived them of a certain closeness
to their work. M ax Ophiils, bilingual as he was, noted the subtle
alienation working in French wrought upon him: ‘The other lan­
guage, I knew it and spoke it, but to work with it, that seemed very
strange to me. That someone should say, uje vous aime” in a love
scene instead of “ ich liebe Dich” disturbed me.’ Another director,
once a writer, Henry Kosterlitz (later Koster) recounts the sensation
of watching his own films in France: ‘They appeared to be the work
of a stranger, because, after all, the language I was hearing was not
my own.’ Working in a foreign language and with foreign mores and
customs, distances a director or writer from his work, allowing him,
perhaps, to be more playful, ironic, but depriving the films of emo­
tional sincerity, a dangerous thing in popular cinema. In some ways
Emmerich was at an advantage. He already knew how it felt to be an
alien, removed from the essential core of a country’s experience.
That so many of the film émigrés found work not only reflected the
high reputation of German cinema, but also the determination of
Erich Pommer and Seymour Nebenzal, the two major exiled pro­
ducers, who hired as many exiles as they could, even if they were
without work permits. However, in France, in contrast to Germany,
the bulk of production was by small independents who worked
precariously from film to film, setting up a new company and often
having to find a different source of funding for each project. (In 1935
one company made four films, ten companies made two films each
and 59 made only one.) Productions Arys —run by two brothers of
that name —was one of these outfits and was the first company to hire
Emmerich, on 8 August 19 33.
All that Emmerich remembered about the experience was the ram­
shackle organization of the fly-by-night producers and the poor work­
ing conditions, compared with what he had grown accustomed to at
Ufa. The cast and crew drove down to the location on the Riviera
together in convoy. Among them were the young Renée St Cyr and the
irrepressible actor-cum-surrealist poet Pierre Brasseur, an associate of
Breton, Eluard, Cocteau and D a li/ He was to be one of the few actors
- others being Anton Walbrook, Conrad Veidt and Ralph Richardson
- with whom Emmerich ever enjoyed a close friendship.

’ Brasseur, of course, later appeared in numerous films including Q u a i d e s B r u m e s and L e s

E n fa n t s d u P a r a d is .
io6 EMMERICH

The director was an old friend from Berlin, Kurt Gerron, the
famous rotundity of Ufa’s cabaret films. Gerron was a highly indivi­
dualistic actor, singer and director, remembered now as the leader of
the troupe of clowns in The Blue Angel, but acclaimed in his day for
his performance in the original version of Brecht’s The Threepenny
Opera and as the large half of a comedy team called Beef und Steak,
with Sigi Arno.
The astute Arys brothers picked up Gerron and Emmerich at
cut-price, under-the-table, émigré rates. Emmerich was paid 20,000
francs to write the script in German and then go through it with
Jacques Natanson, one of the small group of dialogue writers and
‘Frenchifiers’ who took writing credits on the émigré films, to produce
the final draft in French. It was the same method he had used when
writing the French versions of his Ufa scripts. The story was a
standard romantic comedy of mistaken identity, originally entitled
‘Son Altesse Voyage’ but released as Incognito: Marcel is a waiter in a
café who pretends to be the missing Prince of Roumelie. Conse­
quently he attracts gold-digging young ladies as honey does flies. This
makes his down-to-earth (but beautiful) girlfriend, Helen, stingingly
jealous. All is resolved when the intrepid Helen tracks down and
rescues the real prince from the clutches of a Svengali-like composer,
and is rewarded handsomely for her efforts.
St Cyr remembers the film as ‘an incognito which should have
remained incognito.’ Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable production
and nobody took it too seriously. According to Michel Kelber, the
young Russian cameraman who became a close, lifelong, friend of
Emmerich’s, Gerron was ‘large and jovial and didn’t expect too much
of his crew . . . Often he would fall asleep on the set after a good
lunch. I developed a code with him. If the “ take” was OK I squeezed
his arm once, if it wasn’t I squeezed it twice. That way he never had to
open his eyes.’
St Cyr recalled a particular scene in which she had to appear naked
in the shower — with her back to the camera, of course. She was
reluctant to do it. Gerron assured her that during the scene the entire
crew except for the cameraman (Kelber) would leave the room. ‘The
cameraman,’ said Gerron, ‘is a bit like a doctor, a confessor, he
knows you better than you know yourself.’ St Cyr accepted and they
started to shoot. ‘In the silence I heard a creak above me, 1 looked up:
the gangway was black with people. The entire studio had gathered
and was gawping down at me!’
 LA VI E P A R I S I E N N E 107

Incognito was a low budget film, with plenty of rough edges that
would have shocked the stem professionals of Ufa, but which passed
unnoticed by the less demanding French producers. In fact it was
something of a hit and Gerron and Emmerich were re-hired immedi­
ately by another small independent to produce a similar film: Une
Femme au Volant (‘Woman at the Wheel’), a comic Romeo and Juliet
story centring on two competing families of pneumatic tyre manufac­
turers.
Unfortunately, both these films are missing.
The Gerron-Pressburger liaison was short-lived. When no pro­
ducer appeared on the horizon to offer them a third film, the adapt­
able Gerron set off to Holland, via Austria, to work on the stage,
make a couple more films, and do the Dutch synchronization of
Disney’s Snow White. In 1934 Emmerich wrote another script for
him called ‘The Miracle in St Anthony’s Lane’, which they sold to a
backer, but which was destined not to be made until 22 years later in
England as Miracle in Soho. By then, Gerron was no longer alive to
direct it.*

Work was harder to come by in 1934 than it had been the previous
year. The French economy was in deep recession and there were more
émigrés competing for fewer jobs. Moreover, the film unions were
growing vociferous in their complaints about the number of
foreigners depriving Frenchmen of work. Singled out for particular
criticism was Robert Siodmak’s La Crise est Finie (‘The Crisis is
Over’), an attempt at a commercial, American-style musical comedy.
Uncle Seymour, who was producing, apparently hired twenty Ger­
man refugees who did not have work permits, two that did, and only
one Frenchman. Then he had the gall to publicize the film as ‘A
Masterpiece of French Cinema’.
Substantial numbers of exiles recognized that it was time to move
on and courted offers from the ubiquitous American studio talent

*With the fall of Holland Gerron remained in Amsterdam as the director of the Jewish
theatre. In m id-19 4 3 he was arrested and sent to the concentration camp of Westerbork,
and in February of the following year, transferred to Theresienstadt. There, under unknown
circumstances, he was forced to direct the Nazi propaganda film D e r F ü h r e r S c h e n k t d e n
J u d e n E in e S ta d t (T h e Führer Has Given the Jews a C ity’ ), a cynical attempt to placate the
Red Cross and sway world opinion about the treatment of the Jews. With the ‘co-operation’
of prominent detainees a comfortable, almost normal life, with cultural activities, football
matches and discussions, was acted out for the cameras. When the film was completed,
Gerron and all the other participants in the project, cast and crew, were deported to
Auschwitz.
io 8 EMMERICH

scouts. Others looked further afield for more sporadic work: to

Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Italy and Britain. According to an
article in Variety in September 19 34, London had superseded Berlin
as the European capital for the American film giants.
Aside from the general shortage of work, the Germans did not
find the rather lethargic style of French production particularly sym­
pathetic. Stories proliferated contrasting the rigour and discipline of
the Germans with the more relaxed attitude of their French col­
laborators: ‘Pommer tried to transpose the working methods of the
Berlin era to Paris. There were, for instance, the script conferences
which started on the dot and then went on for hours. The seating
was strictly hierarchical. He sat at the head of the table and at the
sides, in descending order, everyone else from director down to
propman. One’s turn to speak was similarly fixed. For the third
meeting the French appeared with school satchels and slates. Pom­
mer took it well, and shook his head, smiling. When, towards six,
the conference room was almost empty, Pommer turned to the chief
cameraman, “ Why are you leaving so soon?” Already at the door,
the cameraman turned around, “ C ’est l’heure de l’apéritif,
Monsieur . . . ” ’
As opportunities dried up and many of his friends left for
America, Emmerich himself was undecided about his next move. He
tried hard to master French, going whenever he could to the Apollo
cinema, just around the corner from the Café Colisée, at night to
watch the continuous show over and over. If he stayed past mid­
night he discovered that he could watch the first showing of the next
day’s programme as well. But he was too much of an outsider ever
to be anything but an observer of French life. He flirted with the
idea of going to Hollywood and had an American agent called
Edmund Pauker, who specialized in representing European writers
and counted Ferenc Molnár among his clients.
Emmerich found it difficult to make ends meet in 1934. The
money he had been able to get out of Germany and the 40,000
francs or so he had earned on the two Gerron films were soon
exhausted. There were numerous promises of work, on short films,
on a film in Budapest, in England, but for months nothing concrete
materialized. He even wrote to his old boss, Fritz Podehl at Ufa,
enclosing a treatment for a film called ‘The Satyr’. The department
head’s reply was friendly, but he was unable to help: ‘Thank you for
the treatment which we found most amusing . . . Unfortunately, for
 LA VIE P A R I S I E N N E 109

us - and probably for all other German companies - it appears that

the material cannot be considered under the terms of the new regula­
tions.’ Podehl’s own decency towards his Jewish ex-employees did
not go unnoticed and he was soon dismissed.
Emmerich fell into debt with his landlord and in March was locked
out of his room on rue Cognacy Jay and his belongings confiscated.
He moved in for a while with Michel Kelber, before somehow finding
the money to rent the studio apartment next to the Hôtel Pierre at 25
avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie, near the Champs-Elysées. But he was soon
behind with his bills again and finding it difficult to eat. Moreover, he
needed to send his mother more money than ever: she was being
threatened with deportation from Hungary and needed to hire a
lawyer. By the beginning of May things were quite desperate. He did
not eat for several days. But still there were only promises of work.
Matters were not improved when several acquaintances absconded
without paying their debts to him. George Ramon, who still owed
him money for getting his Hungarian passport, had gone to London
to look for work as a naval designer. For months he couldn’t find
anything and scraped a living as a kind of gigolo for a loathsome
married woman whom he refers to as ‘Mrs O’. He sent Emmerich
dribs and drabs of money when he could - sometimes as little as 10
shillings. By 20 May things reached their lowest ebb when Emmerich
was summoned by the police and threatened with deportation and
imprisonment for debt.
One of the few surviving pieces of Emmerich’s correspondence
dates from this period. He wrote in anger to Ramon who had failed to
back a debt:
. . . When I got the passport for you I had to take money from
that very small amount which 1 had set aside for my mother. I
told you about this when I arrived in Berlin. You reassured me
that this would be dealt with at once. That was a year ago. You
have done nothing. Sândor Vero, who advanced part of the
money for your passport and arranged the whole business and
who was my friend —I don’t hear from him anymore. Because of
you 1 am in the situation that he has not even replied to my
letter. The situation is the same with Imre Weiss.
Why the hell do you promise things which you can’t keep? Do
you not think it would be better for me to be prepared for the
worst, rather than be disappointed by you?
I IO EMMERICH

You don’t have to get money for me. Work out whether you
still owe me and, if you have money repay it, that’s all 1 want
you to do. Don’t get excited about me. Don’t pretend to be
concerned about my fate. Believe me, when 1 wrote to you that
the worst thing is that I don’t have a single friend here, 1 was
quite clear that 1 don’t have a friend in London either.
Yours sincerely,
Pressburger
Ramon replied that he had no money, but he begged Emmerich to sell
all his possessions and come to London. ‘Things are cheaper here and
better. I am sure that you could find film work easily. In the meantime
we could both survive on the little which Mrs O provides me with.’ It
was some time, however, before Emmerich took this advice.
His statement ‘I don’t have a single friend here’ was, even in the
toughest times, not entirely true. Kelber says that ‘he was very well
known and liked by the other émigrés, but most of them were just
professional friends. He did not open himself up easily. And he was
proud. He would never have asked for help.’ Apart from Kelber,
genuinely close friends included Gerron, Brasseur and, most par­
ticularly, Ernö Hajos, a fellow Hungarian and one-time editor at Ufa.
‘They used to sit together in my flat and talk Hungarian,’ recalled
Kelber. ‘Sometimes Emmerich would stop and translate, but usually I
just sat there. I used to joke with them that I was going to learn
Hungarian just to take part in their conversation.’
During his long, inactive spells Emmerich’s routine was lethargic.
He would rise late - you weren’t so hungry in bed — and maybe
venture out in the evening to a café to sit for hours over a single drink,
writing scripts on spec, and planning productions with fellow émigrés
that would never be realized.
On one of these days he met Stapenhorst again. Not being a Jew,
Stapi had little to fear from Hitler. But (as his daughter Marga says),
‘he refused to have his political opinion pinned to his lapel’. When
Hitler chose to visit the Ufa studios and see a reconstruction of the
Venice Grand Canal on the set of the film Baracole, it was Stapi who
showed him round. But he called the dictator ‘Your Excellency’ (not
‘Mein Führer’) and the picture showing Hitler and Stapi together,
which was reproduced the following day in every newspaper, showed
the latter with his hands in his pockets. Some time after Pommer’s
departure from Ufa, Stapi found himself faced with the Nazi offer to
 LA VI E P A R I S I E N N E III

be head of production and become a member of the board. His

answer was neither yes nor ‘go to hell’, but, diplomatically, ‘I am
honoured by your offer. However, I have debts abroad and would
need part of my salary paid in foreign currency . . . ’ conditions cal­
culated to be unacceptable with the institution of the new currency
control legislation.
While still in the employ of Ufa, Stapenhorst visited Paris, and
went for a stroll along the Champs-Elysées. Rudolph Joseph was
with him and recalls that as they passed the Cinema Marignan, ‘at a
table of the coffee house sat Emmerich Pressburger. Stapenhorst
greeted him in his natural cordial way. Emmerich was baffled and
said so. Why was he being treated as in former times? And Stapen-
horst’s reply was “ Wieso den nicht?” - “ and why not?” . I always
had the impression that from that moment their friendly acquaint­
ance became a deep, everlasting friendship.’ The fact that Stapen­
horst stopped to talk to a refugee Jew went contrary to the deepest
Nazi principle, and it wasn’t long before he himself left Ufa and
Germany to settle in England.
There was no real political unity among the exiles and they made
little attempt at organized political resistance or communal help.
Ernest Toller, the writer and political orator, lamented this state of
affairs in a letter to Emil Ludwig: ‘At times 1 thought of uniting the
exiles with the strict discipline of a legion, but it was a futile attempt.
The émigrés of 19 33 are a confused collection of those exiled by
chance - including many Jews who are Nazis manqués, weaklings
with vague ideas, paragons of virtue whom only Hitler prevents from
being swine, with very few men of conviction among them. German,
all too German.’
It was very much an individualist’s world; film-makers in general
are not — and never were — renowned for their political conviction.
Emmerich himself would fit under the label of ‘conservative apa­
thetic’, a stance born of impotence, of knowing what it was like to be
shunted from one place to another by obscure governments and
distant bureaucracies, merely a pawn in the political game. This is not
to say that the film folk were uniquely selfish and cold-hearted. Help
was extended to less fortunate friends and colleagues on a scale
unthinkable today. Banks then did not readily lend money to anyone,
let alone unemployed foreigners. The only recourse was to friends;
thus Emmerich’s desperation in the letter to Ramon. He did his fair
share of lending and borrowing. A surviving notebook is filled with
11 2 EMMERICH

little more than column upon column of figures, some large amounts,
some tiny, beside a variety of names.
Myths developed around various philanthropic émigrés who aided
their fellows in peculiar ways. Most famously, there was the man who
every night went to the Café Bohème in Montparnasse and wandered
among the tables looking at people’s faces, seeing who was tormented
because they couldn’t pay for their drink. He would pay the waiter
directly and leave, without ever saying a word to the beneficiary.
Aid organizations did exist, but they were mainly Jewish charities,
from which gentiles, such as political refugees, were excluded. And
their funds were limited. On one occasion thirty-five destitute émigrés
were sent to a South American republic on an ocean liner, first class
(each equipped with a dinner jacket). The republic did not check how
much money first-class passengers arrived with, and the aid organiza­
tion in France decided that it was cheaper to send the émigrés to a
new life in South America than keep them in France. For a few days
they lived in paradise - first-class food, first-class service. But when
they arrived they had to cast off the charade and be penniless again.
Emigré life often played tricks with appearance. Men and women in
the finest clothes, silks and furs, would enter a working man’s café
and order bread to stave off their hunger, drawing incredulous stares
from the regular clientele. Well-educated young men in fashionable
suits stood selling newspapers on street corners.
Emmerich’s own period of desperation was alleviated at the begin­
ning of June when Kurt Gerron found a backer to pay for an option
on Emmerich’s story, ‘The Miracle in St Anthony’s Lane’. Shortly
afterwards there was a more lucrative job, which finally cleared his
debts: a rewrite for his old acquaintances Gregor Rabinovitch and
Arnold Pressburger at Cine-Allianz. It was an operetta film entitled
My Heart Is Calling starring the famous Polish tenor Jan Kiepura and
his Hungarian wife Márta Eggerth. A bilingual, it was shot in Ger­
many in French and German versions. As an exile, Emmerich’s name
was removed from the German prints. The plot concerned itself with
a touring operatic company arriving at the Monte Carlo Opera.
Apart from some distinguished singing the film is somewhat anodyne,
but the backstage life and Riviera setting prefigure elements of The
Archers’ The Red Shoes thirteen years later.
Soon afterwards he was hired by Minerva Films to write an Italian-
French bilingual entitled Vallabilité Dix Jours from the novel of the
same name. On 30 August he signed a contract, again for 20,000
 LA VIE P A R I S I E N N E II3

francs, to be paid, as was the norm, in instalments of 5,000 francs

over two months. He was given a train ticket to Rome where he
lodged in a hotel on the via Sistina. A young female journalist and
actress calléd Giuliana Pozzo collaborated on the Italian dialogue. To
the detriment of the script, the two began an affair (without the
knowledge of Emmerich’s full-time girlfriend, Monique, in Paris).
Increasingly agitated letters started to arrive from the French pro­
ducers, as they fell more and more behind schedule. When, eventu­
ally, a complete draft of the first half of the script was delivered
almost a month overdue, Emmerich received an irate reply which well
demonstrates the conditions under which he was working and the
priorities of the producer:
. . . To tell you the truth I am not exactly thrilled with what I
have read in the first part. You will remember that I asked you
not to involve too many different locations, and above all not to
create too many technical difficulties. It is all very well to write
something down, only when it comes to realization does one
come across enormous obstacles. I would like to give you a little
example of this: the affair with the children on the station
platform as well as in the steam train and in the restaurant car.
Also the beginning of the film with the scene on the ocean liner.
You must take into consideration the fact that I have very
limited resources for this film. I also made you aware of the fact
that I only want to employ those French actors who will play the
principal roles, i.e. Paulo, Clara and the detective. But in your
version there are three other French actors and that would
obviously involve a considerable increase in costs. I cannot
possibly agree to this and therefore a large revision of the script
will be necessary.
The film fell through and in the middle of October Emmerich
returned to Paris with a suntan but without the whole 20,000 francs.
Every month, no matter how little he had earned, Emmerich tried
to send 1000 francs to his mother in Miskolc. Like other émigrés in
the same position, he would scour the city in search of the bank with
the best rate of exchange. Often these would be ‘private banks’,
highly suspect organizations, fronts for dubious activity. On one
particular occasion Emmerich utilized one of these establishments to
wire some money to Hungary. For several days he awaited an
acknowledgement of receipt from his mother, but none came. The
114 EMMERICH

bank reassured him, of course, that the money had been sent. After a
week or so his mother had still received nothing. Then one afternoon
in the Café Colisée a wild rumour went round that the ‘bank’ was
closing down. Emmerich sprinted over to the place to find the doors
being locked and the windows shuttered. He pleaded with the clerk,
telling him that he desperately needed the money, that his mother had
not received it. The anxious clerk took him to see the manager, who
succumbed to the protestations and handed over the money. The
following day Emmerich received notification from his mother that
the original money had arrived safely! The men in the bank must have
been on the verge of tying up their scam, whatever it was, and become
scared that Emmerich would blow the whistle on them before they
had packed up. It was cheaper to hand over the small sum to
Emmerich just to keep him quiet.
On 3 December Emmerich finally sold the rights of his story ‘The
Satyr’ (which Ufa had turned down) to Gerard L. Strausz’s company,
Aurora Films, for the sum of 22,500 francs. The comedy went into
production at Paramount’s Joinville studios in Paris in January 19 35,
retitled Monsieur Sans-Gêne (‘Mr Shameless’), directed by Karl
Anton.
A young actor enters a dark cinema for a secret assignation with his
lover, a respectable woman. He sits down, leans over and kisses her.
‘You beast!’ she screams — he has kissed the wrong woman. But he
can’t compromise the woman he meant to kiss by revealing her
identity. He is taken to court and, naturally, falls in love with the
woman he kissed by accident. Perhaps the story stemmed from the
idle fantasies that passed through Emmerich’s head as he sat in the
Apollo cinema learning French, gazing at the beautiful girls who came
and went.
Monsieur Sans-Gêne was a domestic hit and the English language
remake rights were sold to Mary Pickford and Jesse L. Lasky’s brand
new, short-lived company, Pickford-Lasky, for a tidy sum. Their
version, re-christened One Rainy Afternoon, featured Ida Lupino in
her first starring role, and Francis Lederer. Preston Sturges, who had
recently sold his influential script The Power and the Glory to Lasky,
wrote the English song lyrics.
Emmerich was never as hard up again as he had been during most
of 1934. In the spring of 1935 he moved out of his studio beside the
Hôtel Pierre 1er and into a spacious and recently redecorated flat at 6
rue Quentin Brochart, only just around the corner. Initially he
 LA VIE P A R I S I E N N E II5

couldn’t understand why such an attractive apartment was being

rented out so cheaply. Then he learned that a brutal murder had
recently been committed in the house - necessitating the new decor.
Emmerich held parties in his new flat. He would buy a barrel of the
small green oysters known as portugaises and a jar of glass pearls,
then insert the beads into a few of the shellfish. The host and his
friends would then sit back and enjoy the differing reactions of the
girls they had invited to the party, when they found the ‘pearls’.
Throughout 19 35 Emmerich was involved in numerous projects
for which he never received screen credit, or which were simply not
produced. A couple were in collaboration with André Gide’s nephew,
Marc Allegret, one an adaptation of Conrad’s Under Western Eyes,
another involving Oscar Straus, the celebrated operetta composer.
There was also a contribution to Port Arthur, a tragic Sino-Russian
love story by fellow Hungarian Nicholas Farkas. Karl Grune’s 19 35
oriental epic, Abdul the Damned, starring Fritz Kortner, had its
origins in a treatment written by Emmerich and Curt Siodmak for the
latter’s brother Robert. Various other unrealized projects were
developed with Leo Mitler, Géza von Cziffry, Roberto Dandi (an
Italian producer), Jacques de Baroncelli, Alberto Cavalcanti, Victor
Trivas and Fedor Ozep. He also sold a comedy treatment titled
Zweim al Sylvester (‘Twice Times New Year’) to M GM through his
American agent.
Of more specific interest than these, perhaps, was a script of
Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata, commissioned by the Russian pro­
ducer Michel Safra, another old Berlin acquaintance. Tolstoy’s
novella contains various features which the screenwriter must have
found sympathetic. It is told in flashback — a man relates his life
history to a fellow traveller in a train compartment. Music, speci­
fically the violin, has a crucial psychological significance in the plot.
Emmerich wrote the script in August. It was scheduled to start
shooting the following April, but nothing materialized.
Emmerich received a screen credit on only one more French pro­
duction. Characteristically, this was a film celebrating the joys of
Paris, the kind of intensely ‘national’ outsider’s appreciation that he
gravitated towards.
La Vie Parisienne was the most popular of Jacques Offenbach’s
operettas, particularly in Germany, where M ax Reinhardt had plan­
ned, but failed, to film it in 1930. Late in his life M ax Ophüls
suggested that Offenbach was a model for a specifically European
il 6 EMMERICH

musical film genre, as opposed to, but on a par with, the great
American musicals as epitomized by Vincente Minelli. He called
Offenbach ‘the music of life’. Emmerich shared this opinion. To him
Offenbach represented all the gaiety, wit and romance offered by
Paris.
Emmerich had originally approached Nebenzal with a story entit­
led ‘French Can-Can’, which concerned Offenbach’s favourite singer,
Juliette, who purportedly had an affair with Napoleon III. Curt
Siodmak had developed the idea further, but the project was aban­
doned (although Curt wrote a novel some 25 years later based on the
same events, called For Kings Only). Only then did Emmerich interest
Nebenzal in an updated version of La Vie Parisienne.
The project was announced by Variety on 19 February 19 35:
United Artists have signed Seymour Nebenzal, exiled German
film producer now in the US to make English and French ver­
sions of Offenbach’s operetta La Vie Parisienne. [The] piece is
one of the perpetual musical successes of the local stage. Ameri­
can cast to be brought over for English version and although no
final arrangements are made yet, it is believed that an American
director will also be imported.
It was intended as a high-profile production. G. W. Pabst was con­
sidered as director when he returned from a sojourn in America, but
finally Robert Siodmak was selected. The idea of importing an entire
American cast for the English version was also ditched. Only Neil
Hamilton and the Spanish beauty Conchita Montenegro were, in fact,
sent over from Hollywood. (Hamilton was a silent star who got his
first break with D. W. Griffith, but whose sound career never really
took off; he found popular appeal again in the sixties playing Police
Commissioner Gordon in the Batman TV series.)
This big budget, American-funded affair began shooting at the end
of July 19 35 on location on the Champs-Elysées, at the Café de ia
Paix and in the Bois de Boulogne. In August it moved to a disused
turn-of-the-century station where 80 separate sets were built and 100
dancers and singers were hired for the chorus. The French and Eng­
lish versions were shot simultaneously with Montenegro and M ax
Dearly taking the main roles in both and Neil Hamilton and George
Rigaud alternating in the male lead.
Besides the title and a few characteristic situations, little of Offen­
bach’s operetta remains in this modernization. The original was set in
 LA VIE P A R I S I E N N E II7

i860, but the Siodmak version begins with a prologue in the Belle
Epoque - during the 1900 World Exposition - in which a bon-vivant
millionaire Brazilian, Fernando, says farewell to his mistress, Mizzi,
the star of the'Offenbach theatre, and then jumps forward to 1936, the
year of the film’s release. Emmerich’s original script describes the
flash-forward poetically:
For another moment the sight was all before him: the flapping
handkerchiefs, the waving hands, gleaming glasses, the black hair of
Mizzi Metella, Micky's monocle, then suddenly the picture began to
blur and fade before Fernando's eyes.
Only a lock of black hair and a quiet melody remained, the melody
was the tune of life in Paris. The train seemed to beat in time with it.
Fernando Correa de Se leaned back in his compartment and
carefully shut the lock away in his pocket watch. Now he noticed that
he had left his travelling bag with the prospectus on the platform in
the rush; but what did that matter right now?
He was still holding the clock in his hand.
It was exactly midnight and very quietly, the clock began to chime
the little melody. When it stopped, Fernando went on hearing it, it
chimed through years and decades of his life and Fernando would
never forget it. It would mean Paris to him and Paris would mean the
time of his youth.

It is now 1936. The same Brazilian arrives in Paris with his grand­
daughter who, against the wishes of her stuffy father, has accompanied
grandfather on this nostalgic return to the city of his youth. The maxim
in ‘Auf Reisen’, Emmerich’s first short story, is just as applicable here:
‘Today we travel more quickly but act more slowly.’ In the final
analysis, the film is concerned with the magical power of Paris to
transform even the most tightly buttoned stuffed shirt, forcing him to
relax and enjoy the finer things of life. A fantasy sequence towards the
end has the entire population of the city rising up in solidarity to
oppose the killjoy father who comes from Brazil to rescue his daughter
from the grasp of licentiousness. Of course, even he falls in love in the
end. The final shot is of a train pulling out of the city with an empty
compartment which was meant for the three generations of Brazilians.
All have been enticed into staying in Paris, capital of flirtation, elegance
and joie de vivre. The émigrés presented the world with an extreme
representation of mythic, romantic Paris - no matter that they them­
selves had seen the myth exposed by grubby experience.
1 18 EMMERICH

La Vie Parisienne has moments of genuine cinematic style: a fluid

camera glides along the station platform as the Brazilian bids farewell
and swings up high as the can-can dancers reach their finale. But, on
the whole, it is an uneasy mixture of moods and styles. Despite a huge
advertising campaign (‘A Piquant Cocktail of Three Generations!’)
mounted by United Artists, and a gala première, the public was not
impressed. It opened on 22 January to some reasonable reviews, but
little business. Variety watched its progress with interest - a success
would have meant an increased American investment in European
multilinguals:
Despite unevenness in production and Teutonic heaviness in
humour, La Vie Parisienne looks OK for the local market. M ax
Dearly’s comedy, Conchita Montenegro’s smile, a few good
gags, production numbers of the Hollywood type well enough
done to get by in France, and the delightful music, should carry
it through and may even put it in the good class.
. . . Production numbers, while attractive for local made,
show backwardness of French camera technique. Way the dance
scenes are shot, for instance, is bound to suffer in the public
mind in comparison to American pictures. But the chief
weakness of the film is the long fantasy towards the end, which
should sparkle but drags. German training of director, Siodmak,
shows through here . . .
Siodmak did not have Ophuls’s lightness of touch or Lubitsch’s sense
of malicious fun, and the public didn’t want it any other way. In
London, truncated by 15 minutes, the English version was panned by
the critics at the press show and never given a proper release.
But La Vie Parisienne was not an entirely negative experience for
all concerned. At the beginning of July 19 35 Emmerich had gone to
London to work on the English language script of the film with
Arthur Wimperis, the prolific co-author of many of Alexander
Korda’s early successes. He stayed with George Ramon and together
they drove to Glasgow, where Ramon had some work to see to, and
Emeric got his first taste of the country where he was to spend the
remainder of his life.
What finally made Emmerich decide to leave Paris? Perhaps there
were promises of work in London. England was certainly experienc­
ing a film-making boom in 19 35. More probably he had thoughts of
going to America and wanted to spend some time learning the
 LA VIE P A R I S I E N N E II9

language in Britain before he embarked. In later life he himself gave a

more flippant reason:
7 had been doing some work for a very wealthy film producer whose
main interest lay not in films at all, but in race horses. He had a whole
stable o f them. I wrote a script for him and then waited and waited
for payment. One day a friend told me that if I wanted to get my
money I had to go to the race course and wait for one o f the
producer’s horses to win and then - while he was still high on the
excitement —he would pay up. I did this and got my money, but I also
thought to myself: “ What kind o f country is thisf This is no way to be
treated! I ’ll go to England where at least they pay on time! ” ’
Before his first reconnaissance trip to England, Emmerich met a
man on the terrace of the Café de la Paix who advised him how to get
a British residence permit: T h e first rule,’ he said, ‘is that you must
call anyone in uniform Sir, especially the policemen at Bow Street
where you register as an alien. The second thing you must do is open
an account at Barclay’s bank.’ Emmerich followed his acquaintance’s
instructions, though he had so little to put in it: his opening balance
was £43 7s. But when he returned across la Manche in September,
with all his worldly possessions in a few suitcases, he was given his
first lesson in the English character. The passport officials - feared
throughout Europe as wily creatures —looked him up and down and
asked how long he proposed to stay in the country. ‘A month or so,’
he replied, trying to appear casual. ‘You don’t have much money for
that month or two,’ responded the officer. ‘But 1 also have an account
at Barclay’s bank in Regent Street,’ said Emmerich. Immediately the
man’s attitude changed, his lip noticeably stiffened with respect: ‘ In
that case, sir, there is no problem.’
 CHAPTER 7

Being Hungarian is not Enough

But in England, at least in the England of my youth, the
national dread of showing off and a too grim preoccupation
with solid teamwork were not conducive to the development of
the goalkeeper’s art.
n a b o k o v , Speak Memory

Continental Europeans of Emmerich’s generation were captivated by

all things English. The hotels, the tailoring, the literature, all were
widely admired and imitated and the English gentleman was con­
sidered to be the very pinnacle of millions of years of human evol­
ution. Moreover, to refugees from Nazi Germany, England was a
welcome haven, apparently a million miles away from the political
upheavals, the passions and extremisms of the continent. While the
rest of the world was worrying about war the English muddled along
in the same old insular way. A typical anecdote of the time tells of a
young refugee who arrived in Piccadilly Circus fresh off the boat-
train. His eye was caught by a newspaper placard proclaiming: E n g ­
l a n d i n d a n g e r . Hastily he bought a paper and anxiously flicked

through it looking for the inevitable article on the German war

machine. Only when he turned to the back page did he see the
headline: d a n g e r : E n g l a n d m a y f a l l t o A u s t r a l i a i n t h e
S E C O N D TEST.
What made the English all the more morbidly intriguing was the
utter impossibility of a foreigner ever fully understanding them. Try
as they might, immigrants could never hope to master the hundred
tiny snobberies that make up the English class system, or comprehend
the peculiarities of humour, cuisine and love-making. In England the
foreigner was forever doomed to be an outsider. ‘ It is a shame and
bad taste to be an alien,’ wrote George Mikes in H ow to be an Alien,
‘and it is no use pretending otherwise. There is no way out of it. A
criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A
foreigner cannot improve.’
Initially, Emmerich lived with George Ramon in a private boarding
 BEI NG H U N G A R I A N IS N O T E N O U G H I21

house at 34 Prince’s Gardens, SW7, round the corner from the Albert
Hall. His room was right at the top of the Georgian townhouse,
overlooking the park.* After a couple of months he moved to room
424 at the Mount Royal Hotel, behind Marble Arch, where he lived
off and on for two years. His neighbour was the celebrated Weimar
lyricist Fritz Rotter who counted Emmerich’s favourite, ‘I Kiss Your
Little Hand, Madam’, among his compositions. (A vain man, Rotter
was cursed with enormous ears which stuck out from his head.
Everyone knew that unexpected visitors to his room would have to
wait at least five minutes before he let them in, while he undid the
contraptions he wore in private to keep his ears pinned back.)
Emmerich recalled little of his first years in Britain. The time passed
in an undifferentiated haze. ‘I remember spending hours just walking
the streets or lying in bed to keep warm. I didn’t really do anything.’
He struggled with the new language, studying methodically from a
pre-war German text book. He set himself the task of learning twenty
new words a day and ticked them off in a little pocket dictionary he
had bought from a stall outside the Café Colisée in Paris. Billy Wilder
has recounted that initially his own conversation in English was
mainly composed of lines from popular American songs. If asked
whether he longed to see Berlin again, he would reply: ‘Gee, but I’d
give the world to see that old gang of mine.’ Asked by a girl when they
might meet again he would say: ‘When day is done and shadows fall.’
When not just wandering around, or sitting in parks, Emmerich
visited friends. Many of them lived in the Cumberland Hotel at
Marble Arch, the London equivalent of Paris’s Hôtel Ansonia. A
surprising number of the German film refugees had moved on from
Vienna and Paris to London - perhaps aiming to learn English before
moving on to Hollywood. Among them were Curt Siodmak, Rudolph
Katscher, Allan Gray, Alberto Cavalcanti, Hans and Wolfgang Wil­
helm, Curtis Bernhardt, and Eugène Shuftan - the only one who had
a regular supply of work, darting between Paris and London shooting
films for Ophuls, Siodmak and Carné. Among the small Hungarian
community were the actors Magda Kun and her husband Steven
Geray, old friends from the Ufa film A Wén Gazember, who were now
successful on the cabaret circuit. Emmerich never felt as lonely in
London as he had at times in Paris.

*The whole terrace was destroyed in the war and Imperial College has built a halls of
residence in its place.
122 EMMERICH

But it was harder than he had anticipated to gain a foothold in

British cinema, and it was almost two years before he gained his first
British screen credit. In the meantime, he took the few assignments
offered him, usually by fellow refugees with their own fly-by-night
production companies, rewriting and doctoring other people’s scripts.
In later life Emmerich was not interested in delving back into those
early years in England. If you let him, he liked to pretend that The Spy
in Blacky his first film with Michael Powell, was the first filmscript he
wrote in Britain. His reticence is understandable. The work he under­
took was nothing to be proud of. Films made merely for money were,
he felt, echoing the theme of The Red Shoes, ‘not even worth talking
about —the film business may be a business, but it is also far more than
that’.
In his first weeks he obtained a pass for the British Library, a warm
refuge to so many poverty stricken émigrés over the years. He made an
effort to study British history and culture, trying hard to tailor his
scripts to the new and completely unfamiliar market. One was entitled
‘Tea’ and concerned the races between the tea clippers at the turn of the
century. Unfortunately, this cynically aimed project was never completed.
It is possible that, like other émigrés, he received aid from the
Society for Jewish Refugees, the most active of the refugee organiza­
tions. But if he did he never talked about it. Emmerich’s Berlin
experiences had left him loath to accept charity in whatever form and
additionally, perhaps he felt guilt or embarrassment at taking advan­
tage of a specifically Jewish fund. Several of his acquaintances did,
however, receive quite generous allowances from the charity organ­
izations. Rudolph Kätscher, who remained almost continually unem­
ployed until after the war, recalls being paid £9 a week, a decent wage
in 19 35.
In all likelihood Emmerich scraped by on a combination of loans
and poorly paid writing assignments. His biggest stroke of luck was
having Günther Stapenhorst there. Stapi was also idle, but not short
of money. Before leaving Ufa he had secured an exorbitantly well-
paid contract with Oswald Stoll, the theatre magnate and would-be
film producer. The contract ran for a full year without a single film
being produced, or — as far as anyone can remember — even being
talked about. The Stapenhorsts were installed in a capacious resi­
dence on Hampstead Way and Emmerich was a frequent visitor. ‘He
looked rather shabby - well, shabby for Emmerich, which is not
really shabby at all - ’ recalled Stapi’s daughter, Marga, ‘and we were
 B EI NG H U N G A R I A N IS N O T E N O U G H I23

all a little sorry for him, I think. My mother loved him and always
asked him to stay for dinner, and Emmerich would always get embar­
rassed about it. My father and he spent a lot of time sitting in the
wooehparielled study just talking.’
Maybe they talked about Germany: about Babelsberg, about
schnitzel and Pilsner (unheard of in England), but mostly they talked
about football. Together Stapi and Emmerich discovered the joys and
tragedies of the great British sport. And the team which captured
Emmerich’s heart was Arsenal, the most durable passion of his life.
Through victory and humiliation, he followed them for over fifty
years.
The 1930s belonged to Arsenal. The ‘Gunners’ were famous the
world over, synonymous with the very best in modern, exciting
football. The undefeated champions of the league for five years
(although they were faltering in 1935/36), the Arsenal players were
household names: Cliff ‘Boy’ Bastin, light-footed winger par excel­
lence, Drake, Lambert, James and Hulme were all living legends. The
manager George Allison was the most respected man in north
London - little boys stood gawping in the streets of Highbury as he
passed.
Stapi and Emmerich followed their team to every away match for
the season of 35/36, driving up and down the country in Stapi’s big
black Chrysler. These two foreign-looking gentlemen, who hardly
spoke a word of English between them, one tall and aristocratic, the
other short and down at heel, became familiar figures on the terraces.
Among the crowds of cheering fans they could again feel that they
belonged. And what better school could there be for a writer intent on
mastering the peculiarities of colloquial English and the oddities of
the national character?
Emmerich’s love of football was the love of the true connoisseur.
To him, as to half the working-class population of Britain, football
meant far more than entertainment. ‘For a shilling,’ wrote J. B.
Priestley, ‘Bruddersfield United A FC offered you conflict and Art, it
turned you into a critic, happy in your judgement of fine points, ready
in a second to estimate the worth of a well-judged pass, a run down
the line, a lightning shot, a clearance kick by back or goalkeeper.’
And in spite of defeat in the league, this was a fine year to be a ‘critic’
of Arsenal as they scored their way to another victory in the FA cup.
Absorbing himself in football, Emmerich could escape the horrors
of the world. ‘I always turn to the sports pages first,’ he said, ‘they
114 EMMERICH

record human successes, the rest is nothing but human failure.’

Marga Stapenhorst thinks that at times Emmerich’s obsession with
football was the sustaining aspect of his life. His one-track­
mindedness irritated her. He frequently accompanied the family on
day trips to the seaside or to sightsee in Canterbury and Oxford, and
while the others explored or lay on the beach, Emmerich was, likely
as not, reading the sports results or ‘sitting in the car with the radio
on, listening to the football - that is the image 1 have of Emmerich in
those years.’ But football also sustained him in a more direct manner.
In the back of a little black notebook he wrote lists of football teams,
each one with a figure next to it: Chelsea: £2.5.0; Glasgow Rangers:
£5; Liverpool: £ 3.10 .6 . These were the small loans that Stapi
extended to him on each of their excursions.

The impression gained from reading the trade press and movie credits
of the period is that Britain was positively bursting at the seams with
foreign film-makers, actors and actresses. To some extent they had
always been there. Many of the big prestige productions in the late
Twenties had been truly international, with companies such as British
International Pictures using American or continental directors,
designers and cinematographers. The preference for ‘continentals’
(usually a gentle euphemism for Germans) was based on a perceived
technical and aesthetic superiority. The English technician was
generally regarded as second rate, making static, talky pictures.
Studios with an all-British staff became ghettos where poor quality
‘quota quickies’ at £i/foot with little imagination and less ambition
were produced. There were, of course, individual exceptions, like the
cameraman Jack Cox or Alfred Hitchcock. But even Hitchcock recog­
nized that his aesthetic influence lay in Germany where he had direc­
ted his first film: ‘My models were forever after the German film­
makers of 1924 and 19 25. They were trying very hard to express their
ideas in purely visual terms.’ * The Weimar concept of ‘pure cinema’ -
a cinema which is predominantly visual and relies on the uniquely
cinematic aspects of the art form — was rarely swallowed whole in
Britain but it continued to be the biggest single influence on the
quality British films of the Thirties - and long after in the work of
Powell and Pressburger.

* Sidney Gilliat, a close associate and scriptwriter for Hitchcock, remembers that when he
first saw the director’s T h e L o d g e r , he thought it was ‘ poor man’s Ufa’ .
 B EI NG H U N G A R I A N IS N O T E N O U G H I25

From 19 33 onwards the ranks of foreign film personnel were

swollen by the refugees. Fortunately for them their arrival coincided
with the largest ever boom in the national industry, with consequent
opportunities for exiled producers, actors, writers, directors and
technicians. In his entertaining comic novel Nobody Ordered
Wolves, Jeffrey Dell satirized the excesses and vanities of the
‘cosmopolitan’ producers. He parodies the letterhead of the typical
‘British’ film company of the time:
PARADOX FILM PRODUCTIONS

Founder, President, Chairman, Managing Director, General

Manager: Napoleon Bott (USSR)
P. Paprika (Hungarian)
X . Xenopulos (Armenian)
Y. Yagourt (Bulgarian)
Z. Zog (Yugoslavian)
J. Jones M BE M P
Bott (whose real name is Botinkoloslavsky) is in fact a thinly
disguised version of Alexander Korda, and Dell’s novel is based on
his own experiences as a scriptwriter at Korda’s London Films
during the period of outrageous profligacy that followed the success
of Korda’s The Private Life o f Henry VIII and the industry boom
that it precipitated.
Another Hungarian, though far more flamboyant than Emmerich,
Korda had worked in Hollywood and half a dozen European
countries before arriving in London in late 19 3 1 with the express
intention of founding a film empire. His cosmopolitan wit and
intelligence immediately gave him entrée to the most influential
circles —he counted Churchill, Vansittart and numerous members of
the haut-monde among his friends. He understood the English love
of snobbery and made a point of only going to the best tailor on
Savile Row, of wearing Sulka ties and Locke hats and smoking the
finest Coronas. He brought with him a little money, barrels of
continental charm and, as his nephew Michael Korda recalled, a
business style familiar to continentals but as yet unknown in Britain:
‘He was fond o f saying that the best way to go about launching any
new enterprise when you were unknown and penniless was to take
the largest suite at the best hotel in town, be seen in public with the
most beautiful women, rent the largest possible chauffeur-driven
126 EMMERICH

limousine and eat every night in expensive restaurants. “ Use what

money you have to tip lavishly, so that you get good tables and
good service, ” he would add, “ then when you run out o f funds
completely, you can always borrow from headwaiters and the con­
cierge, who understand these things. Keep on doing this and sooner
or later you’ll meet someone with a business proposition. After that
everything is easy. ” ’
Korda could charm the birds out of the trees and, as Emmerich
later remarked, the birds loved it.
When in 19 33 Korda’s Henry VIII grossed over £ 1 million, city
financiers practically fell over one another to grab a piece of the film
production pie. Production companies mushroomed overnight in
Wardour Street. More or less shady producers obtained millions
from hitherto parsimonious institutions, sometimes without making
a single film. Korda himself milked the most unlikely of sources, the
Prudential Insurance Company, to design and build the most advan­
ced studios in Europe at Denham, and announced an impressive
programme of future productions.
The cornerstone of Korda’s grandiose plans was a simple idea: the
‘international film’. These were films which would compete directly
with the best of the American product on the world market, with
high production values, recognized stars and - most crucially - an
internationally appealing subject. Korda argued cogently that the
subjects which had the greatest international potential were, para­
doxically, the most national. He cited Henry VIII as an example. In
a rare statement Korda justified why he, a foreigner, who seemed to
employ nobody but foreigners, should found a company called
London Films, use Big Ben as his logo, and make films about English
history:
An Outsider often makes the best job of a national film. He is
not cumbered with excessively detailed knowledge and associa­
tions. He gets a fresh slant on things. For instance, I should
hate to try to make a Hungarian film, while I would love to
make one about the Highlands that would be a really national
Scottish film - and indeed I plan to do so. The best Hungarian
film I have ever seen was made by the Belgian, Jacques Feyder.
I believe that Clair could make a better London picture than
any of the English directors - a London film that would be
international. I know there are people who think it odd that a
 BE I N G H U N G A R I A N IS N O T E N O U G H 117

Hungarian from Hollywood should direct an English historical

film, but I don’t see their argument/

The ‘international film’ may have been the secret of Korda’s (limited)
financial success, but it was also the main reason for the artistic failure
of most of his films. By always relying on stereotypes Korda damned
his characters to two dimensionality. His films consistently lack real
human interest, or genuine dramatic power. They often seem to be a
mere succession of tableaux, each wittily written, beautifully designed
and amusingly acted, but ultimately about as lifeless and uninteresting
as a shop window.
But Korda’s comment that ‘an outsider often makes the best job of a
national film’ bears some relevance to Emmerich. He also learned to
use his privileged position as a foreigner to make films which were
more English than those made by Englishmen, though he trod a much
more subtle line between stereotype and individuality. At their best,
Emmerich’s films have a humanity totally lacking from Korda’s output.
Most commentators strongly disagreed with Korda’s ideas and felt
that British films should be the product of British talent. The A C T
(cinema technicians’ union) was vociferous in its protests. It seemed to
them that all the choicest fruit was being plucked by foreigners, with
only the dregs (i.e. the ‘quota quickies’) left for their members. ‘Are so
many foreigners really necessary?’ asked the Kinematograpb Weekly.
Korda meanwhile attempted to discourage the notion that he just gave
jobs to any old compatriot who found his way into his office, and had a
sign pinned above the door: i t ’ s n o t e n o u g h t o b e H u n g a r i a n .
In reality the resentment against the émigrés was quite limited.
Unlike in France, anti-Semitism stayed firmly in the closet. Even after
the film finance bubble burst in January 19 37, costing the City several
millions, the sheer cheek of the European producers earned the public’s
grudging admiration. The large number of amusing anecdotes about
the Central European moguls which circulated at the time testifies to
the enjoyment most people got from hearing about their exploits.
Many of these tales were almost certainly apocryphal. One that was

Mt became a common joke that the three Union Jacks that flew above Denham were one for
each of the British employees. Korda employed a predominantly foreign staff at London
Films: Georges Périnal, a Frenchman, was his favourite cameraman; his brother Vincent
headed the art department; Harold Young, an American, was in charge of editing; Lajos Biro,
a Hungarian was head of the script department. When he started to import directors they
were French (René Clair), Belgian (Jacques Feyder), American (William Cameron Menzies,
Joseph von Sternberg) and German (Ludwig Berger, Paul Czinner).
128 EMMERICH

retold with abandon concerned the Hungarian Alexander Esway. An

old acquaintance of Emmerich’s from Berlin and Paris, Esway pro­
duced a film in London in 1936 called Thunder in the City. A vehicle
for visiting star Edward G. Robinson, it was written by another friend
of Emmerich’s, Akos Tolnay (it is quite possible that Emmerich
himself may even have had an uncredited hand in the script). The film
was a notorious flop and Graham Greene, cutting his teeth as the
Spectator's film critic, cited it as ‘almost certainly the worst English
film of the quarter’. The story spread that Esway had lied to his
English backers about his experience as a director. It was said he had
arrived in England with a testimonial from the actor Emil Jannings
describing him as ‘reliable and quick’ - references to his skills as a
chauffeur not a director! An even more embroidered version of the
story had Esway trying the same trick previously on Ufa with a
chauffeur’s recommendation from Lubitsch.

Emmerich did indeed discover that being a Hungarian was not

enough. In spite of all the apparent opportunities, he found it difficult
to establish himself in his first couple of years in London. His
unfamiliarity with the language was not the only obstacle. He was not
enough of an international name to be hired by Korda, who tended to
use Lajos B1T6 to script almost all his early films, with a variety of
English playwrights and novelists writing the dialogue. Neither were
Emmerich’s original stories of the type that translated easily. The
émigré writers who fared well - Hans and Wolfgang Wilhelm, Curt
Siodmak and Walter Reisch - all wrote highly imaginative stories
which hinged on a single novel idea, which was easily expressed, and
understood as a commercial proposition by impatient producers. This
kind of writing was never Emmerich’s strength. His original stories
were either too predictable —derivative romantic comedies or operet­
tas like those he had worked on in France —or too subtle and personal
to be easily appreciated.
The only work Emmerich obtained was as a technical expert
employed to write shooting scripts, structuring scenes and detailing
the type of shot to be used, a craft he had learnt in the Dramaturgie
department of Ufa. He would have to wait for the arrival of a patient,
like-minded collaborator before he could begin to realize his own
ideas.
Among the old Weimar friends with whom Emmerich kept in
touch was the writer Franz Roswalt, with whom he had written
 BEI NG H U N G A R I A N IS N O T E N O U G H 129

several unproduced treatments while at Ufa. Roswalt now lived in

New York and called himself Francis Rosenwald. Emmerich’s side of
their correspondence is lost, but Franz’s surviving letters reveal a
great-deaFabout the émigré predicament:
Windsor Tower
5 Prospect Place
Tudor City N Y C 23 June 1936
Dear Press,
Thank you so much for your prompt reply. As I wanted to
reply immediately, I haven’t had time to read your exposé, hope
to soon with the idea of using it because I’m looking for a
subject for a novel at the moment.
My English is continually improving (I’m investing all my free
time and money in regular study) and now I achieve here and
there stylistically flawless work already. From this path of com­
plete intent to master English I will not be led astray! It just
takes quite a while until one can adapt to the sure-footed ‘play­
ing with the language’ ! Someone like you who has been in so
many countries and has had to write and speak so many lan­
guages will understand this best of all. And, collaborator - you
know how it is.
I’m following your advice which is no doubt the best, to keep
going — which is absurd as I’m spending hugely and earning
nothing. But I have got a proper connection with Warner
Brothers now (I translate for them, which is very badly paid!)
and with Paramount (Whose ‘talent scout’ thinks he has dis­
covered me!) and since a few days ago, also with 20th Century
Fox - I’ve always got to be contactable so I can’t change my
address. Apart from that, as I said, my hotel insists on seeing my
face —they don’t want to live without me.
I would probably already be working — Vitaphone short
subjects, Paramount, Astoria - but as you know these produc­
tions are closed for the summer and only start again in the
autumn. I’m producing wild short stories at the moment which
are very highly paid, when they are sold. It seems that now that I
have at least 75% of my work under control, that my chances
are slowly, slowly increasing.
I see from the newspapers that other people are more capable
and are contracted directly to Hollywood from Paris and
130 EMMERICH

London. Seems a bit too easy to me! Podehl, whose references

have been requested by Paramount, has behaved wonderfully
and answered me personally in the kindliest possible way.
In any case I have the ticket to London in my pocket, but what
you write is so insightful and clear that I will wait and try out
everything here, even the most ridiculous. Sometimes it all
comes together at the eleventh hour.
Wilhelm Dieterle wrote me a very charming letter and he
wants to see to it that I get a job with him. He works, as you
know, for Warners and he had already requested references
from the local Home office about my business there.
I hear from Kornfeld - who is apparently dying a death right
now because he can’t speak English - that many others -
authors among them - are in London, and apparently have
work?
Anyway I will write to you as soon as something works out.
Or I’ll phone you in London. If I get a small, regularly paid
position anywhere and you want to try it out here, we could
have a small very comfortable little house in Hollywood
together. 1 could also, 1 think, testify for you if necessary for
emigration purposes, if you want. But you will probably become
a bigger man in London and America will be crying out for you.
Once again, many many thanks and you will hear soon!
Franz
In the event Franz did go to Hollywood but spent his entire life
waiting for that all-important break. After the war he struggled on,
scripting the occasional television episode of ‘Lassie’ and ‘Ellery
Queen’ and writing novels that didn’t sell. He died in the early 1960s.
His was the most common émigré experience.
It now seems remarkable how much the German film and enter­
tainment refugees kept in touch with, and helped, each other. There
was a genuine sense of community. In Hollywood it is well known
that Erich Pommer, Billy Wilder and others contributed to a slush
fund to keep their less fortunate ex-colleagues from starving. Among
those who benefited during the war were Eugène Schuftan and M ax
Ophuls, both of whom remained out of work for several years.
The key figure in the film refugee world was the journalist Paul
Marcus - universally known as PEM . He had been a well-known
entertainment correspondent in Berlin, specializing in film and stage.
 B EI NG H U N G A R I A N IS N O T E N O U G H I3 I

In 19 33 he emigrated first of all to Vienna and then to London in

19 35. He feh was vitally important for the émigrés to keep in touch
with each other and not forget their common origins. While still in
Austria He founded Pern’s Privat-Berichte (later Pern’s Personal Bul­
letin, PPB), a weekly news-sheet which he wrote, typed and repro­
duced on his own until his death in 1972. Before the war the sheet
appeared in German and thereafter in English. Most issues are four
pages long and are composed of short paragraphs detailing the
whereabouts and occupation of the German entertainment industry
in exile, focusing largely on film people, but also with entries on the
Mann brothers, Brecht, Weill, Schoenberg and others. The sheet also
contained information on the latest changes in the law in various
countries regarding refugees and residence permits. PEM stated that
his original intention had been a purely practical one —to help friends
and colleagues keep in touch without them having to spend what little
money they had on postage stamps. Throughout its long life the
circulation never rose above 250, but it was a vital lifeline to many in
that small group, including Emmerich.
PEM garnered his information from a variety of sources, but most
of it came by word of mouth. Once a fortnight, Emmerich would
meet him for a coffee in a Soho café and tell him his news and what he
had heard of others. Occasionally PEM utilized his bulletin as a
crusading, anti-fascist weapon, vilifying a member of the expatriate
community. When the half-Jewish Reinhold Schiinzel finally left Ger­
many in 19 37, PEM launched an attack on him as an opportunist
and collaborator, which ultimately destroyed the director’s career.
Whether justified or not in this case, there is no doubt that Marcus
wielded a powerful weapon. As S. N. Behrman quipped: ‘The PEM is
mightier than the sword.’
Emmerich had little to report to PEM in those early days. In April
1936 Stapenhorst’s contract with Stoll came to an end and he accep­
ted a new one at $10 0 0 a week with Gaumont British. Almost
immediately he went into production on The Great Barrier, a story
about the building of the Pacific railway in Canada. Emmerich
receives no screen credit, but almost certainly worked on it as a script
editor and general assistant to Stapenhorst. He earned enough money
to send 200 pengoes to his mother, who thanked him but worried like
any mother: ‘ . .. I understand from your dear letter that, thank God,
you are now feeling well, my dear son. Take great care because of the
foggy climate. You have to get used to it first. I am glad that you live
I 32 EMMERICH

in such a nice place and that the servants are of help.’ The cryptic
reference to servants might have been a misunderstanding, or perhaps
Emmerich wanted to paint things as rosier than they were.
Emmerich’s first documented script commission was for Toeplitz
Productions, a contact via the director Curtis Bernhardt. Ludovico
Toeplitz de Gran Ry was an aristocratic banker from Genoa who had
entered films quite accidentally when a film company his bank had
dealings with had gone into receivership. In 19 33 he had bought a
share in London Films from Korda to allow the completion of Henry
VIII (on the set he was nicknamed Henry IX because of his beard and
rotund figure). His association with Korda, however, was short-lived.
After only one other film, The Girl from M axim's, he demanded a
degree of artistic control in future productions. Korda refused point
blank and the two parted ways. Film folklore has it that Toeplitz was
offered his choice of Henry or The Girl from Maxim's as part of the
financial settlement. He chose the film which seemed the surer com­
mercial proposition at the time, The Girl from M axim's, and regret­
ted it for the rest of his days.
Toeplitz teamed Emmerich up with Hans Wilhelm to write an
adaptation of Stacey D’Aumonier’s Soldier Shweyck-style pacifist
novel, A Source o f Irritation. Wilhelm was one of the most successful
émigré writers of the Thirties, working frequently with M ax Ophiils
and other directors in France, England and Italy. Both he and his
brother Wolfgang (based mainly in England) became firm friends of
Emmerich’s.
In November 19 36 they started work on the script in London, but
in December decamped to the Italian resort of Capri, where they
stayed at the Albergo Quisiana. Toeplitz, based in Rome, wanted to
keep an eye on the script’s progress, and felt that his writers would
work better away from the cold, damp English winter.
They remained in Capri for a month. With its spectacular coastline,
wonderful food and warm climate, the island always remained
Emmerich’s ideal holiday location.
In January 19 37 the script (in German) was completed and Wil­
helm headed back to Paris. Emmerich didn’t return immediately to
London, but took the train to Hungary to visit his mother. He never
spoke about this brief visit and denied that he had ever returned to
Hungary after 19 33. In later life he felt guilty that he had not taken
his mother with him to England when he had the opportunity and
that, consequently, she died at the hands of the Nazis. Perhaps he was
 B EI NG H U N G A R I A N IS N O T E N O U G H 133

being too hard on himself. It is possible that she did not want to
come, or that British immigration would have made it very difficult
for her.
Emmerich not only visited Miskolc, but spent some time in
Budapest, visiting friends and renewing old contacts. He was fre­
quently spotted on the set of the film Mai Lanyok (‘Today’s Girls’),
directed by Bela Gaal, which Magda Kun had returned from London
to star in. The publicity describes it as ‘Hungary’s first film about the
new independent women!’ and the cast was composed of five beauti­
ful young girls. Emmerich began an affair with one of them, an
1 8-year-old starlet named Agi Donath. She was impressed by this
experienced and cosmopolitan individual. He was attracted to her
youth, beauty and irrepressible energy. Emmerich offered to take her
back to London with him. But despite the deteriorating political
situation she turned him down as she was in love with her drama
teacher —a married man.
Back in England, Stapenhorst had left Gaumont British and estab­
lished his own production company, Carlton Films. He negotiated a
co-production arrangement with Korda, whose own finances had
changed radically for the worse. The mogul had lost control of
Denham and needed to bring in co-producers to share the financial
burden if he was to stay in production at all. Initially they discussed a
ballet film featuring Merle Oberon, but that project was soon dis­
missed in favour of The Challenge, the story of the first successful
assault on the Matterhorn. The subject matter appealed to Stapi’s
sporting instinct, but it was hardly to Korda’s taste - or in line with
his theories on ‘international films’ . Nevertheless, the budget was
small (by Korda’s standards) and most of the risk was in Stapen-
horst’s hands, so he agreed to participate.
The race to the summit of the Matterhorn had already been the
subject of two films, one silent, the other with sound, by the German
actor/director Luis Trenker. Stapi and Trenker now planned to
remake the story, with Stapi supervising an English version and
Trenker directing and producing a German one, Der Berg Ruft. In
May 19 37 Emmerich began work on the story and screenplay.
Trenker was something of a national hero in Germany - a rugged
John Wayne of the Alps. Discovered in the early 1920s by Dr Arnold
Fanck, inventor and chief perpetrator of that peculiarly German
genre, the ‘mountain film’, Trenker never lost the boorish manners of
a peasant mountain guide, eating with his fingers and rarely washing.
134 EMMERICH

He appeared opposite Leni Riefenstahl in several films before, like

Riefenstahl, breaking with Fanck and turning to direction, at which he
was surprisingly successful. Again, like Riefenstahl, he had great talent
as an editor of action and multi-camera pieces. He was renowned for
sending his cameramen, several at a time, into strategic but dangerous
positions to capture his mountain stunts and avalanches, which were a
sine qua non of the genre.
In 19 32 he directed his most contentious film, Der Rebell, about the
Tyrolean people’s fight against the occupying Napoleonic army, which
many viewed as thinly veiled fascist propaganda. The movie was
certainly seen and admired by both Hitler and Goebbels, but its
undeniably right-wing message does not necessarily implicate Trenker
with Nazi ideology, certainly not in its full-blown, anti-Semitic form.
He always insisted that it was a ‘freedom film’ - in favour of indivi­
dualism and liberalism. Moreover, as has been pointed out since, it was
co-written and directed by Curtis Bernhardt, a German Jew, and
financed by Universal Pictures, whose board of directors were Jewish.
What attitude did Emmerich and Stapenhorst take towards the
politically dubious Trenker? Why did they agree to work with him? 1
suspect that they admired his work and liked him personally. He was a
pleasant, friendly man and a renowned raconteur. Perhaps they were
politically naive. By nature they were both old-fashioned conserva­
tives, for whom perceived integrity and humanity were the over-riding
concerns. They did not condemn Trenker for contributing to a broad
‘fascist aesthetic’. But their association with the director did not pass
unnoticed. Both were subsequently accused of fascism (once asked his
opinion of Emmerich, the socialist documentary-maker Paul Rotha
replied, ‘What, that fascist?’). This was a blinkered allegation, but
characteristic of the ‘you’re either with us or against us’ attitude of
19 30 s’ socialists.
Emmerich wrote the original scenario and screenplay for The Chal­
lenge in collaboration with Patrick Kirwan, a wayward Irish journalist
and writer who introduced his partner to the joys of horse racing.
Kirwan, who spoke fluent German (he had published several German
translations and an Isherwoodesque novel set in a Berlin boarding
house), had previously collaborated with another émigré screenwriter,
Wolfgang Wilhelm, on London Films’ Troopship. For unknown
reasons the screen credit was later altered to: ‘Screenplay: Emmerich
Pressburger, Scenario: Patrick Kirwan and Milton Rosmer’ . (Rosmer
was the director of the interior sequences. A distinguished actor, he did
 B EI NG H U N G A R I A N IS N O T E N O U G H 135

not excel as a director and The Challenge was his last foray into the
field.)
The complex international deals that Stapi had to arrange to get The
Challenge produced, make today’s European co-productions seem
child’s play. He had agreed with Trenker that the latter would direct a
German (and, at one point, also an Italian) version of the film with his
own script and cast, and that he would then make available all the
exposed stock from this film to be cannibalized - as Stapi and Korda
saw fit - for their own version, in which Trenker was to appear only as
an actor. This, of course, was concurrent with the intricate deal Stapi
had with Korda, who was given cast approval and provided salaries
and studio space for the English version. Almost miraculously, the film
began shooting on schedule in England at the end of November 19 37.
The finest sequences in The Challenge are the Alpine exteriors shot
on location by Trenker, which were used in both the German and
English versions. In other areas the two versions differ substantially.
The German one is low on humour and romantic interest, but visually
more arresting. Trenker gives less time to the plot and more to the
glorious mountain photography (executed by Albert Benitz), against
which the Denham interiors, although lit by Perinal, appear dull and
flat.
The English mountaineer Edward Whymper (Robert Douglas) and
the hot-blooded Tyrolian guide Carrel (Trenker) become friends, and
agree to climb the Matterhorn together in the international race. But a
team of competitive Italian climbers, who want Carrel to be their
guide, lie to him about something Whymper has said, and try to
persuade him to accompany them. ‘You are an Italian aren’t you?’ they
ask him, to which he replies: ‘A poor man like me has nothing but his
honesty.’ Nevertheless, the friendship between Carrel and Whymper is
broken and the English and Italian teams race to reach the summit.
Whymper wins, but descending the mountain two of his team acci­
dentally fall to their deaths. Back in the village Whymper is accused of
deliberately letting them die and a lynch mob gathers. Carrel climbs the
mountain single-handedly in a storm to find the piece of broken rope
which proves that the deaths were accidental. He rushes down the
mountain to save Whymper from the mob. Their friendship is restored
and they discover they were both manipulated by the nationalistic
Italians. ‘The mountains are free to all men,’ says Carrel, ‘You won and
I am glad of it.’
It is hard to find a single British film in the immediate pre-war years
ï 36 EMMERICH

that makes a clear political comment about the European situation.

But many films made by émigrés, like The Challenge, do tackle these
issues obliquely. By placing the individual above the state and
condemning the Machiavellian methods of the Italians, The Challenge
can be read as an anti-fascist film.
The film also reveals something of the émigré’s view of the English.
Whymper represents all the clichéd English virtues: sportsmanship,
fair play and chivalry. But a negative side to the national character is
also hinted at. Initially Whymper treats Carrel with what must have
been perceived as typical English arrogance and snobbery. Only when
the guide saves his life do they become the thickest of friends. Many
émigrés felt they were looked down upon as ‘mere foreigners’, until
they had gained the respect of their English hosts - something
Emmerich was to achieve with his wartime work.
The Challenge was not released until May, when it garnered respect­
able reviews and did averagely good business. But Emmerich himself
never expected to be in England for the première. On the 9 March
PEM reported that ‘Emmerich Pressburger leaves for Hollywood at
the end of the month.’
Hollywood had always been an option, though one which
Emmerich had previously been surprisingly reluctant to take. The great
American studios were an enormous magnet but they were also seen as
fearful Molochs by those with a ‘European sensibility’. But now, with
the British film industry in apparently terminal decline, Hollywood
appeared to be the only viable possibility. Emmerich must also have
been encouraged by news that his old Ufa mentor, Reinhold Schiinzel,
was in Hollywood, having finally left Germany with a lucrative
contract from M G M in his pocket.
Because of the damage done to his career by PEM , Schiinzel’s
sojourn in Hollywood was not to be a happy one. Schünzel’s defence
for remaining so long in Germany and accepting Hitler’s personal
recommendation, despite being half-Jewish, was that he had a large
family to support and also helped other Jewish or so called ‘degenerate’
friends who were unable to find employment. His detractors con­
sidered this insufficient excuse, although few of them, if truth be told,
had left of their own free will, like Stapenhorst. Schiinzel became a
scapegoat for his émigré peers. He was crucified as much to expiate
their own sense of guilt at their lack of political conviction when such a
thing might have saved Germany from the Nazis, as to punish him. If
they could not attack the Third Reich now, they could attack someone
 B EI NG H U N G A R I A N IS N O T E N O U G H 137

like Schünzel who - however erroneously - represented it.

The following February Emmerich received a six-page letter of
advice from Schünzel, with details on emigration procedure, on his
chanees of finding work once in Hollywood, and on Schünzel’s own
difficulties:
M G M Studios 1 1 Feb 1938
Dear Friend,
Yesterday George von Banyai* visited me and told me that you
definitely want to come here and he asked me to advise you
about things here. Outside it’s raining in buckets and I’m sitting
at the typewriter —just like in Monte Carlo that time —except
now my eyes aren’t wandering to the Casino, which sits so
beautiful and proud and large on the seaside and entices in the
passers-by and travellers to while away the hours. My view is
only of rain, no sun now for days, because even in California
there is no sun for ages. These are the stories of the travelling
man in the Wild West.
. . . It is of course a risk to come here without a contract. But
you must know this already and still you want to come, trusting
in your youth and your ability. I don’t want to take this faith
from you under any circumstances and I hope that you will just
allow me to give you a few hints.
You must have 100% faith in yourself. Here it is not given to
you. People here will at most try to shatter this self belief . . .
here everything relies on contacts and connections and if you
check-up on it you will find that nowhere else in the world does
such ‘nepotism’ exist as it does here. If you don’t belong to it
you can go off and bury yourself. It isn’t a question of ability!
Connections are almost always the true causes of large incomes.
A normal success through ability and achievement is a l w a y s
an exception. An agent must have good connections and must
work truly energetically and I have the impression that Banyai
has the sincere desire to do this for you. He will need time
himself to gain influence in the studios.
Schünzel goes on to warn that Hollywood itself was going through a
recession with M G M laying off large numbers of screenwriters. He

*A Hungarian agent who represented Emmerich at this time and was associated with the
Edward Small Agency.
13« EMMERICH

also advises Emmerich on the cost of living: theatre tickets, a house in

Hollywood, a car and how to go to Mexico to gain an entry permit.
Then he continues . . .
. . . It is ideal when one comes together with a good producer. I
don’t know if you know anyone here in that field. How marvel­
lous it would be, don’t you think, if Stapenhorst, you and I
would march together. I don’t give up this hope and believe that
one day it will be possible to achieve such a collaboration. I will
write to Stapi about this soon. I must find out a little more
information first. How is Stapi? Send my kindest wishes. 1 write
so seldom because 1 know that he’s got his own problems and I
don’t like to burden my friends with mine. I am provisionally
secured at M G M until September and after that things will
progress, in spite of the unbelievable persecution which 1 have
had to suffer here. Certain immigrants behave themselves revolt­
ingly and vulgarly and quite consciously spread calumny. Des­
pite this the circle of the ‘pro-Schünzel League’ is slowly
growing, thanks to a few courageous friends and my own clear
conscience. In any case, 1 am delighted that you are coming here
and my house and kitchen are always open to you, on the
understanding that you wish to come to me and do not wish —
through understandable consideration of yourself — to make a
large detour past me . . .
. . . 1 hope these lines reach you in the best of health and I
remain, with the most heartfelt regards,
Your
Reinhold Schünzel
But Emmerich never had to sweat it out in some two-bit Mexican
border town, talking to cockroaches, while he waited for his papers,
like Charles Boyer in Hold Back The Dawn. The Hollywood plan
was dropped, and little or nothing is ever heard of it again. Perhaps
Schiinzel’s letter frightened him. Work prospects were certainly
improving in London. Between April and August he wrote two
screenplays for the Romanian émigré producer Marcel Heilman who
paid him £ 17 5 for each. One, ‘Wanted for Murder’, based on a play,
was a psychological thriller about a mass murderer that was belatedly
produced in 1947. The other, ‘Men Against Brittania’, was a naval
espionage story, based on a French film entitled Double Crime on the
Maginot Line, that Heilman - an astute character, but a producer of
 B EI NG H U N G A R I A N IS N O T E N O U G H 139

generally poor films —almost put into production as late as 1957.

But the main reason for staying behind in London was personal.
Agi wrote saying that she had decided to take up his offer and come
to England.
However, once in London, Agi felt excluded, and not only because
she was a foreigner. She was an outsider, looking in on Emmerich’s
world. ‘He had all these sophisticated, very witty friends like Magda
Kun and Steven Geray —you know they were the very best cabaret
stars in Hungary and very successful on the stage in London - and
they used to sit around and throw this very clever funny dialogue
about and I felt totally . . . dumb.’ She was also excluded from his
professional life: ‘He didn’t like to talk about his work with me.’
Despite their differences Emmerich and Agi were married at Mary-
lebone Registry Office on the morning of 24 June 1938, with Stapi,
Magda, Steven Geray and George Ramon’s wife in attendance. After­
wards, they had lunch at an Italian restaurant in Mayfair. Agi, who
had been living in a boarding house near Lord’s cricket ground
moved in with Emmerich at his new flat at 3 1 Ascot Court, Grove
End Road in St John’s Wood, where he had been living since the
beginning of the year. It was on the top floor of a Twenties red-brick
apartment block, with two bedrooms and a balcony, and cost £30 a
year.
Agnes Anderson now lives in a beautifully manicured house in Bel
Air, Los Angeles, with a white poodle. She has been married five
times, and deals in luxury real estate from her home. Her hair is
blonde, her skin taut. She must be 75. Her accent is still thickly
Hungarian. She is effusive but prefers to talk about her interior
decorator or the opening she is going to on Rodeo Drive than
about her past. She tells me about Zsa Zsa Gabor before she
mentions Emmerich:
‘I don’t know, he fell in love with me when he was in Hungary, I
think, and he asked me to come to England with him. I didn’t go
immediately but things were pretty bad in Hungary already and I
was in love with a married man. Emmerich used to write to me and
call all the time and eventually I agreed to come over because he
promised to put me in films over there . . . when I arrived I felt
terribly homesick for Hungary and very unhappy. Emmerich never
did anything about getting me into films, perhaps he wasn’t able to,
or didn’t think I was good enough . . . instead, I enrolled with the
140 EMMERICH

Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and I was the first foreign

student ever to go there, I think. I remember Emmerich’s maid
coached me for my audition. She was a cockney and so I got up
there on the stage with this Hungarian/Cockney accent and did
Ophelia for them! They listened to my audition and couldn’t
understand a word! “ It could be Cleopatra or it could be Ophelia,”
they said to themselves. They must have thought it was rather fun
after listening to the same stuff all day long and so they let me in.’
Asked why she fell for Emmerich, Agi replies that she was
impressed by him. ‘He seemed like such a mature, cosmopolitan,
intelligent man.’ She admits to never having really loved him. ‘I
was young, 1 was having fun.’
1 had been expecting a lot from my interview with Agi. 1 had
supposed that as Emmerich’s wife she must have known him well,
have understood him. But she told me surprisingly little about the
man she was once married to. I don’t think it was ever a matter of
great importance in either of their lives.
Although the marriage was sterile, it coincided with several signifi­
cant developments in Emmerich’s life. In 1938 he anglicized his name.
Emmerich, that novice screenwriter and refugee, was transformed
into Emeric, a more sophisticated and experienced man who,
although he surveyed all around him with the calm detachment of the
émigré, had adopted England as his homeland for better or for worse.
Simultaneously his career blossomed. For over five years, ever since
he had left Ufa, and the comforts of a language he fully understood, a
culture which was foreign but familiar, Emmerich had been barely
scraping by as a writer. There had been little time for worrying about
the kind of films he wanted to make, or expressing his own personal
point of view. He had to worry about making enough money to eat.
But 1938 was a turning point for two reasons: he was hired by
Alexander Korda and he met Michael Powell.
PART III

Emeric
 CHAPTER 8

The Teller of the Tale

I am the teller of the tale, not the creator of the story.
M IC H A E L P O W E LL

Emeric was introduced into the Korda circle by the composer Miklos
Rozsa, who scored most of London Films’ prestige productions after
1936. Rozsa remembered that he first came across Emeric at the
Hungarian Csarda restaurant in Dean Street, Soho. ‘I used to go there
two or three times a week and 1 often saw him sitting there at one of
the other tables. I asked someone who he was and I was told that he
was a very good scriptwriter from the Ufa in Germany, and a Hun­
garian.’ One day a mutual friend, Erwin German, took the composer
to meet Emeric at his flat in St John’s Wood. ‘German told me that
Emeric had wanted to meet me for some time, but was too polite just
to approach me in the restaurant.’ After that first meeting they
became the best of friends. ‘We used to play music together, myself on
the piano and Emeric on the violin.’
‘One day, when I knew Zoltán Korda better,’ says Rozsa, ‘I told
him that Emeric Pressburger was a very good writer, but couldn’t get
a decent job. Zoltán promised to speak to his brother about it and
before long Emeric was called up by Alex and asked to visit him at
Denham Studios.’ It seems surprising that Emeric did not already
know Korda, either through Stapenhorst (after all, The Challenge
was a London Films production) or other Hungarians. Perhaps they
had met, but never in a situation where Emeric felt he could approach
the mogul for a job.
Emeric caught the train from Marylebone station out to Denham in
July 1938. Korda gave him a token two weeks’ work - at £50 a week
- rewriting a screenplay by J. B. Priestley called The Dancing Post­
man. He returned a fortnight later to deliver the script and was
ushered into Korda’s office. They chatted amicably for a while. Then
Korda threw up his hands:
‘ “ Well, Em eric,” he said to me, “ J would like nothing more than to
M4 EMERIC

give you a job. My brother has told me how good you are . . . it’s a
great pity, but at the moment I just don't have anything, unless . . . " -
I was soon to learn that with Korda there was always an “ unless”
“ . . . unless you would like to have a look at this. ” And he handed me
a script. I remember it was in a green folder with the title in black ink:
“ The Spy in Black ” . “ It's a terrible job - a disaster. I need a part for
Conrad Veidt and this just doesn't have one. See what you can do
with it and come back and see me if you have any ideas! ” '
Earlier in the year, as part of his post-slump economy drive, Korda
had struck a co-production deal with Columbia. He would produce
three medium budget (£40,-50,000) films for them using his own
contract stars and studio space. The Spy in Black, based on Storer
Clouston’s novel of First World War espionage, was to be one of
these.
To oversee these three Columbia productions Korda had brought
in an ex-quota-quickie producer, the tough-talking Chicago Jew
Irving Asher. Several writers, including Patrick Kirwan, had already
tried unsuccessfully to adapt The Spy in Black for the screen. The
latest version, which had been given to Emeric in the green folder,
was by Roland Pertwee. Asher was satisfied with it. Korda was not.
The Hungarian magnate was frantic for there to be a part in the film
for the great German actor Conrad Veidt, who was coming to the end
of his three-year contract with London Films without having
appeared in a single movie. With a title like The Spy in Black audien­
ces would expect Veidt, definitely the spy of choice. The difficulty was
that neither the original novel, nor Pertwee’s script, contained a
sufficiently strong part which Veidt would accept. So, it was in a fit of
desperation that Korda turned to Emeric to save the situation.
The following week Emeric duly returned to Denham and told
Korda his ideas. ‘ I remember he didn’t say anything for a long time,
he just smiled at me,’ recalled Emeric. ‘Then he simply said, “ I think
we have something here,” and he hired me to write a treatment.’
At this stage, at the end of July, The Spy in Black's slated director
was Brian Desmond Hurst, John Ford’s ex-assistant. Vivien Leigh
was scheduled to play the female lead. Emeric worked away at his
version of the script for over a month, reporting, it seems, directly to
Korda, and without Irving Asher’s knowledge. It was not until the
beginning of October that Emeric was asked to meet Asher, Pertwee
and a new director who had replaced Hurst.
 T H E TELL ER O F T H E TALE 145

Emeric arrived at the meeting early - as he always did when he

wasn’t exactly on time - and took a seat in the ante-room outside
Korda’s office. Maybe he felt a little nervous, but no more than he
had at scores of similar conferences. In walked three other gentlemen,
deep in discussion: ‘ . . . it seems Alex has got in some fellow called
Pressburger - another Hungarian - who has done the most frightful
things to the story, I wish he would keep his nose out of it! I really
don’t think . . . ’
At this point Emeric, dressed with impeccable neatness in a suit and
tie, stood up and made a little bow. ‘Excuse me, I am Pressburger.’
The three fell silent.
Suddenly a door flew open and the group was ushered into Alex’s
fuggy office. Emeric was introduced to the threesome: Asher and
Pertwee, both smouldering with indignation and embarrassment, and
the new director, a tall, lanky young man with wispy reddish hair, a
toothbrush moustache and piercing blue eyes.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Alex, cutting Asher off in mid-complaint, ‘I
asked Emeric to have a look at The Spy in Black and 1 think he has a
few ideas to tell us.’
Unhurriedly, Emeric took a small rolled up piece of paper out of his
jacket pocket, unrolled it, and proceeded to outline a new plot in the
thickest of Hungarian accents. Korda smiled round the table. Pertwee
and Asher practically had steam coming out of their ears. Who was
this upstart screenwriter? Turning the plot inside out, changing it
beyond recognition?
But Michael Powell — the lanky young man - was transfixed. ‘It
was a real piece of conjuring,’ he recalled ‘. .. He’d altered the
beginning, middle and end. It was a marvellous piece of continuity.’
Emeric finished and awaited a reaction. Korda beamed, and before
Asher had a chance to interject he said, ‘Well, I think that’s very nice,
don’t you, Micky?’ Micky obviously did. ‘I suggest that you two go
away, then, find Conrad Veidt and work things out together.’
They made an odd-looking couple walking across the Denham
lawn together in search of Veidt. Michael remembered in his
autobiography the figure he saw next to him that day: ‘A short
compact man, with beautiful and observant eyes, and a broad
intellectual forehead, formally and neatly dressed. Although small in
stature, he looked well made and strong, both in person and in his
convictions. And he obviously feared nobody, not even Alex Korda.’
And who exactly was this tall, wiry Englishman with the
146 EMERIC

enthusiastic, high-pitched voice, trousers that almost fell off his hips
and a thick woollen jumper, with a rolling collar and turned-up
sleeves, such as Emeric had only seen on skiers in Kitzbiihel?

Two years younger than Emeric, Michael Powell had also had a rural
upbringing - among the hop fields of Kent - but his had been the life
of an Edwardian gentleman. He was a literary youth, who immersed
himself in Punch, the Strand Magazine and boys’ adventure stories.
At eighteen, after public school, he took a job as a bank clerk. It was
his father, who ran a hotel in the south of France (reputedly won at a
game of cards), who found him his first film job, working for the Rex
Ingram company in Nice.
Ingram was a creator of film magic. He produced extravagant
films, ambitious epics and fantasies in the most grandiose tradition of
silent film, with thousands of extras, enormous sets and startling,
inventive special effects. Mare Nostrum, the first film Powell worked
on —sweeping the floors —was an indelible experience: ‘It was a great
film to come in on, being a spectacular film, full of enormous tricks
with a great theme and an international cast. It was the kind of film
that gives you ideas that stay with you all your life. Ingram had an
epic style. He also had the grand manner. There are things, you see
them when you’re young, you don’t forget.’
Equally influential was Ingram’s attitude to film-making, his art­
istic arrogance, the ‘grand manner’ he adopted in his private as well
as public life. Michael’s early exposure to the movies was complete;
film became his life. He saw his personal biography as synonymous
with that of the movies. The years with Ingram were the sorcerer’s
apprenticeship.
The advent of sound put Ingram out of business, and while the
sorcerer retired to Morocco, his apprentice returned to London and
(after a brief and ignominious spell as a comic actor) soon found
himself directing ‘quota quickies’ — 23 in five years. It was the best
training an aspiring director could ask for, but also a depressing
one. After the Riviera and a training, like Emeric, in continental
film, it all seemed terribly insular and he fought constantly against
the lack of ambition and experimentation. He was an odd fish: a
man whose ambitions were foreign but whose means were domestic.
In many respects the opposite of Emeric: a cosmopolitan who was
desperately trying to be English. It was a paradox that ran through
all their films.
 T H E TELLER OF T H E TALE M7

The turning point in Michael’s career came in 1936, when he

wrote, produced and directed the strikingly original film The Edge o f
the World. Shot entirely on location on a remote Scottish island, it
was as mlich a feat of logistics and determination as of film-making
skill. The book he wrote about the making of the film is the most
revealing autobiographical document. His brash, zealous character,
brimming over with a self-confidence that verges on arrogance,
appears before us. He succeeds in mythologizing himself, the island
and his trusty collaborators. The style shows a liking for the epigram­
matic, the bombastic and mock-heroic in the style of Johnson and
Pope. At once terribly English and not English at all, it is difficult to
tell if this man is a boy scout or an artist.
On its release The Edge o f the World was widely admired, in
particular by Korda, who promptly put the young director under
contract. Powell’s reputation was as a location specialist, and Korda
sent him to Burma to do a recce for a proposed film called ‘Burmese
Silver’, based on a story by the Tory politician Sir Robert Vansittart.
The film was to be a continuation of London Films’ extremely suc­
cessful series of ‘Empire Pictures’ like The Drum and The Four
Feathers. Much to his annoyance, however, Michael returned to
Denham to find that the project had been called off due to political
instability in the area.
Then Michael was summoned to Korda’s resplendent offices.
‘Michael,’ said the Hungarian, ‘how would you like to direct Connie
Veidt in a film called The Spy in BlackT

Emeric settled down to write the screenplay of The Spy in Black and
Korda told him to go and see Asher about the terms of his contract.
But Asher, who felt more than a little piqued at the arrival of this
Hungarian upstart, was far from amenable. Miklos Rozsa recalled
what happened:
‘Asher asked, “ H ow much do you want? ” and Emeric said a certain
sum —I cant remember what —and Asher said, “ Til give you half o f
it. ” Emeric stood up and left the room. When Zoltán [Korda] - who
was always sticking up for the underdog and a wonderful man -
when he heard about this he became furious. He had already had
trouble with Asher - previously he [Asher] had complained - during
the shooting o f The Four Feathers - to Korda that “all these black­
men cannot eat in the same place as the whites! ” Which made Zoltán
148 E ME R I C

furious. So on this occasion Zoltán went to his office and screamed at

him. “ You damned Jew ! You re doing the same thing to your own
people as Hitler is !” Then Zoltán called Emeric in and asked him,
“H ow much do you want to work on this?” and Emeric mentioned
the same price as before, and Zoltán said: “ You re engaged! ” ’
Emeric’s contract for The Spy in Black is dated 13 September 1938,
and was for ‘full shooting script complete with all scenes, dialogues
and continuities/ with a remuneration of £250 to be paid over five
weeks. On the screen Emeric is credited with the screenplay and
Pertwee with the scenario, although little of his version remains
except in the dialogue. Throughout the Thirties the writing credits on
British films are often better fiction than the scripts themselves. Fre­
quently the director wanted to get his own name on the screen more
than once. Sometimes a previous writer had a contract which guar­
anteed him credit even if virtually none of his work was used. In the
case of The Spy in Black the inclusion of Pertwee’s name was prob­
ably to satisfy the quota laws which stated that no film could be
counted as British unless the scenario was written by a British citizen.
For many people a screenwriter is someone who ruins good books
for a living. It is not often that a screenwriter improves - in purely
literary terms - his original source. Storer Clouston’s popular novel
(apparently it was King George’s favourite) was a sub-Buchanesque
espionage chase set on Orkney during the First World War and
concerned a German attempt to blow up the British fleet anchored at
Scapa Flow. Emeric altered the motivation and characterization to
make the story both more complex and more psychologically compel­
ling, as well as entirely inventing the chase aboard the St Magnus and
the ironic finale in which the steamer with Veidt on board is sunk by
his own U-boat.
In the novel the spy in black was a minister of the cloth. In the film
the eponymous spy is a U-boat captain. The screenplay compounds
the character of the minister with that of a governess into a single
character called Miss Burnett, the schoolteacher to be played by
Vivien Leigh. It was as though Emeric had taken the shards of a
broken cup and glued them back together as a plate.
Another significant alteration is to the character of the U-boat
captain. Emeric makes him a sympathetic character, who is reluctant
from the outset to be a spy. It is tempting to think that he is modelled
on Stapi, the aristocratic flagship commander of the First World War.
 T H E TELL ER O F T H E TALE 149

Significantly, he altered the captain’s name to Captain Hardt - and

the character is indeed shown to have plenty of heart. The importance
of his romantic attachment to Miss Burnett is increased. She is caught
between admiration for her magnetic and charming enemy and the
rather limited appeal of her impotent-sounding husband Ashington.
This conflict does not arise in the novel, which ends with the girl
rushing unselfconsciously into Ashington’s arms for the final patriotic
clinch.
The story had been turned from a simplistic thriller into an elo­
quent demonstration of the confusion of loyalties in war and the
destruction that is the inevitable outcome of following orders to their
logical conclusion. Emeric also added a great deal of humour, charac­
teristically about both food (the restaurant with no food at the
beginning) and a foreigner’s difficulty with the English language. It is
in the light-hearted, ironic style, slipping so easily between tension
and comedy and in the way it plays with caricature, that the film most
foreshadows Emeric’s later work.
Still there is no escaping the fact that The Spy in Black is merely a
very fine example of the rather limited ‘espionage genre’ and it would
be foolish to look for too much correspondence between it and
Emeric’s own original screenplays. Asked years later what he was
trying to do in the film, Emeric responded: ‘Nothing. It was our very
first picture . . . I did not have very much to do with choosing the
subject. But of course I was young, bursting with all sorts of ideas,
having difficulties putting all that I wanted to say into this one script.
So there might be something, but it is not intentionally, of course.’
In the middle of October Vivien Leigh was removed from the
picture and replaced by Valerie Hobson. It was a purely financial
decision (Leigh was £4,000 more expensive than Hobson) but a
crucial one for the annals of film history. It allowed Leigh to visit
Laurence Olivier in Hollywood and there to meet David O. Selznick
who would cast her in Gone with the Wind.
The final script of The Spy in Black was something of a collabor­
ation. Michael recalled that he, Veidt and Hobson met Emeric every
day for a fortnight or so in one of the comfortable rooms in ‘the old
house’ at Denham, and fleshed out the scenes which Emeric had
written in rough the night before. Hobson remembered the sessions
well. Initially she was rather in awe of Veidt, and worried that Emeric
and he would speak German together, which they very rarely did:
ISO EMERIC

‘ We would do what was pretty unusual then, but might be the norm
now, which is to rehearse the scene before the script went into its final
draft: “ N ow this is how I think it should g o ,” said Mick. And we
would say: “ That sounds a bit stilted” or “ do you really think so?” or
something. The dialogue was really finalized from that . . . We just
sort o f had a general discussion on it and Mick was always very
enthusiastic . . . and Emeric, I see him with a clipboard and pencil
looking pale and white and fascinating and interesting with that
rather strange flat top to his head and that sort o f smile (with
dimples!) sitting in the corner saying, “ Yes, I do see, yes, yes . . . But
what about this?” very very quietly, with Mick bounding about
getting excited and running all over the place and standing on chairs. *
Veidt still had difficulties pronouncing certain English words and
Hobson light-heartedly ticked him off and corrected him. ‘But it’s not
my fault,’ Veidt would say, ‘my scriptwriter writes with an accent!’
Their personal jibes about pronunciation spilled over into the film,
where there is a running joke about Captain Hardt’s mispronunci­
ation of ‘butter’.
Michael was desperate to get away on location and was endlessly
promising Hobson and Veidt that they would do exteriors on
Orkney, which they were very excited about. Asher, tight with his
budget, refused to let them go, which further alienated him from his
director. In the end - after special pleading by Korda - Michael was
allowed to spend three days on the island, supposedly for research
purposes, sans Hobson or Veidt. He took along a camera, and whip­
ped off some of the atmospheric location shots which give the film an
edge over most studio-bound thrillers.
Shooting began at Denham in mid-November. Michael tried hard
to create a sense of claustrophobia in the small house in which most
of the film is set. He opted for a directorial style which often pays
direct homage to Veidt’s demonic image in such classic expressionist
films as Dr Caligari, and Der Student von Brag, with tilted camera
angles and striking shadows. To Emeric and Michael, Veidt was
almost more of an icon than an actor - ‘He was the great German
cinema.’
Veidt’s darkly exotic image attracted more than its fair share of
gossip. Rumours of cocaine sniffing, homosexuality and transvestism
abounded. In Weimar Berlin it was sometimes said that the most
beautiful girl in the street was really Connie Veidt out for a walk. In
 T H E TELL ER OF T H E TALE I5I

all likelihood the rumours were just fantasies based on his screen
persona. Hugh Stewart, the editor of The Spy in Black, remembers
that the most exotic thing he did while in England was to wear scent,
‘but,J rrfean, nobody could be more macho than he was.’
Hobson and Veidt got on extremely well. ‘He was the best-looking
man that you could imagine,’ she says, ‘and very ungrand despite his
reputation. I found him sweet and kind and funny and gentle.’ Photo­
graphs of Veidt on the set show him studying the script, looking
decidedly bookish in his cardigan and reading glasses. As an actor he
was ‘extremely professional and easy to work with’. The sense of ease
with which he spoke belied a long struggle with the language. Like
Anton Walbrook, the other great Germanic star of Powell/
Pressburger films, he made up for a lack of fluency with an exact
control of tone and volume. Robert Morley, at one time Veidt’s
dialogue director, said, ‘He was a master at delivering lines . . . He
always spoke them very slowly when everyone else spoke rather fast,
and soft when everyone spoke loudly.’
Hobson thought he was not particularly subtle as an actor but was
rather ‘a natural, a real screen actor’. In Britain at that time there was
no such thing as a screen actor; talent was invariably drawn from the
theatre. In contrast, Veidt, like Marlene Dietrich, knew a great deal
about lighting and self-presentation on the screen. He always carried
a little pocket mirror around with him in order to see how his face
was lit and, if necessary, made recommendations to the cinematogra­
pher. It was the visual image that absorbed him. According to Hob­
son, ‘he never bothered a great deal about his characterization . . . He
trusted people to show his character to the best advantage and did
just what he was told . . . He placed himself in M ick’s hands and he
couldn’t have done better than th at. . . I’ve made 63 films and he was
by far my favourite director. He had a way of being sarcastic, which
in an ordinary way freezes an actor or actress, but I always knew he
meant it with a twinkle. He had a wicked sense of humour and one
used to think it was a challenge. I loved him. He was interesting and
eager and never sat back and just let you do it.’ Unusually for a writer
of the period, Emeric was also often on the set to give last-minute
script advice. ‘1 remember him sitting behind the camera,’ recalls
Hobson, ‘but I don’t remember him ever making any comment on the
acting while it was going on. Sometimes he whispered something to
Micky, but he never gave us directions.’
The only tension on the set was created by Asher, who ignored
152 . E ME R I C

Emeric whenever possible and fought constantly with Michael. After

the first few days of shooting he almost had Michael removed from
the film. He couldn’t make sense of the rushes - ‘Where are the
master shots?! This man is crazy!’ he shouted. He was only dissuaded
from sacking him when it was explained that it was a more economi­
cal way of shooting a film, that he would make substantial savings.
On Christmas Eve The Spy in Black was in the can. The final
budget was £47,300. By all accounts Asher still had little confidence
in the film. Michael’s contract with Korda was up and he had argued
so vehemently with Asher that the producer forbade him to come
anywhere near the cutting room. The editor was Hugh Stewart, a
young man but an old editing hand for all that (he had cut another
expressionist-influenced work, Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too
Much, in 1934). He recalls that Michael, unable to come to the
cutting room, sent him a 2 3-page letter, ‘all written in his own hand’,
detailing his ideas and suggestions on the editing. Here was a director
who took his work seriously, who did not just churn the stuff out and
forget about it.
Despite his frequent appearances on the set, Emeric’s contract had
effectively terminated when he finished the script. But he was not
short of work. An old Ufa associate, Curt Alexander commissioned
him, with Wolfgang Wilhelm, to write a treatment called ‘Chinese
Fish’, from a French novel by Jean Bommart. It was a railway espion­
age story, with vague political portents, in the mould of The Lady
Vanishes, concerning a girl who is blackmailed into throwing a bomb
at the president of a fictional Balkan state. Originally it was due to go
into production in March with the title ‘Peace in Our Time’, but
presumably that was deemed a little close to the bone. It was finally
released as The Silent Battle in mid-1939, with John Loder, Valerie
Hobson and Rex Harrison. Screen credit, though, went only to Wil­
helm and Rodney Ackland - a writer with whom Emeric was to have
further associations.
More lucrative was the sale, again, of the story ‘The Miracle In St
Anthony’s Lane’, which Emeric had written for Kurt Gerron in 19 34,
to The Société des Films Franco-Britanniques. The production, how­
ever, fell through at the last minute when ‘in view of the political
situation’, the French financiers withdrew their backing because the
distributor was the German-controlled Filmsonor Tobis.
There did indeed seem to be a touch of divine intervention in the
fortunes of ‘The Miracle in St Anthony’s Lane’. Emeric often said he
 T H E TELL ER OF T H E TALE 153

would retire if he had half a dozen stories like that one. It was forever
being bought or optioned, but a peculiar twist of fate always pre­
vented it being made - and the rights always reverted to him. It was
optioned twice more within the next year, once by a Belgian company
in exile in Paris —on the eve of the fall of France.
That winter Emeric saw a lot of Michael Powell. In the space of a
couple of months they had already developed an unlikely but close
relationship. They were determined to work together again.
Michael quickly made an arrangement with an old quota quickie
friend, Jerry Jackson, who was now in control of Warner’s UK, to
write and develop a pair of scripts with Emeric. They were paid £500
apiece and chose two properties from Warner’s ‘tripe pile’. Emeric
got to work on the first in December, an adaptation of Somerset
Maugham’s play Caesar's Wife, which Emeric moved from Egypt to
Afghanistan and rechristened ‘Southwest Frontier’.
During January and February they thrashed out the script. Emeric
became a frequent visitor to Michael’s house at 65 Chester Square,
and tentatively, they began to develop the collaborative method
which they would use for the next twenty years. Emeric would write
the story and the basic shape of the scenes and then together they
worked out the actual dialogue. ‘We first tried to do it together,’
recalled Michael, ‘but we ended up not speaking.’ Instead they
developed a system of passing the material back and forth between
them, and meeting every couple of days to discuss any problems.
Michael’s opinion of Emeric’s ability continued to rise. His nickname
for his collaborator was Wizard —‘because of the wonderful things he
does!’
Agí remembers how Emeric worked that winter: ‘Sometimes
Michael Powell came around and they sat next door - 1 was never
invited to join them — and they talked and argued and discussed,
whatever it was they were working on. I was never in the room when
they worked together, I wasn’t asked to read a page. More usually
Emeric worked on his own. It always amazed me the way that man
worked. He was a very organized man. He would get up at a certain
hour, sit down at a big scrubbed wooden dining table and write. And
then at lunchtime he would stop. He would have his lunch and then
back to work until six o’clock. He was punching a clock. I always
wondered about that. I always thought writers should have inspir­
ation, believe in the muses — but he just seemed to treat it like an
ordinary job.’
154 EMERIC

Michael lost all taste for the Maugham subject when it became
obvious that Warner’s budget came nowhere near allowing him to do
any location research, even if the film was made — which seemed
increasingly improbable.
Emeric and he both had more enthusiasm for the second subject.
From a background taken from a book about the rise and fall and rise
again of the Cunard Line in Liverpool and the history of transatlantic
travel, Emeric wrote an original story which he called ‘Fathers and
Sons’. The latent engineer in him was attracted to this unlikely
sounding topic and around it he had constructed a characteristic plot
focussing on the relationships between different generations of a
family who live and work in the same place for over a century.
Warner’s couldn’t deny that Liverpool was closer to London than
Afghanistan and the pair were permitted a weekend research trip. They
trooped around the foggy, cobbled streets and in and out of various
shipyards and dockside taverns. Emeric enjoyed himself immensely,
marvelling at the feats of engineering and the sheer size of the cargo
ships. He tried to explain how a steam engine worked to Michael, who
wouldn’t listen and wanted instead to tell his friend about the interest­
ing history of the city, and about the type of model shots they should
use for the best effect.
On another occasion Emeric took Michael to see his beloved
Arsenal, who were top of the league as usual. Michael couldn’t see the
point of it. ‘They’re just kicking an inflated cow’s bladder around,
where’s the drama?’ Sport was one subject on which the collaborators
never saw eye to eye.
But Michael was enthusiastic about another of Emeric’s great loves.
On cold winter evenings in London he was introduced to Hungarian
cooking. Pots of goulash, bowls of cucumber salad and flocks of
chicken paprikas were set before him. But most of all Michael remem­
bered the turkey:
7 « the early days when we were young and very hungry —not paid a
great deal o f money - he would say: “Michael, let us eat a turkey. " He
would go out and buy the turkey, bring it back and roast it.
- A r e you going to put any stuffing in it?
- Michael, what's the good o f stuffing? We're going to eat turkey.
- Aren't you going to cook any vegetables with the turkey?
- What's the use o f vegetables - they just take up room. We're going
to eat turkey.
 T H E TELL ER O F T H E TALE 155

And we would cook the turkey and we would eat the turkey —the
two o f us.*
It was important to Emeric that Michael enjoyed his food. He agreed
with Dr Johnson: ‘I take it that he who does not mind his belly will
mind little else.’
An almost uncannily close relationship began to develop between
the two men. It was the beginning of what Michael called their
‘marriage without sex’. They shared a passion for film, and a belief that
the cinema should be taken seriously. Surprisingly for two people from
such different backgrounds, they even agreed on the ideas they wished
to express and how they wished to express them.
Superficially, it would appear that Emeric had far more to gain from
a close collaboration with Michael than vice-versa. After all, in the
19 3os the scriptwriter had about the same status as the electrician —the
foreign scriptwriter even less. Emeric desperately needed a sympathetic
and patient ear for his novel script ideas - someone who was not
hidebound by the conventions of the British film industry. He also
needed Michael’s intimate knowledge of the English language.
But Emeric was unlike any screenwriter that Michael had met
before: ‘I was not going to let him get away in any hurry. I had always
dreamt of this phenomenon: a screenwriter with the heart and mind of
a novelist, who would be interested in the medium of film, and who
would have wonderful ideas, which I would turn into even more
wonderful images, and who only used dialogue to make a joke or
clarify the plot.’
Michael needed a screenwriter like that, one who brought a Euro­
pean flair and imagination to British movies, and who could take equal
responsibility with him for the success or failure of a film. He himself
recognized that he was not a screenwriter, nor ever would be. His
genius was as a storyteller. As a film-maker, and in later years as a
writer, his genius lay in visualizing and expanding upon either reality -
as in his autobiographies or The Edge o f The World - or an imagina­
tive story planted in his brain by someone else - someone like Emeric. ‘ I
am the teller of the tale,’ he said, ‘not the creator of the story.’ In 1980
he told Variety: ‘Working with Emeric I learned a great deal. He was a
born dramatist and writer, and he didn’t learn as much from me as I did
from him. It probably started me off wanting to do something that was
more ambitious and unusual than the usual sensible dramas.’
It is also tempting to see a deeper psychological component to
i $6 E ME R I C

Michael’s relationship with Emeric. Emeric was something of an

authority figure. He would put up with Michael’s often startling lack
of tact, his occasional temper tantrums - ‘Michael had one of his
idiotic days’, was an occasional diary entry. Perhaps Michael saw in
Emeric a substitute for his dearly loved elder brother, who had died
young. In his autobiography he talks of the sense of having lost a
piece of himself when his brother died and describes him in a way that
must also refer to Emeric:
My brother had a sweet disposition and a passion for mechanics
and invention which kept him busy and happy all his short life.
He was as patient and generous an elder brother, as I was a
maddening, moody younger one. Our relationship, loving but
erratic, was to be a pattern for the partnerships and collabor­
ations that later on shaped my life and work.
But the true secret of Michael’s and Emeric’s collaboration is
something which cannot be explained. It was the uncanny empathy
they each had for the other’s ideas: ‘He knows what I am going to say
even before I say it - maybe even before I have thought it - and that is
very rare,’ said Emeric. ‘ You are lucky if you meet someone like that
once in your life.’ It is impossible to say who contributed what to the
films which they made together because, quite simply, they inspired
each other. ‘ . .. There was an inner response,’ said Emeric, using a
typical metaphor, ‘like a violin that would respond to an outside
sound if it is tuned in a similar way; that must have been the case.’

Neither of the scripts they wrote for Warner’s were realized. Not
directly, anyway. Emeric did receive screen credit (along with four
other writers) for the 1940 film Atlantic Ferry, with Valerie Hobson
and Michael Redgrave, which crudely cannibalized ‘Fathers and
Sons’. (A similar fate befell the script he and Hans Wilhelm had
written in Capri in 1936 for Ludovico Toeplitz. It was produced in
1939, mangled beyond recognition as a crude propaganda film, a
travesty of the intended pacifist satire, starring the ‘popular Northern
comedian’ Duggie Wakefield in his only feature length outing.)
In May 1939 both Michael and Emeric found themselves back at
London Films. Emeric was employed as a contract writer on £60 a
week and immediately set to work on a long-standing project of
Korda’s, entitled ‘Ballet Story’ or, more imaginatively, ‘The Red
Shoes’. He continued to work on it until the end of July, and after a
 T H E TELL ER OF T H E TALE 157

short (unpaid) holiday returned to work on a script called ‘The

Conjuror’. This was the first original screen story by the hugely
popular 73-year-old novelist A. E. W. Mason, whose novels had been
the basis for The Four Feathers and The Drum. Like them, it was a tale
of espionage set in an exotic location, this time Burma. Korda
announced that Michael Powell, as the ‘Burmese expert’, would direct
(not that Korda’s announcements were worth the paper they were
written on) and Sabu and Conrad Veidt would star.
‘The Conjuror’ was planned as a follow-up to the Veidt/Sabu project
that was already on the floor: The Thief o f Bagdad. An ambitious
Technicolor fantasy, it was exactly the kind of film Ingram’s apprentice
would have appreciated. But Korda, for characteristically complex
reasons —few of them aesthetic —brought in the sophisticated German
director Ludwig Berger, who had been M ax Reinhardt’s partner in the
early twenties. A short, cultivated Jew accustomed to elegant, small-
scale productions, Berger wandered the enormous set looking some­
what lost. To add to the general confusion, Berger spoke no English
and all directions were relayed through an interpreter.
Korda found it impossible to keep his nose out of the day-to-day
filming. He felt compelled to put his own stamp on everything. In his
sharp satire, N obody Ordered Wolves, Jeffrey Dell describes how Bott
- the Korda alter ego - spent several months, and no small fortune,
hiring and firing dozens of writers to work on the same project. The
bleary-eyed writers received excited telephone calls at two or three in
the morning summoning them to armagnac-induced script conferences
at which Bott would infallibly dismiss all their ideas in turn and replace
them with his own. Korda’s method with directors was similar.
Berger was given a particularly hard time for not taking advantage
of the ‘full glory’ of the massive Technicolor sets. He was more
interested in experimenting with sound, making his actors move in
time to pre-recorded music. These techniques may have been an
influence on The Archers but Korda had no patience for them. The
mogul was on the set every day, interfering and arguing with the
director’s decisions. Before long he engaged several other ‘second unit
directors’ to liven up the action and special effects sequences. Among
them was Michael Powell who later said: ‘I was one of three directors
(actually more like six) of The Thief o f Bagdad, not to mention
Korda, who really directed it but hated getting up early in the
morning.’
Denham was an enchanted world in the late summer of 1939. The
15» E ME R I C

biggest sound stage contained the extravagant blue and gold interior
of the Sultan’s palace, and hordes of turbanned Cockneys with boot
black on their faces wandered the lot in flowing multi-coloured robes.
Down on the banks of the river Colne an enormous red replica sailing
vessel was anchored in concrete. It was one of the driest summers on
record and the lawns surrounding the studio were dusty and brown.
The far-sighted had seen the war coming a long way off. Pro­
Churchill, anti-appeasement, Emeric felt relieved as they all —actors,
clapper loaders, sparks, directors, caterers and writers - gathered
round the radio in the Denham canteen to hear that sombre voice
declaring war. Merle Oberon started to cry.
Emeric was desperate to do something for the war effort. Almost a
year earlier, at the time of the Munich crisis, he had written to the
Ministry of Labour: ‘I have been living here for three years and was
always keen to find a way to express my gratitude towards this
country and the British people. I would like to express my anxiety to
serve this country as best 1 may in the event of war.’
Now, a year later, he received a reply. He was to be put on the
secret Central Register of Aliens with Special Skills and told to await
notification of duties. Perhaps Emeric envisaged being parachuted
behind enemy lines or interrogating prisoners of war. But it soon
became obvious that the best way he could serve his adopted country
was by doing what he did best: writing films.

The Spy in Black was released on 12 August to exceptionally good

reviews. With the declaration of war, audiences hungry for a taste of
battle, rushed to see the film, oblivious of the fact that it was set in the
First World War, and that the enemy U-boat captain was a
thoroughly sympathetic man. What had never been intended as pro­
paganda suddenly took on that role. ‘The depth charges are 1939
ones and are reassuring in these times of international crisis,’ wrote
Cinema. Then, at the beginning of October the film became even
more topical when the battleship Royal Oak was indeed sunk in
Scapa Flow, in the Orkneys. It was a foretaste of the kind of up-to-
the-minute topicality that Emeric and Michael were to strive for in all
their wartime films.
 CHAPTER 9

The W ar
✓ *
Although the fate of Poland stares them in the face, there are
thoughtless dilettanti or purblind worldlings who sometimes ask us:
‘What is it that Britain and France are fighting for?’ To this 1 answer:
‘If we left off fighting you would soon find out!’
sir w insto n Ch u rch ill , 3o March 1940

Chamberlain’s government scrambled to make up for years of

indecision, readying Britain for the coming onslaught. Within weeks
the face of England was transformed. Trenches were dug in the
hallowed lawns of Hyde Park. The statue of Eros in Piccadilly,
symbolic heart of the Empire, was piled high with lumpy sandbags.
Barrage balloons, like strange surrealist animals, floated in galaxies
over the cities. Red post-office boxes were painted yellow with gas
detection paint. Gas masks replaced handbags on ladies’ arms.
London was uncannily quiet - a third of the population had evacu­
ated. And it was dark: cinema posters and neon signs were banned,
officious wardens patrolled the streets and torch vendors did a crack­
ing trade. The blackout made England a country foreign to itself,
closer to the fiction of Verne and Wells than the quaint old place of a
few months before.
The week war was declared Emeric was asked to report to the
Central Registry of Aliens, where his camera and wireless were confi­
scated and he was told to observe the aliens’ curfew —home before
twelve and report to the police once a week. Paradoxically, though,
the war made Emeric feel more at home in Britain than ever before:
‘Suddenly I had something in common with everyone I met. It no
longer mattered that I was a foreigner, that my English was broken.
More than anything else we all wanted to defeat the Nazis.’ Emeric
even had some advantages over his hosts. They floundered in the
foreign surroundings, but experience had taught him to adapt. As
England was turned upside down he could observe things with the
objective eye of the outsider. No wonder that he was the first film­
maker to put this strange new country on the screen, the first to see
i6 o E ME R I C

the quirks and quiddities of wartime Britain and in particular the

great imaginative possibilities provided by the blackout.
In late 1939 the future of the British film industry lay in the
balance. Studios were requisitioned (part of Denham became a sugar
store and for a time all of Pinewood’s sound stages were submerged
beneath stockpiles of flour); artists and technicians were called up.
For a brief period London theatres were shut down as an air-raid
precaution, and there was talk of closing the cinemas too.
It was Korda who saved the day. With a characteristically patriotic
flourish, the naturalized mogul rushed into production with a propa­
ganda film called The Lion Has Wings on the very first day of
hostilities. Reputedly, he cashed in his personal life insurance policy
to pay for it. A patchy combination of pastoral evocations and
outrageous propaganda claims for the air force, The Lion Has Wings
was on the screens only six weeks after the outbreak of war. Michael
was one of the three directors involved. Churchill, a close friend of
Korda’s, was impressed and ever after supported film as the most
effective medium for mass propaganda/
Emeric was impressed by the audacity of The Lion Has Wings and
was determined, in Michael’s words, ‘to do some sabre rattling of his
own’. Liaising with the newly founded and still thoroughly disor­
ganized Ministry of Information he wrote the story for Contraband.
Another vehicle for Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson, Contra­
band would, of course, be directed by Michael Powell. Veidt, in
particular, was glad to be working with them again. He had found
Emeric and Michael so sympathetic, both personally and profes­
sionally, that he discussed setting up a production company with
them and the contracts with British National, who supplied the
meagre £35,000 budget for Contraband were, in fact, signed by the
three of them in partnership.
The propaganda element of Contraband was concerned with the
activities of the contraband patrols which operated in all British
ports, stopping and searching neutral vessels to ensure they were not
carrying cargo destined for the enemy. It seems an oddly marginal
choice for the first real propaganda feature of the war - an
unexpected sabre to rattle. Perhaps the Ministry of Information saw it
as a trial run.
Emeric’s friendship with both Veidt and Hobson had its effect on*

*Some months later T h e L i o n H a s W in g s was reportedly shown in Berlin - as a comedy.

 T H E WAR 161

the script. There are numerous personal touches. ‘He wrote the film
around the kind of things that Connie Veidt and I actually did,’ said
Hobson, ‘. .. we used to go out to dinner to this funny restaurant
which th£y actually put into the film as The Three Vikings — they
copied it almost exactly in the studio. I can’t remember if the original
had the same name, but they copied it almost to the Hay Petrie
character as the dotty chef. It was just down by the side of the Strand
Palace Hotel, in Glasshouse Street. There were lots of other in-jokes
like that.’
Veidt was frequently typecast as a sombre villain and, according to
Hobson, had greatly appreciated the opportunity to play a more
humane and sympathetic role in The Spy in Black. ‘He was always
hoping to make himself attractive and kindly,’ says Hobson. ‘We
mustn’t forget that he was German, and at that time, with the war
just starting, it was difficult for him. I think he always felt faintly
embarrassed by the fact that he’d been a German star and had a very
ripe German accent. Very cleverly Emeric made him not a German in
Contraband. He was just as believable being a Dane, and that was
charming.’
Captain Andersen (Conrad Veidt) of the Danish freighter Helvig is
homeward bound with a vital cargo of medical supplies when he is
waylaid by the contraband patrols. While waiting for clearance at
anchorage off the southern English coast, two of his passengers,
including the headstrong Mrs Sorensen (Valerie Hobson - ‘I knew she
was trouble as soon as she came on the ship . . . not that I don’t like
trouble’ ) jump ship. He follows them through the blackout to London
where they are kidnapped by a cell of German spies operating from a
basement in Soho. Andersen escapes and brings reinforcements in the
shape of a battalion of Danish waiters and chefs from The Three
Vikings restaurant. The next morning there is a deceptive appearance
of normality on board the Helvig. Once again Mrs Sorensen refuses
to put on her lifebelt and is ordered to the captain’s cabin. ‘Drop that
lifebelt!’ commands Andersen, and they fall into each other’s arms.
Hardly a masterpiece of originality, the story is a piece of consum­
mate professionalism, an expert sugar-coating for a bitter pill of
propaganda. It demonstrates just how at home Emeric was in the
most English of Thirties genres, the comedy thriller, of which Hitch­
cock’s The Lady Vanishes and the The Thirty-Nine Steps are the best
examples. The hideout beneath the cinema and nightclub, the charac­
ter of Mr Pigeon (a talent scout who reads Variety over breakfast),
i6i E ME R I C

the cabaret singer who sounds like a man and the romance between
an antagonistic, stubborn hero, and a troublesome, independent
woman, are all characteristic of the genre. Similarly Hitchcockian is
the way the plot progresses as a journey, or chase, where the charac­
ters find themselves in one peculiar set of surroundings after another,
culminating in the Patriotic Plaster Products warehouse filled with
busts of Chamberlain (‘I always knew he was tougher than they said,’
says Captain Andersen, as he coshes the chief spy over the head with
one of the busts).
What does make Contraband unique is the blackout, a potent
metaphor for the population’s general confusion and loss of direction
at the start of the war. Emeric had also foreseen the wonderful
cinematic opportunities it provided for Michael. ‘The filming of
blackness does not disconcert Mr Powell,’ wrote the Liverpool Post,
‘who realizes that more eerie and emotional effects can be got with
studies of, say, feet in torchlight —dragging, hurrying, spruce, down-
at-heel —than with full daylight which, in camera view, leave so little
to the powers of suggestion.’ Again there was plenty of opportunity
to pay subtle homage to Veidt’s Germanic, expressionist heritage
with chiaroscuro lighting and visual allusions to his classic films.
The virtual standstill in the British film industry at the beginning of
the war meant that John Corfield, the film’s producer, was able to
provide Michael with the pick of British technicians —at a fraction of
their normal salaries. Freddie Young - who had recently completed
Pygmalion and Goodbye Mr Chips - was the cameraman. The art
director was Alfred Junge, who had come to England from Germany
with Dupont in 1928 to design Moulin Rouge and Piccadilly with
their celebrated nightclub sequences; he reprised these on a minimal
budget in Contraband. ‘Alfred Junge is always under budget,’ said
Michael. ‘Hitler could have used him for the invasion of England.’
The unit shot the exteriors at the contraband control port in
Southgate in mid-December. By the 20th they were in London for the
blackout sequences (shot at dusk - film stock was slow in those days).
On 3 January Denham Studios were re-opened for the first time since
The Lion Has Wings, for the interiors. The film was trade shown on
26 March 1940, less than six months after the outbreak of war.
Emeric and Michael had their first serious difference of opinion
during the filming of Contraband. Emeric had promised Miklos
Rozsa - who had composed the music for The Spy in Black - that he
would also be working on Contraband. Rozsa recalls that Michael at
 T H E WAR 163

first agreed to the suggestion but shortly before he was due to begin,
changed his mind ‘seemingly without reason’. Emeric protested but
Michael, supported by Corfield, was adamant, according to Rozja. ‘1
felt >ve needed more English contributors,’ he recalled in his auto­
biography. Emeric thought it was a ‘simple act of bloody-mindedness’.
The public greeted Contraband with even more enthusiasm than
The Spy in Black and it did brisk business. Some negative reaction
came from the more discerning critics who - under the influence of
the idea that documentary film was socially responsible and the only
British genre untainted by Hollywood - felt that the fictional elements
of the story suffered in comparison to the realistic, documentary
sequences. ‘Principally, I don’t understand how any film that begins
so well could develop so disappointingly,’ wrote The Observer's C. A.
Lejeune, the doyenne of her day. This was a pale avatar of the
criticisms that were to be levelled at the film-makers in the future.

Although he now had many acquaintances and some good friends in

the British film world, Emeric’s social life still revolved around a
relatively small clique of Hungarian and German émigrés. Robbie
Lantz, now a talent agent in New York, the political cartoonist Vicky,
Wolfgang Wilhelm the scriptwriter and Magda Kun, were at the core
of the group which met regularly at the Czarda restaurant in Soho or
at Magda’s flat.
Through another Hungarian actress, Eva Biro, a friend of Agi’s,
Emeric was also introduced to a younger set of Hungarian émigrés.
Chief among them was the journalist George Mikes, who became
Emeric’s closest friend. Mikes, like Emeric, made his name telling the
British all about themselves, in How to be an Alien. Others were
George Tarjan, ex-director at the Hungarian National theatre, Laci
Hetheyi, a lawyer and businessman and Lala Basti, matinée idol of
the Budapest theatre, friend of Noël Coward, and legendary
womanizer.
‘We admired Emeric very much,’ said George Mikes. ‘He had come
to London a few years before us; he lived in a nice flat on his own; his
circumstances were obviously settled and he had a job with Alexan­
der Korda. He was generous, helpful and a wonderful cook. He
invited us for magnificent dinners and gave us mountains of food that
terrified us twice: first when we saw that pile on our plates and second
when we realized that we had eaten it all.’
Emeric was always a wonderful host and enjoyed feeding his
164 EMERIC

friends. He gave Mikes, Lala and Laci the same treatment as he had
Michael: ‘He was the first ingenious man to discover that turkey is a
good dish at any time of the year, not only at Christmas, an unheard of
idea in those days.’ It was a standing joke, that after polishing off a 2olb
bird between three or four of them, Laci would rub his stomach and
say, ‘Emeric, I am still a little hungry. Could I have a piece of bread and
butter please?’
On one occasion, after devouring an impossibly large turkey, Laci
patted his stomach and made his usual comment. ‘But why bread and
butter?’ asked Emeric most politely. He disappeared into the kitchen
and half a minute later returned with another turkey, freshly roasted,
steaming and smelling most appetizing. ‘Have a little more turkey.’
Laci looked at the huge bird, turned yellow, then red, then green and
rushed out to the loo to be sick.
Meanwhile, Emeric’s relationship with Agi had deteriorated and she
had moved out of the flat. Asked why the marriage didn’t work, she
shrugs. ‘I don’t know if Emeric Pressburger was the greatest thing in
my life. I think it was mainly because he didn’t get me into pictures and
I was very disappointed. Maybe he didn’t think 1 was talented. Also, I
didn’t have a sense of humour at all, I was very Hungarian and most
Hungarians don’t have a sense of humour, but humour was something
which was very important to him.’
Women always felt suffocated by Emeric. He tried so hard to make
them conform to his own romantic ideal. He found it hard to separate
reality from fantasy. All his relationships ended in bitter disappoint­
ment, with a sense that he had been cheated.
But there was no real ill-feeling between them. Even before Agi
moved out, they had come to an arrangement, and Emeric turned a
blind eye to the string of young men who took her dancing and
nightclubbing, as he had never done. Agi recalled: ‘I was so young and 1
decided: I’m going to have fun! And I flitted from one boyfriend to
another. Emeric was very kind. He gave me some money and then it
just sort of petered out.’
Among the boyfriends prepared to show her a good time was none
other than Michael Powell. They kept it from Emeric, of course. He
might have disregarded the attentions of anonymous, empty-headed
young men, but knowing that his wife was sleeping with his closest
friend and collaborator might have been a different matter. ‘Not very
nice of us . . . ’ says an embarrassed Agi, ‘not very nice of Michael. 1
wasn’t very loyal. I don’t think Emeric ever knew about it. I hope not.’
 T H E WAR 165

The divorce was finalized at the Hungarian Legation in March

1941 ­

In early 1940 the M ol released a memo detailing the three subjects

with which film propaganda should be concerned:
1. What Britain is fighting for.
2. How Britain fights.
3. The need for sacrifices if the fight is to be won.
Contraband was singled out in the ‘how Britain fights’ category, but it
was suggested that in the future this type of propaganda would be
best dealt with in documentary. For feature film-makers the ‘What we
are fighting for’ section was most relevant. The anonymous memo
writer considered that two things were being fought for: British Life
and Character, British Ideas and Institutions; and one thing was being
fought against: German Ideals and Institutions. With regard to the
British character, film-makers were asked to show ‘our independence,
toughness of fibre, sympathy with the underdog etc.’ Goodbye Mr
Chips is cited as an example worthy of imitation, although, the memo
warns, such qualities might be more palatable in the USA ‘when less
obviously stressed, e.g., in The Lady Vanishes.’
Under the heading British Ideas and Institutions the memo suggests
that: ‘it might be possible to do a great film on the history of British
Liberty and its repercussions in the world (Holland in the 17th,
France in the 18th centuries). The value of our institutions could be
brought home to us by showing what it would be like to have them
taken away . . . the effect of the Gestapo on everyday life, breaking up
the family, taking away liberties hitherto unnoticed.’
In the third section, the Ministry asks writers to stress ‘as more
easily credible . . . the sinister rather than the sadistic aspect’ of the
Gestapo: ‘The Germans should also be shown as making absurd
errors of judgement. There should be room for several refugee films,
some of which might end in England for contrast: e.g., heavy step,
knock on the door, automatic wave of fear, enter an English
policeman.’
Over the next five years Emeric frequently adopted the Ministry’s
suggestions wholeheartedly. The scriptwriter has almost total
responsibility for the explicit propaganda content of a film and it is no
exaggeration to say that during the war, Emeric - the Hungarian Jew
educated in Germany and an enemy alien - became the single most
1 66 E ME R I C

important figure in Britain’s film propaganda war. He realized early

on that the greatest challenge was to write valuable propaganda
which was also entertainment. ‘Goebbels considered himself an
expert on propaganda, but I thought I’d show him a thing or two. Of
course, it was harder for me than it was for him. In a free country if
people have had enough of propaganda they just switch their radios
off and go to the music hall. In Germany there was nothing else to
listen to.’
On one significant point Emeric disagreed with the Ministry of
Information memo. What was needed, in his opinion, was not the
nostalgia and cosiness of Goodbye Mr Chips, but a film which
realistically portrayed the brutality, sadism and proto-religious zeal
of the Nazis. Gagged and bound by appeasement, the British public
still had very little idea what it was they were really fighting against.
As someone who had experienced Nazism first hand, Emeric thought
it was his duty to tell it how it was.
The opportunity arose soon enough.
Emeric, like Churchill, thought that the surest way of containing
the conflict was to involve the Americans in it as soon as possible. The
toughest challenge for the propagandists was to find a way to
frighten, cajole, flatter the USA into the war, to show Americans that
although they were 3000 miles away, they were not immune to the
Nazi threat —both materially and psychologically. Emeric set himself
the task of writing a film that would do just that. The problem was
that the isolationists would never allow such a film to be made or
shown in America. ‘All through my film-making career I have never
wished so hard to solve a problem,’ recalled Emeric. ‘I spent a whole
day locked in a room looking at a map of America, trying to find the
solution. My eyes kept drifting to the north, off the map, to a line
which separated America from Canada: the 49th Parallel. Then it hit
me! . . . My idea was that it didn’t make the slightest difference if we
didn’t do it in the USA but did it in Canada instead, because the
Americans would certainly know that anything which can happen in
Canada could also happen in the U SA.’
Michael approved of the idea and loved the thought of directing a
really grand-scale film in the wilds of Canada. Together with the
producer John Sutro (who owned Ortus Films) he gained an audience
at the Mol with the head of the films division: Kenneth Clark, the art
historian.
‘But what is your story?’ asked Clark, somewhat taken aback at the
 THE WAR 167

vagueness of the proposal. Michael looked at him. ‘How do I know

until we’ve been to Canada?’
The Ministry agreed to fund Michael’s and Emeric’s research trip to
Canada tó the tune of about £2500. * It was to be the first and only time
that the government directly financed a feature film. The Canadian
High Commissioner, Vincent Massey (brother of the Hollywood star
Raymond Massey, whom they hoped to use in the film), provided them
with reams of letters of recommendation.
The Duchess o f York - nicknamed ‘The Drunken Duchess’ because
of its propensity to roll sickeningly no matter what the state of the sea -
set sail from Liverpool on 13 April, the same day as the German
invasion of Norway. There were so few passengers on the liner (the war
did have its advantages) that each member of the party had a first-class
state-room to himself and a personal steward. Emeric’s was called
Hitchcock, which he took as a good omen. The only other passengers
travelled second class: Hungarian immigrants from Transylvania.
Dressed in their typical short jackets and sheepskin caps, it must have
seemed to Emeric, as they stood at the railings on the second-class
deck, that his past was following him.
Throughout his Canadian journey Emeric kept one of his inter­
mittent diaries. Much of it is taken up with notes that would find their
way into the finished screenplay. There is little self-revelation, but there
are one or two enlightening anecdotes concerning his relationship with
his collaborator. Michael is always respected, even admired, but
Emeric takes an indulgent pleasure in noting the occasions when
Michael’s bombast is deflated:
On the first evening, as they steamed out into the Atlantic, Emeric
began to feel the effects of the Duchess's inebriation. Michael, who
liked to think of himself as something of an old sea-dog after his
experiences filming The Edge o f the World in the Scottish islands,
announced with contrived heartiness, that he was going to take
advantage of the excellent gym on board ship to get in shape. Would
anyone like to join him at six the following morning? John Seabourne
said he would. Emeric took on a verdant shade at the mere thought,
and remained silent. The next day he wrote in his diary:

*There were three other members of the team: Bill Paton, Michael’s trusty Highland
factotum, John Seabourne, a film editor and construction expert, and Bill Gillet, a production
manager.
i6 8 EMERIC

I’m a rotten sailor. Friday morning I woke up with the feeling

that my body was lying quietly in bed, immovable, while my
stomach of its own volition was making desperate efforts to fall
off the bed. Every part of the ship seemed to crack and creak. It
sounded like an army of amplified typewriters working away
furiously. I felt terrible.
I managed to get up and shave myself. The bath is next door
to me. The steward stands at the door showing the way, but I
barely even manage to nod good morning to him. I close the
door quickly.
If things begin to happen they should happen behind closed
doors. But for the time being nothing. The water in the tub is
warm and clear. I submerge, m y s a i n t e d a u n t ! It’s sea water!
The bitter salty taste gets into my mouth. My stomach rises up
my throat - it’s now or never!!!
Nothing happens. I dress myself and go down into the dining
room. Bill is there already. He is cheerful and full of good spirits.
He has crossed already on many occasions. He eats a frightfully
big breakfast. I only have coffee and a glass of soda water.
Micky and Seabourne didn’t get up at all. That’s my pal! Sick as
hell!
PT in the morning was never mentioned again.
As he got his sea legs, Emeric scoured the ship’s library for informa­
tion on Canada, and challenged all-comers to ping-pong —the only
sport in which he actively participated. (Michael, who loathed all
games with a vengeance, was irritated throughout the trip by Emeric’s
constant ping-pong tournaments.) With a more settled stomach
Emeric could also take advantage of some of the excellent food. ‘We
start every meal with caviar,’ he wrote, ‘as much as a marquis in a
cheap French novel.’ Of course, Emeric befriended the chef and on
their last night on board the printed menu contained two extra
specialities: Danske Bof med Carottes ‘Contraband’ and for pudding
Coupe ‘ Hungarian Wizard’.
There was only one worry during the voyage: U-boats. The route to
Canada had been severely hit during the first months of the war.
Hardly surprising, then, that the plot which began to develop in
Emeric’s mind took a U-boat as its starting point. The survivors of a
bombed German submarine are stranded on the north-west coast of
Canada. In the course of their journey towards the frontier into
 THE WAR 169

neutral America they come into contact with a cross-section of the

Canadian population: Eskimos, French Canadians, a German immi­
grant community - and at each encounter they lose one of their
number, until finally only a single Nazi reaches the border. Emeric
called it, logically enough, 49th Parallel.
The Duchess docked at St John’s, New Brunswick, on 18 April,
several days ahead of schedule. Emeric was speechless with excite­
ment. The New World was the promised land to so many of his
generation and background, and to a film-maker it meant even more.
His mind was teeming with cowboys and Indians, homesteads, rail­
ways and trappers. They took it all in like children. The recurring
phrase in Emeric’s diary is: ‘It’s just like in the movies!’
In Ottawa they got down to serious business, cultivating various
government ministers and officials, and ransacking the libraries for
every morsel of useful information on Canada. By the time they left,
to start their tour of the country, they had the full and enthusiastic
co-operation of the Canadian government, and a grand total of 174
letters of recommendation.
Stopping briefly in Toronto they flew to Winnipeg and began to
grasp the enormity of the country and the ‘grand simplicity’ of the
place. ‘In Europe,’ wrote Emeric, ‘if one is for 4 -5 hours in the air one
arrives always in a different country, a sentry with a bayonet stands
by. One does not know what is allowed and what not. Can you get
out? You have to get out!’
Yet there were no shortage of reminders of home. That evening, in
Winnipeg, Michael and Emeric were out for an after-dinner walk.
‘Two peasants walk towards us, they seem somehow familiar. As they
pass I hear them talk Hungarian. How strange. They walk and talk as
they once did in their home village, very sure and confident. Their
jackets with fat spots are the same also.’
Everywhere they gleaned information that would end up on the
screen. Emeric thrived on it; there was nothing he liked better than to
research into areas unknown to him, to ask questions about other
people’s jobs and ways of life, to learn specialist jargon and trivia. He
was given a tour of the headquarters of the Hudson Bay Company
and told about the system of barter which had remained unchanged
for over 200 years. He thought it ‘one of the most fascinating days of
my life’ .
The same day he visited the offices of the Winnipeg Free Press to
examine stacks of press cuttings on the Hutterite community in
170 EMERIC

Canada. This small, ultra-strict Lutheran sect lived in self-sufficient

communities and a visit was arranged to a nearby settlement. Emeric
was fascinated by their way of life: ‘I would like very much to see
them in the picture,’ he wrote.
Journeying through Edmonton and Jasper National Park they
arrived in Vancouver by train on 3 May. One of their letters of
introduction was to a young playboy, the brother of a government
minister. They spent a day with him at the races and dined on his
yacht. He was to find his way into the film as the dilettante Philip
Armstrong Scott, played by Leslie Howard.
While in Vancouver Michael called up the Canadian-born actor,
Raymond Massey, in Hollywood. Massey provisionally agreed to
appear in the film, but for some reason Michael refused to tell Emeric,
and the pair had a childish row over it: ‘Miki [sic] has one of his silly
times. He knows exactly how much 1 would like to know what
Massey said but he doesn’t mention it. He waits for me to ask so that
he can say: “ Oh! . . . ” and start talking about it. But 1 don’t ask. I
don’t like him at all in these moods of his. He has dictator ambitions
and I don’t like dictators, even if they are called Michael Powell.’
The following day the bad blood continued —now over whether or
not they should visit the island of Victoria: ‘I have the feeling he
won’t go because he knows I would like to . . . I hope that I shall not
have many such selfish collaborators in life. It is horrible, and the
right thing would be to make an end of it. But I am anxious to do
something useful in this war and this is what 1 understand most:
film-writing.’
Although it wasn’t part of their official itinerary, the temptation to
visit the United States was too great. On 12 May Emeric and Michael
caught a flight to New York. In their two and a half day stay they
didn’t sleep for more than a few hours. They visited Steven Geray,
who was working on Broadway, and Conrad Veidt, who was in town
awaiting confirmation of a Hollywood contract and negotiating the
American sale of Contraband on behalf of British National. On their
first night in town they all went out to the Stork Club together to
celebrate an offer of £45,000 from David O. Selznick on behalf of
United Artists - £ 15,0 0 0 more than Gaby Pascal had got for
Pygmalion.
Emeric was unimpressed by the Stork Club and persuaded Michael
to accompany him on a midnight tour of the city: they caught the
subway up to Harlem to hear some jazz and didn’t get to bed until
 THE WAR I7I

dawn. The next day they were up early to take in the sights before
going to see Robert Sherwood’s new play There Shall Be No Night
with the Lunts, and to dine at Sardi’s. Inexhaustible, the following
afternoon'they caught the matinée of Dubarry was a Lady, starring
Betty Grable, before taking the evening flight back to Montreal.
Emeric wrote the first treatment to 49th Parallel on the boat back
to England. The structure was highly schematic, almost allegorical,
with four ‘acts’ in each of which the Nazi group encounters a dif­
ferent element of the Canadian population; on each occasion there is
an overt clash of ideologies which contrasts Canadian democracy
with German fascism and one Nazi dies.
But for all its schematized structure, the characters in 49th Parallel
are not stereotypes. Even the six Nazis are humanized. Each of them
represents a different psychological type that is drawn to the Nazi
party. Hirth, the leader, is fanatical, with an almost religious gleam in
his eye when he talks about the Führer. Lohrmann, on the other hand,
is a bully with an inferiority complex. Most daring was the inclusion
of a ‘good German’, Vogel the baker, who has been sucked into the
vortex of Nazi violence and hatred in spite of himself. Midway
through the film he sees the error of the ways.

Much had happened in Britain during Emeric’s six-week absence. On

10 M ay Churchill finally became Prime Minister. The team docked at
Liverpool at the height of the spy hysteria that was sweeping the
country, in the wake of the unexpected German invasion of Belgium
and Holland. Every foreigner was under suspicion. Hardly surprising,
then, that as soon as he set foot on land Emeric was clapped in irons
and threatened with deportation. With typical loyalty, Michael dog­
gedly refused to leave his collaborator’s side until he was released.
They spent the night together in a cold, damp cell, Michael raging
about the injustice and ingratitude of it all, while Emeric sat pensively
in the corner.
The next day Emeric was released only to be told that his right of
residence in Britain had been withdrawn and he would have to leave
the country within a month.
The Minister of Information himself had to intercede with the
Aliens’ Department to have Emeric’s residency restored: ‘It would
obviously be deplorable’, wrote the minister, ‘if Mr Pressburger,
through his having undertaken certain work at the request of this
Ministry, were to lose the status he previously enjoyed. I am to ask,
IJZ EMERIC

therefore, that he should be absolved from the condition imposed

subsequent to his return from Canada, and that his previous status be
restored.’ It was, but for more than a month Emeric lived under the
threat of deportation, obliged to report to the police daily. It was
under these fraught conditions that he wrote the first draft of 49th
Parallel.
In June 1940 the M ol had far more pressing business than
Michael’s and Emeric’s film. The battle of Britain was imminent and
France was falling. It looked as though the project would be dropped
until Michael talked his way into a meeting with the new minister,
Duff Cooper. He read out the prologue to Emeric’s treatment:
We want to show to the French Canadians that they are threat­
ened, to the foreign settlers that their privileges and their free­
dom are in danger, and to the easy-going English Canadians that
they had better knock hard and knock first. . . There are many
eyes to be opened north of the 49th Parallel. And south of it too.
Duff Cooper turned to the glum-looking treasury officials and said,
‘Finance must not stand in the way of this project.’ Another £20,000
of public funds was injected into the production, against an estimated
final cost of £68,000. A private investor prepared to stump up a
further £25,000 was found in the form of Oscar Deutsch, the mag­
nate who owned General Film Distributors and the Odeon circuit of
cinemas. On this financial basis, with Emeric being paid £ 15 0 0 for
the script, the production went ahead.
Emeric wrote 49th Parallel with the idea that each of the four ‘acts’
should feature a cameo role by a big star name, who would contribute
their services for a nominal fee. After Raymond Massey the next star
to volunteer was Anton Walbrook. An old Ufa colleague of Emeric’s,
Walbrook was a suave Viennese but a fervent anti-Nazi and immedi­
ately donated his £10 0 0 fee to charity. Both Leslie Howard, at the
height of his fame after Gone with the Wind., and Laurence Olivier
also tentatively agreed to take part. It only remained to find an
equally prestigious star to play the one major female role, that of
Anna the Hutterite girl.
Elizabeth Bergner was a remarkable character. An actress of
limited dramatic ability, she became one of the biggest stars of the
German stage and screen in the late Twenties and early Thirties,
directed either by M ax Reinhardt or her husband, Dr Paul Czinner.
Arriving in Britain in 19 33, language seemed to be no obstacle to her
 THE WAR 173

peculiar charm - her liberated, gamine looks were soon the stuff of
straight-laced British fantasy. Most extraordinary was the adolescent
passion she instilled in the two greatest English playwrights of the
day,>Geo'rge Bernard Shaw and Sir James Barrie. Shaw gave her the
freedom of his best play, St Joan. On his death-bed Barry’s final wish
was to see her (unfortunately, he expired before she arrived); in his
will he left ‘to my loved Elizabeth Czinner the sum of £2000 for the
best performance ever given in any play of mine.’
Bergner was a difficult and choosy (not to mention expensive)
actress, and her film appearances were few and far between - five in
seven years - and all under the direction of her husband. In 1939
Emeric was introduced to Bergner by his friend, the screenwriter Carl
Mayer, at the time down on his luck and acting as Czinner’s uncre­
dited script supervisor. Emeric had been commissioned to adapt a
strange psychological novel about vamps and conmen called Rings on
Her Fingers for Bergner’s next screen appearance. The script was
finished just prior to Emeric’s departure for Canada, and Czinner,
producing and directing, was due to start shooting at Denham before
the middle of the year.
On his return from Canada, however, Emeric was summoned to
Bergner’s Mayfair flat and told that she would cancel Rings on Her
Fingers if she could have the part of Anna the Hutterite girl in 49th
Parallel. Emeric was stunned, the more so when the actress insisted
on doing exteriors in Canada (all the other stars were going to be
doubled) without asking for a larger fee. It was all most unlike
Elizabeth Bergner.
Meanwhile, Michael was preparing to leave for Canada with a
skeleton crew and the actors he needed on location. Two of them
were veterans of The Edge o f the World, Niall MacGinnis, playing
the ‘good’ Nazi, Vogel, and Finlay Currie, playing the Hudson Bay
trader. The other five Nazis were a motley crew of West End charac­
ter actors, except for Eric Portman, playing Hirth, their leader. Port-
man, an intense, brooding actor, was something of an unknown
quantity, although he had already appeared in a handful of undis­
tinguished features. Emeric, still waiting for his residency to be
restored, stayed behind in Britain to work on the script, sending
sections to Michael as they were needed. Michael wrote to him from
mid-Atlantic:
174 EMERIC

Dear Emeric,
The ship is full of exhausted women and inexhaustible children.
You cannot imagine anything more different from the masculine
charm of our crossing. I shall spend most of it in bed . . . I hope
that you and Ackland will enjoy working together, and that
John Sutro won’t bother you, but help all he can . . .
I shall keep a diary, so that you will know my impressions of
how everyone is working out. I haven’t many doubts: Chandos
and Portman are the unknown quantities. The technical crew
are 10 0 % .
Thank you very much, Imre, for your present and your advice
and your love. I will justify them all.
Micky
Rodney Ackland was the writer chosen to collaborate with Emeric on
the dialogue. Primarily a playwright, he was dubbed ‘the English
Chekhov’ at an early age and wrote gritty, some thought sordid,
plays. He remembers Michael and Emeric as ‘the two most baffling
characters I ever came across in the film industry, or for that matter,
anywhere else. . . . Micky, as I came to know him, has a small
child-like face with a tiny mouth, thin-lipped instead of rose-buddish,
a far-away voice and the pale blue eyes which are supposed to denote
fanaticism. His figure is slight and delicate, in marked contrast to his
partner who is rather short and stocky. It is difficult to guess what is
going on behind Micky’s ice blue eyes - but the inscrutability of
Pressburger’s flat Hungarian face is complete and would make the
visage of Dr Fu-Manchu, Charlie Chan and the beloved po-face of
Alan Ladd look, by comparison, like mirrors of tempestuous
emotion.’
The two writers had an uneasy relationship. Emeric felt that
Ackland didn’t take the project with the seriousness it deserved,
spending more time in seedy Soho pubs than at his typewriter.
Ackland for his part found his collaborator uncommunicative and
punctilious to the point of absurdity: ‘After several weeks of working
with Emmerich I knew no more about him than I did at our first
encounter - except, perhaps, that he doesn’t like unpunctuality. I am
always at least half an hour late for a conference, and I always
manage to mollify my screen collaborators, if they begin to show
signs of impatience, by thrusting upon them bunches of flowers or
bottles of gin before they have time to complain. With Emmerich, if I
 THE WAR 175

arrived a second more than ten minutes late for a conference I would
find him gone, sometimes leaving behind a note with the uncom­
promising statement: “ Couldn’t wait any longer.” ’
The screenplay (though not the finished film) opens with a charac­
teristically ingenious Pressburger prologue:
FADE IN:

1. A Map of the USA (Western Half)

Beneath the surface of the map is glimpsed A Vast, Restless, Crowd of

People. Across the top of the map the sweeping curve of the Northern
border of the USA.
c a m e r a p a n s u p the map of North America.

The Map of Western Canada now fills the picture.

The strongly-marked Border-Line is at the bottom of the map
emphasising the fact that the Northern Border of the USA is the
Southern Border of Canada.
Beneath the surface of the map the vast, restless crowd vanishes and
is replaced by an Air View of the Rockies, lonely and impressive.

d is s o l v e :

CLOSER SHOT.
Along the line of the Border appears the m a in t it l e :

49th PARALLEL

As the c a m e r a starts to move along the line of the 49th Parallel, across
the map of Canada, the Air View of the Rockies disappears. It is
replaced by:
The foothills
The prairies
The prairie-towns and cities
The endless railways
The winding rivers
The thousand lakes and forests of spruce and pine
The great cities of the East
The grain-elevators
The massed shipping of the St Lawrence and the Lakes
The Gulf of St Lawrence.

The Map disappears. Only the Sea fills the picture.

176 EMERIC

SUPERIMPOSED TITLE:

IF ONE DAY A GERMAN SUBMARINE APPEARED IN THE GULF OF

ST LAWRENCE . . .
Canadian Press.

The word 'If' at the beginning, and the words 'Canadian Press' at the
end fa d e o u t .

The title now reads:

ONE DAY A GERMAN SUBMARINE APPEARED IN THE

GULF OF ST LAWRENCE . . .

The structure of the final screenplay differs very little from the
original story. One significant change was in the Hutterite sequence.
Originally Emeric had Vogel, the ‘good Nazi’, staying behind to be a
baker in the community. In the screenplay his fellow Nazis will not let
him and execute him at dawn in what is one of the most brutal and
powerful episodes of the film. The screenplay, however, was long,
running to 225 pages. Certain sequences, including one in Vancouver,
were shot and then discarded in the cutting room.
Meanwhile, in Canada, disaster struck. Elizabeth Bergner, having
shot little more than a few exteriors, abandoned the film and fled to
Hollywood where her husband was waiting. She made it clear that she
had no intention of returning to England for the interiors. It became
apparent that her initial generosity and enthusiasm for the project was
only a ruse to obtain a travel permit to leave a vulnerable-looking
Britain. Michael and Emeric were left in the lurch. More generally, the
incident became something of an embarrassing cause célebre among
émigrés trying to win over the confidence of their host country.
A young, unknown actress called Glynis Johns was cast in the
Bergner role. Some of Bergner’s long shots were still used - providing
a unique example of a major star doubling for a complete newcomer.
The Bergner fiasco was only one of several problems which beset
the film. Emeric was desperately needed in Canada to work on the
last part of the script, but the Home Office had mysteriously ‘lost’ his
passport. Money was running out (the initial budget of £68,000
eventually rose to £132,0 0 0 , of which the government provided a
total of just less than £60,000) and Massey and Olivier appeared to
be backing out of their commitment. Questions were asked in Parlia­
ment and a full enquiry commissioned by the Select Committee on
 THE WAR 177

National Expenditure. The Mol seriously considered pulling the plug

on the film. The feeling that their whole grand design was collapsing
around them is revealed in Emeric’s letter to Michael of 7 September
i94or '
My dear Micky,
I think you will get this letter together with the one I wrote to you
yesterday attached to the rest of the script. In the meantime 1 had to
give up finally the trip to Canada. My passport has been found but
the Home Office has declined to give me either an endorsement or a
letter permitting me to return to this country. The Mol has declared
that it is not able to do more in this matter than it has done already
and I won’t go without a positive assurance from the proper
authorities.
As I understand there are great difficulties regarding the new dollar
amounts you have asked for. I don’t see at the moment how we can
overcome them. The Treasury refuses flatly to provide more dollars
and if it agrees to give us the power to try to get dollars in America I
am very much afraid that it will be too late for you and you will lose
valuable time and energy by such a transaction. Deutsch mentioned
also yesterday that Massey is going to play in a picture in Hollywood.
He was raving about the general state of affairs, none of the stars in
our picture has any contract — will Massey play in it, will Bergner
come back, will Howard sign the contract?. . . etc.
What are you going to do if Massey won’t play the part? I would
suggest to you that in case we can’t have Massey you could come
straight home and do the whole sequence here . . .
How on earth can I be helpful to you? You must have a very
difficult time out there and you can certainly think that you are not
getting the support you should from here. But the people here (The
Ministry, Deutsch) see only the dark side of the production, from the
nice side they never get a glimpse. If they would have seen some bits
of the material which you have got already perhaps everything would
go easier.
When you will arrive back you’ll find London quite different. The
people are determined to see this war to t h e e n d and they are rather
proud to be in the front line now . . . To demonstrate my own
optimism I am looking for a house to buy. I can do it, of course, only
if I can get a mortgage on it, but there is a chance that you’ll find me
at your return as the owner of a magnificent palazzo.
17» EMERIC

Our money from Contraband comes in very slowly. My impression

is that some of it is being held up by Anglo American . . .
I hope you keep on touching your notebook’s leather cover still if
you are near to losing your temper. And I hope (and am sure) that
finally everything will turn out right and we shall have a very great
picture, and we shall show to all who began to doubt in our scheme
that they are the idiots and not we.
Please give my regards to everybody and let me know what 1 can do
here till you’ll be back again.
M y best wishes and love,
your Emeric
Financial worries were eased after two major American independents,
David O. Selznick and Samuel Goldwyn, both offered to put up the
remainder of the budget in return for the American rights. Suddenly
British distributors realized that 49th Parallel was hot property, and J.
Arthur Rank, an ex-flour miller and now an increasingly powerful
eminence in the film world, furnished the money himself. Moreover,
Massey definitely agreed to play the part of Andy Brock, the ram­
bunctious Ontario farmer who deserts the army, and Emeric was given
permission to rejoin Michael in Canada at the end of September to
work on the crucial end sequence.
The ending caused a lot of problems. Emeric’s original idea was to let
the last Nazi, Hirth, walk free across the US border, battered, bruised
and defeated: ‘Let him go home and tell everybody what he has seen
and heard. He has seen the whole of Canada - lucky devil! Let him tell
the others about it! Let him describe the prairies and the mountains and
the rivers and the lakes and the people whose country it is: who intend
to keep those prairies and mountains and rivers and lakes . . . ’
The Mol thought this a highly ambiguous conclusion. It wasn’t until
Emeric arrived in Canada and was confronted with an impatient
Massey waiting for his lines that he came up with the scene that was
used in the film. The deserter, Brock, while on the run, encounters
Hirth (Eric Portman) cowering in a goods wagon heading for Niagara
and neutral America. Initially he feels some sympathy, aren’t they both
trying to escape from Canada? But slowly he comes to realize what it is
the Nazi stands for and what it is that Canada is fighting for. When the
train crosses into America, Brock persuades the customs men to break
the regulations and send the train back across the border so Hirth can
be arrested.
 THE WAR 179

Michael and Emeric returned together from Canada in October.

Work on the interiors began at Denham on 6 February with Olivier’s
sequence as the French fur-trapper, Johnnie, and continued until 18
April "(exactly a year to the day since they first landed in Canada).
Emeric adored Olivier’s rather hammy French accent. He was less
pleased with Leslie Howard’s aesthete — ‘wars may come and wars
may go, but art goes on for ever’ - particularly when the actor started
to write his own lines:
Arrived at set (Tee-Pee) [Emeric wrote in his diary on 15 March]
- Howard on it. They were shooting an entirely unknown text
to me from a bit of paper. Slow and bad. Wanted to lunch with
Mick but at restaurant door Deutsch’s secretaries (the awful girl
and the fat man with the selection of pipes) got us, telling stories
about Mr D’s projects and our moral commitments to give him
our next picture. Mick was quite clever in his answers. Then we
rushed to see rushes (without lunch). The first scenes of
Howard’s work. Again, new lines, twisted the wrong way. Lurid
and bad.
Undoubtedly, the finest of the star performances came from Anton
Walbrook as Peter, the leader of the Hutterites. ‘I am fond of 49th
Parallel for 49 parallel reasons,’ said Emeric, ‘and the Hutterite
sequence is my favourite in any of our films . . . ’ Everyone on the floor
was absolutely electrified when Walbrook delivered —in one stunning
take —his long passionate speech in reply to the Nazis:
You call us Germ ans-you call us Brothers! Yes, we are Germans, we
older people. Our names are German, our tongue is German, our old
hand-written books are in German script. But we are not your
brothers. Our Germany is dead today. We hold her image in our
hearts. Our children grow up against new backgrounds, new horizons.
They face bitter winters and fierce summers. Their games are
Canadian games and they are free to run and laugh without a
Jugenbundesleiter. . .
You talk of the New Order in Europe!. . . The new order where there
will not be one corner, not a hole big enough for a mouse, where a
decent man can breathe freely. You and your Fuehrer are like the
microbes of some filthy disease filled with a longing to multiply
yourselves by thousands of millions until you destroy everything
healthy in the world . . .
i8o EMERIC

Never before had Emeric been so closely involved in the production

of a film, from initial idea right through to the final cut. In all but
name, Emeric had co-produced the film with Michael. He had raised
the money, chosen the actors and steered the project through the
precarious period while the director was in Canada. Unlike most
writers, he was on hand throughout filming to give advice and sup­
port and, crucially, he was also there during editing, to trim and
restructure the narrative.
The editor was David Lean. Brought on to the project at the last
minute, he remembered the great impression Emeric’s script had on
him: ‘1 settled down with it after dinner,’ he said, ‘and 1 couldn’t stop.
I was still reading it at seven the next morning. It was fabulous.’ Lean
found Michael’s footage rather wild and irregular - a consequence,
no doubt, of the difficult circumstances under which it was shot —and
felt that ultimately the film did not live up to the script: ‘I don’t think
that Mick did that good a job of it - it was good but not as good as it
should have been.’
A rough cut of the film was first screened to a select audience,
including the Canadian High Commissioner, Vincent Massey, on 29
May 19 4 1. The première, however, was not until 8 October at the
Odeon, Leicester Square. The press was as interested in the heroic feat
of the film’s production, as in its contents: ‘The story of the making of
49th Parallel, dealing with Canada’s part in the war,’ wrote Kine
Weekly, ‘is one of the major romances of the history of wartime
production . . . Probably no other subject has aroused more keen
anticipation among exhibitors or has provided material for so much
controversy than this Ortus film . . . ’
The only sour note came from those who thought the film pro­
voked too much sympathy for the enemy. It was an accusation Emeric
was to face on numerous occasions in the future. ‘The difficulty, then,
of 49th Parallel,’ wrote the N ew Statesman, ‘is that the natural heroes
of its adventures are the campaigning Nazis. The further they get and
the more hardships they have to undergo, the more inclined shall we
be to sympathize.’ Others, like James Agate, found the mixture of
brutality and ordinary humanity definitely a positive quality: ‘The
thing which makes this picture remarkable is its extraordinary fair­
ness. To show the Nazis as unalloyed gangsters was never good
enough.’
The film always held a special place in Emeric’s heart. Michael, too,
 THE WAR l8l

thought it was one of his greatest achievements. He responded to what

he called the ‘wonderful business of generalship . . . dealing with
governments and pushing whole countries around in the cause of films
and a f eally epic idea conceived in epic terms.’ Today, 49th Parallel has
dated less well than many of their other films. It is very much of its time.
The propaganda seems brash, even obvious. In the 1970s Emeric
defended it: ‘There are some films which stand up to the passing of
time. Others don’t. Don’t forget that this was one of the very first
important films about the ideology of the Nazis and our own. We were
fighting for our lives and everything else. . . Now all this has faded a bit
and you have to start with statistics. But you will never be able to show
the feeling. The jackboot philosophy of the Germans was really so.’
Critics of the project as a waste of tax payers’ money were soon
silenced as the film proved itself a huge commercial hit. Before long the
Treasury was actually earning much needed dollars from it. Retitled
The Invaders, the film made its all-important American première on 5
March 1942 at a gala occasion at the Capitol Theatre, New York.
Admittedly, its propaganda message had been somewhat taken over by
events, since the Americans had already joined the conflict on 7
December, but it was still relevant inasmuch as large numbers of
Americans still misunderstood the real nature of their enemy. Emeric
wrote a special prologue for the event, which was broadcast live from
Claridges at 2 a.m. by Leslie Howard and Laurence Olivier. The stars
and film-makers sat in the bar together with Korda and Vivien Leigh,
waiting to hear the American response. The Americans loved it and
went on to prove it by making it the biggest-ever grossing British film in
America up to that time.* Almost two years of work was vindicated.
But for Emeric the finest compliment of all came from his old Ufa
mentor, Reinhold Schünzel:
My dear friend,
Today I saw your picture which is called in this country The
Invaders.
What a picture!
1am proud of you and you should be proud of yourself. To put
it very plainly you hit the jackpot and I am mighty glad you did it.

* Before general release in the States, however, 1 8 minutes were snipped off the film’s running
time, mainly for reasons of censorship. Out went the shot of Nick the Eskimo lying bleeding
on the floor; out went most of Portman’s comments on race and the inferiority of blacks and
Eskimos; out went the reference to a ‘ false missionary’.
l8l EMERIC

This is one of the finest pieces of writing I have ever seen and
it puts you in the front rank of all story tellers and rightly so.
This is the first picture of this kind which faces the issues and
does not try to ridicule the enemy. It is an honest picture and
therefore an important one. It is excellently directed and per­
formed and I want to pay everybody my sincerest compliment.
Please tell Walbrook that some papers said he gave the finest
performance. It must have been an actor’s delight to play in the
picture and to play this particular character. It certainly was a
delight for the audience to listen to his speech. He did it marvel­
lously.
There are so many things in this great picture which I would
like to mention and 1 hope some day we will sit together and
then we will have a long, long talk. Only God knows when that
day will come. In the meantime we have got to keep our chin up
and to do our best to help the cause. You did your share by
writing this story and fighting for its production and winning
the battle by scoring a smash hit. I doubt whether you could
have done it here and therefore I am glad you stayed in
England. . .
Hoping this letter will find you in perfect health and happi­
ness and occupied with new work I wish you further luck and
success.
Always yours
Reinhold Schiinzel
 C H AP TE R IO

Artists United
The arrow was pure gold
But somehow missed the target.
But as all golden arrow trippers know,
It’s better to miss Naples than hit Margate.
JA M E S AGATE

The long, drawn-out birth of 49th Parallel allowed plenty of time for
work on other projects.
Announcements for a totally different kind of propaganda film,
‘Will Shakespeare’, ‘about the life of our great national hero’, appeared
in the trade press in early 19 4 1. Emeric and Clemence Dane, the author
of a popular biography of Shakespeare, met to discuss a script, and
George Mikes was hired to conduct research at the British Library.
Emeric’s notes show that his story centred on the (fictional) relation­
ship between Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. But unfortunately,
Anglo-American, the prospective backers, dropped out, feeling the
project lacked topical bite.* For similar reasons a treatment written
with Patrick Kirwan on the wartime tribulations of Sir Malcolm
Sargent and the London Symphony Orchestra remained undeveloped.
Another aborted propaganda project was ‘The White Cliffs’, based
on the best-selling narrative poem by Alice Duer Miller. It is the story
of a young American woman who marries into the English aristocracy
only to see her husband killed in the First World War and her son in the
Second. A sentimental cocktail of anglophilia and pacifism, the poem
contains the memorable lines Emeric recommended to George Mikes
as an epigraph for How to be an Alien:
I have seen much to hate here, much to forgive.
But in a world where England is finished and dead,
I do not wish to live.

* A curious addendum to this attempt to film Shakespeare’s life came more than 40 years later
in the mid 1980s when an eighty-something Michael Powell became interested in a
Shakespeare script called ‘ Upstart C ro w ’, which he wished to film. Nothing came of it.
184 EMERIC

The British-born star Ronald Colman had personally acquired the

film rights, but when he couldn’t raise the finance in Hollywood, he
made them over free of charge to Emeric and Michael. Again, the film
never made it off the drawing board, * though it had more than a
passing influence on the structure and time span of a future project:
The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp.
In spite of his role in the propaganda war, Emeric was never really
a political animal, a joiner of clubs or pressure groups. But he did
involve himself in the politics of the film industry. He had been an
active member of the Screenwriters’ Association virtually since its
inception in 19 37, and in September 19 4 1 he became only the second
non-technician to join the A C T union (forerunner of the A C TT). His
sponsors were both prominent committee members, the editors David
Lean and Sidney Cole. It is a sign of Emeric’s growing prestige within
the industry that he was encouraged to join the A C T at a time when
the union was still campaigning actively to keep continental tech­
nicians out of British jobs. Emeric, in fact, used his influence within
the organization to help other émigrés, notably Rudolph Cartier
(formerly Katscher) and Wolfgang Wilhelm.
The film unions were often virulently left-wing and many members
were convinced communists. It was only with the end of the embar­
rassing period of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact that they
felt able to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the war effort.
Almost overnight the studio foundry and engineering departments,
accustomed to moulding imitation baroque candlesticks, shields and
swords, turned their attentions to manufacturing gun parts and
machinery. Moreover, in the late autumn of 19 4 1 the technicians at
Denham decided to produce their own short propaganda film. Fund­
raising events were held and a production committee formed which
included David Lean, Stanley Haynes, John Boulting and Sid Cole.
Emeric was invited to contribute a treatment.
Bert Batchelor, shop-steward for the ETU, read the treatment to
the committee and announced that he didn’t think much of it. David
Lean was furious: i wouldn’t dream of trying to tell you how to wire
up a chandelier so I don’t think you should tell a professional script­
writer, and one at the top of his profession at that, how to write a
script.’ The committee accepted this objection and it agreed to read
the treatment to a mass meeting of all union members, after which

* It was eventually made by M G M in 1944 as T h e W h ite C lif f s o f D o v e r , with Irene Dunne.

 ARTISTS U N I T E D I85

comments were requested. T h is was done/ recalled Bert Batchelor,

‘and I had the greatest pleasure in reading the criticisms that were
handed to the committee. Some were written on pieces of plywood,
some^on cigarette packets, but not one of them was favourable.’
But Emeric was in distinguished company. Both G. B. Shaw and J.
B. Priestley were subsequently invited to write treatments, and their
suggestions similarly rejected because the workers didn’t care for
their ‘pull your socks up and get to work’ attitude. A treatment to
everyone’s satisfaction was finally extracted from an Elstree staff
writer and the 10-minute short Our Film produced.
During the war Emeric was politically active in other anti-fascist
organizations. He belonged to the Free German League of Culture, a
broadly left-wing amalgam of Germans and German-educated
writers, actors and artists. On 21 June 1942 he was instrumental in
organizing the League’s most successful rally, the portentous-
sounding Pageant of the Four Freedoms at the New Theatre in
Oxford. Eric Portman and Leslie Howard performed an extract from
49th Parallel, and Ralph Richardson and Roger Livesey were also
persuaded to take part alongside émigrés such as Arthur Koestler,
Erich Freunde and Gerhard Hinze. At about the same period Emeric
also joined the International PEN group of which he remained a
life-long member.
Emeric had less time for the intrigues and intricacies of Hungarian
émigré politics. When Hungary’s fascist leader, Admiral Miklôs Hor-
thy declared war on the allies in December 19 4 1, Emeric and his
fellow Hungarian émigrés became enemy aliens. Many were interned
on the Isle of Man or deported to camps in Australia and Canada.
Those who remained at liberty aligned with various political groups:
the communists, the non-communist left, and the Association of Free
Hungarians in Great Britain which represented ‘the anti-fascist bour­
geoisie’ and to which Emeric belonged. The Association’s biggest
draw was the wonderful Hungarian restaurant it had in the basement
of its premises in Manchester Square. George Mikes was a committee
member: ‘We tried to arrange lectures and discussions, make public
statements through letters to editors or articles, and generally voice
the views of Hungarians who were in a position to speak freely.’
Emeric’s only official involvement was to help George Tarjan
organize various benefit concerts, cabarets and plays.
Emeric’s intermittent wartime diaries provide a vivid picture of his
life at the time. He was, they show, often more concerned with ‘Mr
i8 6 EMERIC

Churchill’s’ latest speech and the general direction of the war, than
his own personal or professional life:

7 January 19 4 1
No raid and I slept beautifully upstairs in my bed. Mrs Gorn
was here till midnight. In the morning to everybody’s surprise
the town is covered with snow, but it is already melting. Some
gunfire in the morning and alarm. It ends towards 10. Last night
I heard Rooseveldt’s beautiful speech to Congress through
shortwaves. I hope they get going now . . . At about 1 1 Carl
Mayer comes up asking for £2.0.0 . 1 write a cheque for £5. He is
so nice and so helpless. I lunch with Micky in the Csarda, Clive
Brook, Ramons, Gillet and our Danish waiter from Contraband
are there. Brotzky [?] tells that Brook talks about ‘Victorious
Defeat’ [Emeric’s story which became Breach o f Promise] as
Brook’s film for ‘Two Cities’ [Filippo Del Guidice’s company].
After lunch I phone Chris [Mann, his agent] about it and learn
that Lord Warwick’s cheque arrived. I sent Chris to tell them
how I feel about all this. From 12 .30 till 4.30 there’s a warning
on with continuous gunfire. British forces are before Tobruk
after capturing Bordia and 30,000 prisoners yesterday. The
radio just announced the capture of Tobruk’s aerodrome with
unserviceable Italian planes.

2 1 January 19 4 1
Raidfree night. Overslept for the first time the 8 o’clock news in
the morning. Was working in the morning. Hetheyi joined me in
the Csarda. He gets on my nerves sometimes. I gave him again
£2.7.0. for telegrams. I don’t like this Arato business. I have the
feeling that Arato needs money. During lunch the first day-raid
started. I went alone to the Wyndham Theatre to see Farjcows
[?] Revue. It starts at 2 .15 . Quite a number of people. Good
entertainment. Bernard Miles the best. During the revue two
more alarms but no warning from the stage. Weather rainy and
foggy. During the 6 o’clock news Joan Kennedy rang. She has
broken her ankle or something similar. She is nice but I can’t
make out who she is and what she does. Attack on Tobruk
started. Hitler and Musso met and Nazi papers are raging again.
If only America would start war production!
 ARTISTS UNITED I87

13 February 19 42
One of the most disappointing days of the war. Everybody who
has some sense of responsibility regarding this war is upset, even
furious'about the escape of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz
Eugen*. What of the hundred bombing raids on Brest? What of
the R A F and the Fleet Air Arm? Those ships were constantly
attacked yesterday but came through. We lost 20 bombers and
22 fighters. And where is the Fleet? The newspapers are scream­
ing. Since 100 years it didn’t happen that the enemy sailed
through the English Channel! And all this when Singapore’s loss
is only a matter of hours! I think as things stand even Churchill
can be deposed. Otherwise it was a cold but beautiful sunny
day. I called for Mick at 10 a.m., read and signed the letter Chris
wrote as an answer to Parish [An executive at Anglo-American]
(mostly about the Archers’ trademark) and we went to see Wolf
about Dutch film. He wants it a 7 reeler and is willing to put up
20—30,000 pounds. It is an awful responsibility for us. We
lunched at Czarda with Magda and Mick. I think she was rather
upset about our talking business. After lunch we went to the
Dutch government, they are delighted . . . Mrs Retter brought a
magnificent Ox-tongue and cooked it —I’m on fire guard.
49th Parallel was the catalyst for a whole new attitude to film
production in Britain. The war had caused a hiatus. With the depar­
ture of the Americans, and the collapse of Korda’s empire at the
beginning of the war, the British film industry had seemed leaderless
and hopeless; 49th Parallel demonstrated that leadership could come
from the film-makers themselves. Michael and Emeric had shown
that they could be trusted to conceive and execute a large-scale,
international film, virtually by-passing the executives, the ‘front­
office’. The lunatics —it seemed to some —had taken over the asylum.
As early as March 19 4 1, Emeric and Michael had talked to Leslie
Howard about setting up an ‘association’ of film-makers based on the
model of United Artists, which would swing the balance of power
away from the ‘front-office’ to those actually responsible for making

.. an episode of minor importance, as 1 judged it, but arousing even greater [that is than
the fall of Singapore] wrath and distress among the public, had occurred. The battle­
cruisers S c h a r n h o r s t and G n e is e n a u , with the cruiser P r in z E u g e n , had escaped from Brest
and made their way up the channel, running the gauntlet of the batteries of Dover and all
our air and sea forces un-scathed, so far as the public knew or could be told.’ (Sir Winston
Churchill, T h e S e c o n d W o r l d W a r)
i8 8 EMERIC

the movies. Emeric clearly felt strongly about this issue. As a screen­
writer he desired — and felt he deserved - greater recognition and
power than was traditionally allotted. But to him this was far more
than a personal matter. The war made him want to make films that
mattered. He knew what had to be said and he wanted the authority to
execute his ideas without interference from above. On 9 March he
noted in his diary: ‘Went to Denham in the morning. Howard liked the
scene and we talked again about a “ United Artists” idea.’ And again on
2 April: ‘Talked to Howard quite a lot, and he is going to show me his
picture on Saturday. Dined and slept at M ick’s Uxbridge place. Slept
again in sleeping bag. The big subject now is the idea of the “ associa­
tion” . If we could get a few people it would be marvellous.’
It is unclear exactly what the ‘association’ would have been like, but
by May Emeric and Michael had decided to form their own indepen­
dent production company. On 13 May Emeric wrote: ‘Mick and I went
to discuss the name of our future company. I resent Michael Powell
productions.’ He clearly felt ‘in no way inferior’ to his future partner
and demanded equal billing. Two months later —after some wrangling
with the authorities due to Emeric’s status as an alien —a jointly owned
private company comprising 100 ordinary shares was incorporated
under the name of The Archers. *
The trademark was a red, white and blue archery target with eight
arrows already in it, and into which a ninth arrow thuds. It evokes, as
one critic put it, ‘the age of the English longbow and, perhaps, the more
topical image of the R A F roundel’.
Nobody can quite agree on the origins of the famous name and logo.
Emeric thought it had something to do with himself and almost
everyone he knew being a Sagittarius. What is undisputed is that The
Archers adopted as their unofficial motto a little verse by the critic
James Agate, which summed up their creative philosophy:
The arrow was pure gold
But somehow missed the target.
But as all golden arrow trippers know,
It’s better to miss Naples than hit Margate.
But The Archers was far more than a company, it was the collective
name into which Michael and Emeric submerged their separate crea­

*Although the company was only officially announced in the trade press on 7 January
r 9 4 1, with an advertisement in T h e C in e m a .
 ARTISTS U N I T E D 189

tive identities. They would not only share equally the financial
rewards, but also the creative responsibility for their films. All their
future films would bear the same end credit: Written, Produced and
Directed Ky Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The order was
completely intentional, as Michael explained in an interview years
later. ‘We wanted the titles to express the order of importance as we
thought it, so we decided on Written, Produced and Directed. In other
words you’ve got to have a bloody good story to start with and it’s got
to be well developed and then it’s got to be well produced, you’ve got to
find the money and dress it properly and all that sort of thing . . . and
then directing is purely one of the other things, like photography.’
There was an element of good PR in The Archers’ unique credit, but
they honestly felt it was a true reflection of their collaboration. In an
interview 40 years later Michael explained some of the logic behind the
decision: ‘In theory we made the films together; in practice, of course,
I’m a director and had had a long struggle to establish myself as a
director, just as Emeric had a long struggle to establish himself as a
writer. So basically our ideas were usually Emeric’s conception as a
story and Emeric’s working out in script form, from then we worked
together and I would take over the direction, but every decision that
was of any importance, including, of course, the editing particularly
. . . was all made by the two of us together.’
In a letter to his old Parisian friend, Michel Kelber - then exiled in
Spain - Emeric described their production plans in a characteristically
moralistic statement: ‘We do few films, the aim is not more than one a
year and we want to be happy people and not famous producers.’ Their
manifesto as a company was spelt out more precisely in a letter to the
actress Wendy Hiller in early 1942:
One, we owe our allegiance to nobody except the financial
interests which provide our money; and to them the sole responsi­
bility of ensuring them a profit not a loss.
Two, every single foot in our film is our own responsibility and
nobody else’s. We refuse to be guided or coerced by any influence
but our own judgement.
Three, when we start work on a new idea we must be a year ahead
not only of competitors, but also of the times. A real film from
idea to universal release takes a year or more.
Four, no artist believes in escapism —and we secretly believe no
190 EMERIC

audience does. We have proved at any rate that they will pay to
see truth, for other reasons than her nakedness.
Five, at any time and particularly at the present, the self-respect
of all collaborators, from star to propman, is sustained or
diminished by the theme and purpose of the film they are work­
ing on. They will fight and intrigue to work on a subject they feel
is urgent and contemporary and fight really hard to avoid work­
ing on a trivial or pointless subject. And we agree with them and
want the best workmen with us; and get them.
Biographies thrive on change and conflict. Sustained periods of
calm, induced by creative fulfilment or a happy marriage just don’t
make such good reading. At first glance the journey frequently
appears more stimulating than the arrival.
By 19 4 1 Emeric had arrived. For the next fifteen years he was
going to be, more or less, on a plateau: producing his best work,
married happily for a second time and settled down to an affluent
and contented family life. As an old man he told me a good deal
about his youth, but he never talked about successful middle age,
about the films for which he is remembered. There were fewer
anecdotes, fewer extravagant events to talk about. Emeric’s
biography pre-1941 poses enough problems, but after 19 4 1 the
difficulties are exacerbated by his own reticence, and most
particularly by the fact that after 19 4 1 it is not the biography of
one person but of two. In so many ways his life for the next twenty
years, which for the most part means his films, is inseparable from
that of Michael Powell, his partner and his friend.

In the summer of 1940, with the first major R A F losses, the BBC had
coined the melancholy, strangely poetic euphemism ‘One of our
aircraft failed to return’, later changed to the slightly less downbeat
‘One of our aircraft is missing’. Like all foreigners, Emeric was
immune to cliché, and he found in this official phrase the inspiration
for the first Archers film. In November he sketched out the story of
‘Bomber B for Bertie’ whose crew bail out over occupied Holland and
are smuggled home by the Dutch resistance.
Further inspiration came from the actions of the Tory MP Sir
Arnold Wilson, a First World War veteran, writer and journalist.
With the fall of France Sir Arnold announced to parliament that he
for one did not propose to shelter behind the bodies of younger men
and that, at the age of 5 1, he was going to join the R A F as a rear
 ARTISTS U N I T E D I9I

gunner. He was the model for the role of Sir George Corbett, played by
Godfrey Tearle.
The Archers touted the project around various financiers. They
wanted t'o work with J. Arthur Rank, the avuncular Yorkshire flour
miller who had fallen into films because he wanted to have something
to show at Methodist Sunday schools. A thoroughly unlikely film
mogul, who represented the ‘stolidity’ in opposition to Korda’s ‘flair’,
he was now the most influential man in the industry. Rank, with
seemingly unlimited supplies of cash from the family milling empire
had bought up Pinewood, Denham and Gaumont British, and had a
beady eye on Oscar Deutsch’s Odeon chain of cinemas. Rank, how­
ever, turned the script down. The Archers themselves then rejected an
offer from the Italian émigré producer Filippo Del Guidice* before
ending up back with John Corfield and Lady Yule at British National.
The contract they signed on 6 August was to write, produce and direct
the film jointly at a fee of £3,000 each.
The Ministry of Information films division, now headed by Jack
Beddington, was enthusiastic about the subject, and although they
didn’t provide any financial assistance (49th Parallel was the first and
last feature they contributed money to), they gave Emeric unlimited
access to restricted military information about occupied Holland and
organized visits to various airbases. The royal Dutch government-in­
exile were also keen to help and provided the writer with a Dutch
adviser. The first draft was completed on 5 July. There were some
casting difficulties. Emeric specifically wanted Ralph Richardson (pre­
sumably for the role of Sir George Corbett) who was unavailable.
Nevertheless, location shooting at an Air Force base began on 1 1 August.
One o f Our Aircraft is Missing is essentially 49th Parallel in reverse.
Instead of Nazis, it is a group of Britons - the crew of bomber B for
Bertie —who are stranded behind enemy lines and try to escape home.
Perhaps it was intended as a companion piece. As in 49th Parallel all
the characters are humanized and individualized: an actor, a foot­
baller, a diplomat, a sheep farmer and a Blimpish old soldier. But this
time, instead of discipline disintegrating and the group splintering
under pressure, the six individuals grow into a loyal unit. The British
come together in circumstances where the Germans fell apart. Of all

* “DeP - as everyone called him - wenr on to persuade Noël Coward to write and direct a
propaganda film for him. The result was the classic In W h ic h W e S e r v e , on which David Lean
had his first co-directing credit.
19 2 EMERIC

Emeric’s subsequent films, it is the closest to the ensemble style of

Abschied. The casual, overlapping colloquial banter is some of the
best that Emeric ever wrote. Aircraft has a good deal in common with
other ‘consensual’ patriotic films of the period, such as Millions Like
Us or In Which We Serve. But there is something about the intense
‘Britishness’ of the piece that indicates that it was not written by a
native. Inevitably, a British writer would have made more of class
differences. Emeric did not share that obsession. His characters are
certainly ‘types’, but not types based on social position. Instead, they
are the old and the young, the farmer and the townie, the artist and
the sportsman, but class is only a minor component of this.
The opening is, as Michael observed, ‘typical Emeric’ : an empty
bomber flying through the night sky crashes into a pylon in the south
of England. Where is the empty plane from? Where is its crew? The
film flashes back to explain the mystery. The tense, mysterious atmos­
phere is increased by another effective idea: the audience never see the
enemy. Suggestion is far more frightening than anything concrete. We
only see their shadows or hear their clipped voices shouting orders,
the demonic screeching of their vehicles shattering the peace of the
countryside, and the clicking of marching boots.
Aircraft was the only film in which Emeric succeeded in indulging
on screen his passion for football. One of the bomber crew is a
famous footballer called Bob Ashley. He is separated from his com­
panions at the start of the film, only to be fortuitously reunited at a
football match between two Dutch teams. Emeric persuaded every­
one that it just wouldn’t do to use ordinary extras in the football
match. The ball would have to be placed perfectly for the camera, and
that would take a professional. So Emeric gathered together a team
comprising some of the best professional players in the country,
including his own hero, Arsenal’s top goal scorer, Cliff ‘Boy’ Bastin.
The only friction between the new partners was over a fairly minor
matter of casting - but it was the kind of disagreement that would be
repeated several times over the coming years. Googie Withers was an
ex-girlfriend of Michael’s and had appeared in one of his early quota
quickies. Against Emeric’s wishes Michael promised her the role of Jo
de Vries, the organizer of the airmen’s final escape. ‘When we dis­
cussed the casting and I expressed my doubts about Googie Withers,’
wrote Emeric, ‘your response was to go straight out and engage her
. . . I suppose it is one of your famous days, on which you are able to
destroy all the love, all the sympathy, all the respect you have gained
 ARTISTS U N I T E D 193

from your collaborators over years.’ The finished film, however,

vindicated Michael’s choice. Withers was utterly convincing in the role.
Another recurring point of friction between the collaborators was
Micharel’s Tiabit of disappearing for a few days’ holiday without any
notice just when Emeric felt his support was needed most. Emeric, who
had an increasingly exaggerated sense of punctuality and organization,
found this irritating beyond belief. A familiar battle developed between
the housewife stuck at home burdened by responsibilities, and the
gallivanting, unreliable husband.
In March 1942, with Aircraft recently completed, a typical example
occurred. The Archers were in the midst of lengthy negotiations with J.
Arthur Rank over their next film when Michael suddenly vanished up
to Scotland to visit his mother and attend Aircraft's Glasgow première.
‘I thought that was the limit,’ wrote Emeric in his diary. ‘1 went to see
Chris [Mann] at 5 p.m. Showed telegram I wanted to send to Mick and
sent it from there saying if he is not back tomorrow 1 regard our
collaboration as terminated and give notice to C. M. Woolf and Rank
Friday morning.’
The following day Michael dashed off two placatory telegrams in his
characteristic style:
26 March
AFTER GLASGOW SH O W IN G NO DOUBT WHATEVER THAT
PICTU RE HAS M O ST R EM AR K A B LE EFFEC TS ON A U D IE N C E S
C R EA TIN G LASTIN G IM PR ESSIO N OF TRUTH AND R EALITY
U N IVER SA L O PIN IO N PICTU RE EQUALS OR SURPASSES
PARALLEL NOW WHAT DO YOU TH IN K OF THAT LO VE =
M ICK Y

26 March
MY DEAR OLD SN A PPIN G TURTLE I SPO KE TO RANK LAST
N IG H T BY ARRANGEM ENT AND THEN CH RIS STOP N IG H T
TELEP H O N IN G EASY DAY IM PO SSIB LE DELAYS STOP HAVE
COM PLETE AND CONCRETE ASSURANCES FROM RANK W ILL
PERSO NALLY FIX EVER YTH IN G B EFO R E GO IN G A W A Y STOP
P L E A S E T E L E P H O N E C H R IS STO P D O N ’T LET A LL TH E GANG
BO TH ER YO U T IL L TH EN W A IT M Y RETURN M O N D A Y O FFER ED
RANK RETURN TO D A Y BUT HE ASSU R ED ME U N N ECESSAR Y NOW
P L E A S E B E A T A M E N I C E B E A V E R A N D L E A V E M E IN B O S O M O F
F A M IL Y U N T IL M O N D A Y STOP PICTU RE W O N D E R F U L SU C CESS
LOVE = M ICK Y
194 EMERIC

It is easy, of course, to concentrate on the arguments and disagree­

ments, but in reality they were infrequent. The partnership was
remarkably calm and balanced. ‘They always seemed so genuinely
close,’ recalls one colleague. ‘Michael always called Emeric “ Imre”
and Emeric always called Michael “ old horse” or some such thing,
which was, I think an indication of tenderness.’ Even if they did
occasionally fight and disagree it was always done behind closed
doors. No one, not even their closest friends, was aware of it, and
neither could ever be persuaded to say a bad word about the other to
a third party.
At the trade show on 18 March, Emeric felt dissatisfied with the
film: ‘Film not bad, but not good either. Flying sequences sometimes
fake and slow. Dutch sequences partly very good, partly less good.
Sometimes connections between sequences very vague. End doesn’t
come off rightly. Audience quite pleased and some of them (Wendy
Hiller!) quite definite about being better than 49th Parallel.’ For all
his doubt Aircraft was a commercial and critical success - Emeric’s
fourth in a row. The US National Board of Review rated it the second
best film to be distributed in America that year (incredibly, another
British picture, In Which We Serve, took first place). The Ministry of
Information was so pleased with its propaganda content that H M SO
published a book version written by Emeric, priced at 6d.
Aircraft has limited appeal to modern audiences. It seems dated
and somewhat formulaic. As such it is perhaps the last of Emeric’s
films which could, conceivably, have been written by somebody else.
But the film also contains signs of things to come. Emeric’s desire to
make personal films at a time when the cinema was seen as an
impersonal medium is obvious. The references to the girls in Stuttgart
and the song ‘I Kiss Your Little Hand, Madam’ (‘The composer was a
Jew, I believe’), certainly have a personal resonance. Emeric deliber­
ately chose Stuttgart as the target for the bomb raid because he had so
disliked the town as a student - it was the place where he had first
experienced anti-Semitism. Stylistically the film seems to be bursting
at the seams. The narrative moves unapologetically from one style to
another: the opening aerodrome sequence is pure documentary, but
the bulk of the film is a thriller. As in many later films, Emeric seems
to be poking the audience in the ribs every time they get comfortable
and saying: ‘It’s only a film, you know.’ This selfconsciousness, or
sense of cheek, reaches its extreme at the end of the film when a title
card informs us:
 ARTISTS UNITED 195

That was going to be the

end of our story b u t -

First the actors:

[Cast credits]

- and then the technicians -

[ Technicians' credits]

All of them wanted to know

what happened afterwards to
the crew for B for Bertie

So - three months later -

and so we move into a coda to the main story. Contradicting all the
rules of escapist cinema, the audience is made aware of the actors and
technicians who have influenced the telling of the story.
After 19 42 Emeric and Michael both worked exclusively for The
Archers. The last solo credits Emeric garnered were for a couple of
original stories he wrote in the first year of the war. One, a romantic
comedy called ‘Victorious Defeat’, was snapped up by M G M ’s British
operation in 1940 and released in 1942 as Breach o f Promise. Roland
Pertwee and Harold Huth co-directed, with the ageing silent star Clive
Brook in the lead. Emeric gave the film short shrift in his diary:
10 February
I went with M.[ichael] to see Breach o f Promise at the Empire.
Pertwee had a terrifying credit. My name is also mentioned. The
picture is unbelievably bad. Clive Brook and the dialogue the worst.
Squadron Leader X was a more interesting solo project. Originally
entitled, ‘Four Days in A Hero’s Life’, Emeric wrote it in 19 4 1. Like his
other early war films it shows a willingness to differentiate between
good and bad Germans, and a fascination with fugitives. The story is
another variation on the ‘escape motif’ used in 49th Parallel and
Aircraft. Equipped with an R A F uniform, an English accent, a photo­
graph of his wife and a packet of Players, a German agent is parachuted
into occupied Belgium to create anti-British propaganda. Unfor­
tunately for him he chooses a night when the Belgian resistance are
smuggling the crew of a British bomber home across the Channel.
Before he knows it, he is landing on the south coast of England in a fog.
With MI 5 hot on his trail, the fugitive tries to contact his old German
196 EMERIC

émigré friends in London. Most have been interned on the Isle of

Man, except for an old girlfriend whom he blackmails into helping
him escape. He manages to steal a plane and flies off - only to be shot
down over the channel by a formation of German Messerschmitts.
After brief negotiations with Carol Reed in London and David O.
Selznick in Hollywood (who both liked the story but felt
that it might result in an overly sympathetic Nazi character) the rights
were purchased by RKO British for the significant sum of £150 0 .
Lance Comfort directed, Emeric’s friend Wolfgang Wilhelm wrote
the screenplay and another émigré, Mutz Greenbaum, photographed.
Eric Portman reprised his role from 49th Parallel as the fanatical
Nazi, and Ann Dvorak, fresh from Hollywood, was a catch as the
female lead. It was released in January 1943 to positive notices. C. A.
Lejeune on The Observer was impressed:
Squadron Leader X (Regal and Pavilion) is a British film, but we
needn’t be complacent about that either. I see no reason to
suppose it’s going to start a run of better British films. I hardly
think it likely that rival producers will appreciate that the edge
this film has over most of the others is its spanking good script.
They haven’t been too sensible about scripts in the past, and I
see no signs of a change in the immediate future.
Emeric Pressburger wrote the original story of Squadron
Leader X and Wolfgang Wilhelm did the screenplay adaptation.
A lot of people have had a hand in the final effectiveness of the
piece, including one or two actors, but Messrs Pressburger and
Wilhelm certainly gave them their opportunity. Mr Pressburger,
as you may have noted if you are a smart reader of credit titles,
wrote the story for 49th Parallel and One o f Our Aircraft is
Missing. His speciality is escape.
Although they now had their own production company and theo­
retically produced their own films, Emeric and Michael still felt the
need for more independence. If they had to crawl to companies like
British National - whose budgets were severely limited anyway - for
every film, it hardly mattered that they called themselves an indepen­
dent company. What they needed was a regular backer who would let
them have budgets on a par with their ambition, but also give them
complete artistic control over their films. It was a tall order - but it
was filled by J. Arthur Rank.
Rank had been wrong about Aircraft. Convinced that it was an
 ARTISTS U N I T E D 197

uncommercial subject he had refused to finance it. Now that he had

been proved wrong he took a step which no mogul before or since
was ever clever enough - or perhaps naive enough - to take. He
admitted that as a financier he knew nothing about films - how could
he if he had never made them? — and that the real decisions about
what should be made and how, ought to be taken by those who did
know something: the film-makers themselves, i know 1 have no
talent for making films,’ he went on to say, ‘but 1 can help you get
what money you want.’
On 7 January 1942 Emeric, Michael and their influential agent
Christopher Mann, held a meeting with Rank, at which the scrupul­
ous Yorkshireman with the long face and Chaplinesque moustache
set out his proposals and the film-makers aired their views. They
wanted Rank to provide studio space and act as a ‘hands-off’ pro­
ducer on a film-by-film basis, with no contract, allowing The Archers
complete creative independence. Rank was still cautious but, as
Emeric wrote in his diary, ‘interested in our plans’.
On 27 January, he recorded, they returned to Rank:
Mick, Chris and I went at 4 to Odeon’s central office on Park
Lane to meet Wolf [Managing Director of the Rank-owned
General Film Distributors and Rank’s chief adviser on film
matters], Rank and Woodham Smith [Rank’s lawyer]. It was a
triumph! We agreed on making 2 pictures for them in the next
year, subject to our discretion (first Blimp) with £15,0 0 0 per
picture plus 10 % from the net profit. There was not much
discussion about it.
Soon this was altered to a picture by picture contract with 25 per
cent of the net profit.
In granting this unprecedented freedom to Emeric and Michael,
Rank had a definite financial game-plan in mind. Like Korda before
him and every ambitious British producer since, Rank realized that
the only way of sustaining a profitable British film industry was to
take a slice of the American market. Again, like the Hungarian
maverick, he decided that the best way of doing this was to produce a
few high quality films.51’ He hoped that The Archers - given generous
budgets —would provide these films.*

* Unlike Korda, Rank also produced a large quantity of lower budget films at Gainsborough
Studios and later at Ealing, intended mainly for the domestic market.
198 EMERIC

The conditions offered to The Archers were soon extended to

cover other independent companies, who would operate under the
umbrella of a new company, Independent Producers Ltd. But it was
not an offer open to everyone. The film-makers he invited to join
The Archers in this venture had all proved themselves financially
and commercially in the past. The other founder members of
Independent Producers Ltd were Leslie Howard, Marcel Heilman
and A. W. Watkins. Heilman, a master of mediocrity, made two
films for the company before Rank got rid of him. Neither Watkins
- a pioneering sound recordist known in later years as ‘the lone wolf
of Pinewood’ - nor Leslie Howard made a single film. (Howard, of
course, died early in 1943 under somewhat mysterious circum­
stances.)
Before long the flamboyant Hungarian Gabriel Pascal was invited
to join the company, and worked away extravagantly for two years
on Caesar and Cleopatra - the film which nearly bankrupted Rank.
In 1943 Emeric and Michael themselves invited two companies to
join: Cineguild (David Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald
Neame) and Individual Pictures (Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat).
For a little over five years Independent Producers thrived, providing
a unique opportunity for creative film-makers. ‘What I like so much
about the Archers’, wrote Martin Scorsese, ‘is that they were experi­
mental film-makers working within the system.’ It was Rank who
gave them that opportunity and ushered in what was undoubtedly the
golden age of British cinema. ‘Perhaps not since the time of the
Renaissance popes has a group of artists found a patron so quick with
his wallet, so slow with unsolicited directions and advice,’ opined
Time magazine.
In an article written for Variety in January 1944 Emeric and
Michael spoke to their Hollywood peers like free men to slaves:
British Production, the best of it, is based upon creative indepen­
dence. We, the authors of this article, made some time ago a film
which you called The Invaders. In this a Nazi asks a baker:
‘Does your leader tell you what to do?’ ‘N o,’ says the baker, ‘we
tell him what we want to do!’ To which the Nazi gasps: ‘Then
how can he be your leader?’
This is exactly what is happening to British production. All
kinds of craftsmen are taking responsibility for making the
current list of films: writers, actors, directors, cameramen,
 ARTISTS U N I T E D 199

editors - and we mean sole responsibility for conceiving, plan­

ning and delivering the film to the distributor each one on his
own and in his own way.
Three years later David Lean could add:
. . . I doubt if any other group of film-makers anywhere in the
world can claim as much freedom. We of Independent Pro­
ducers can make any subject we wish, with as much money as
we think that subject should have spent on it. We can cast
whatever actors we choose, and we have no interference at all in
the way the film is made. No one sees the films until they are
finished, and no cuts are made without the consent of the
Director or Producer, and what’s more, not one of us is bound
by any form of contract. We are there because we want to be
there.
Such is the enviable position of British film-makers to-day,
and such are the conditions which have at last given our films a
style and nationality of their own.
The various members of Independent Producers still had to submit a
proposal of their intended film to the board of General Film Dis­
tributors for approval, but this became something of a formality, with
documents often being handed in long after the film had gone into
pre-production. Budgets were theoretically limited to about £200,000
(although this figure rose rapidly in the coming years), but as long as
producers did not exceed their stated budget by more than 20 per cent
no questions were asked. A clause in their contract forbade GFD to
make any ‘substantial alteration’ in a picture without the consent of
the film-makers, and no one can remember them ever trying to change
anything.
Independent Producers operated on a two-tier structure. Once a
fortnight the various producers met together, under the chairmanship
of the genial accountant George Archibald, to discuss matters of
day-to-day running, conflicts in interest over actors or story properties,
technical difficulties etc. Then there were monthly board meetings
chaired by Rank which outlined general policy, and production
schemes. Michael attended the meetings less often than Emeric, who
was increasingly responsible for the production side of the partnership.
‘But Emeric was always less vocal than M icky,’ recalled Sidney Gil-
liat. ‘He only spoke when he really had something to say, whereas
200 EMERIC

Micky would come out with at times very arrogant comments which
we all learned not to take too seriously.’
The Archers’ first film for Independent Producers was also the first
which Michael and Emeric produced but did not write and direct.
The Silver Fleet was a propaganda film made at the behest of the
Dutch government-in-exile, who had been so pleased with One o f
Our Aircraft is Missing. In three days Emeric dashed off a 12-page
treatment for a short film with the understanding that he and
Michael, busy with their own projects, would only act as production
advisers. Rank liked the idea so much that he asked for it to be
expanded into a feature.
Vernon Sewell, an editor and old friend of Michael’s, was given the
opportunity to direct it and Gordon Wellesley, who specialized in
naval stories, was asked to write the screenplay. Clive Brook was
considered for the leading role, and as a co-director for Sewell, but
when Emeric saw his performance in Breach o f Promise, he changed
his mind. Instead Wellesley - much to Sewell’s chagrin - was invited
to co-direct.
Emeric became unhappy as the scale of the project expanded. He
loathed the administrative side of production, even on his own films.
And what with editing One o f Our Aircraft and writing The Archers’
next major production, he was rushed off his feet. The Silver Fleet
was postponed from May to August and Emeric wrote in his diary,
‘We are only embarking on this Dutch film so as not to disappoint
Vernon! . . . I predict we’ll have trouble . . . ’. Emeric was only
reassured when his friend Ralph Richardson agreed to play the lead.
The actor not only turned in a reliably charming performance but
agreed to look after the day-to-day running of the film, earning
himself an associate producer’s credit.
Emeric’s original treatment was entitled ‘ Remember Jan de Wit!’
Like Aircraft, the story is told in flashback. It is the tale of a Dutch­
man, persecuted by his own countrymen because they think he is a
Nazi collaborator, while in reality he is a patriot who martyrs himself
by sabotaging the Dutch U-boat on which he is travelling, to avoid it
being requisitioned by the Nazi enemy.
But the tone of the finished film was far removed from what Emeric
had intended. Vernon Sewell, complaining that the treatment was
‘too theatrical’, removed all Emeric’s references to the brutality and
racism of the Nazis, dulling the impact of the story. Out went the
window-smashing and the execution of innocent civilians and in
 ARTISTS UNITED 201

came Esmond Knight playing the Nazi commander as a humorous

buffoon. It was exactly the type of polite, anodyne war film which
Emeric had been reacting against and he withdrew his name from the
writing credits.*
The one positive outcome of The Silver Fleet (apart from another
financial success for The Archers) was Emeric’s friendship with Ralph
Richardson. Anglophile Hungarians all seemed to love the palpably
eccentric, pipe-smoking actor. Even Alex Korda, who thought most
actors were a bore, adored him. Emeric and Richardson began to see
each other two or three times a week, dining out at Claridges or
Emeric’s favourite restaurant, The White Tower. They made an odd
couple, the tall, plummy-voiced actor and the short thickly accented
writer, sharing a joke over a bottle of claret. Richardson nicknamed
his shy companion ‘the dormouse’ .
They didn’t only see each other at night. ‘All through the winter of
19 42—3 Ralph Richardson was always turning up at The Archers’
office at the most unexpected times,’ recalled Joan Page, the company
secretary. ‘He always seemed to be carrying a copy of Peer Gynt in his
pocket, and if Emeric was busy he would just sit on the end of my
desk and say: “ Don’t mind me” and start reciting the lines under his
breath . . . as if I could possibly work with him sitting there.’
Richardson, like Laurence Olivier, had joined the Fleet Air Arm -
the Navy’s air force - at the beginning of the war, providing it with
some much-needed publicity. But even with celebrity officers, the
service found it difficult to attract sufficient recruits. ‘The Navy, the
oldest service, always had the youngest approach to problems,’
observed Emeric, and Richardson was asked by his superiors to get
one of his movie friends to make a recruitment film. The result was an
unexpected addition to The Archers’ filmography.
In September 1942 Emeric scribbled a few notes for what was to be
a ‘a semi-documentary short’. ‘Originally, Ralph never proposed to
appear in this hybrid,’ remembered Michael in his autobiography,
‘and I never wanted to direct it. We were being drawn into it by
Emeric’s glittering eye. It had to have a title, so we called it The
Volunteer. I said it sounded like a Restoration comedy, but was
overruled.’
It was very much Emeric’s and Richardson’s project. Michael was

* Despite Emeric’s misgivings, and decidedly uninspired direction, the film was a box office
hit and opened up a lengthy directing career for Vernon Sewell.
202 EMERIC

only called in to execute what they had devised, and as far as he was
concerned it was ‘a pain in the ass from start to finish’. When
Richardson read Emeric’s treatment he scribbled huge illegible com­
plaints all over it and said that the only thing for it was for Emeric to
see exactly how the naval airmen lived. On i October the actor
comandeered a two-seater plane and announced that he was going to
take the screenwriter out to HMS Furious to spend the night.
Richardson was an ‘unorthodox flyer’ . As a pilot, what he lacked in
skill he made up for with enthusiasm. He refused to check weather
conditions before taking off: ‘What’s the use of asking the Met?
They’ll only say no . . . ’ He launched them up into the air, Emeric
stuffed awkwardly into the back seat. ‘Here, you navigate,’ he said,
thrusting a crumpled map into his companion’s lap. He insisted on
looking over his shoulder and chatting all the time. Emeric struggled
to get his parachute in the correct position. ‘Don’t worry about your
parachute, Emeric, they never work anyway.’ It was a foggy day, and
they could not find the carrier. ‘I realized I was done for,’ said Emeric.
‘We couldn’t find the carrier and were running short of petrol. I
realized then that airmen are not brave, they’re just crazy.’ In the nick
of time they spotted the ship and Richardson —quite casually - made
a perfect landing and the subject was never raised again.
After three years of writing uncompromising, po-faced anti-Nazi
propaganda, Emeric thoroughly enjoyed making The Volunteer. He
put all his sense of humour and whimsy into it. In 45 minutes it tells
the tale of a clumsy, good-for-nothing theatre dresser who volunteers
for the Fleet Air Arm and is transformed into a skilled engineer and a
crucial element in the fighting machine. Richardson plays himself and
narrates the events; the volunteer is played by Pat McGrath and
Laurence Olivier makes a cameo appearance as a goldfish in the
window of the Denham canteen. With the lightest touch Emeric
suggests that the war can make stars of us all. The volunteer becomes
a minor hero, he appears in the ship’s home movies, and receives a
medal at Buckingham Palace.
A revealing comparison can be made between The Volunteer and
Michael’s own solo propaganda short from around that time, An
Airman s Letter to his Mother. Only five minutes long, narrated by
John Gielgud and largely photographed by Michael himself, it is an
example of public school jingoism. It is the celluloid equivalent of
Jacques Louis David’s ‘Oath of the Horatii’, extolling the notion
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
 ARTISTS U N I T E D 203

Early in March, while on location in London for The Volunteer,

Emeric happened to buy a copy of the Evening Standard — and
learned that he had won the 1942 Best Original Story Oscar for 49th
Parallel. More than that, he had also been nominated for a further
two — Best Screenplay for Aircraft and 49th Parallel. It was an
unprecedented achievement. His award had been accepted on his
behalf by Harry Cohn, president of Columbia Studios. A month later
a weighty package duly arrived from the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences. Emeric opened it to find nothing but a large pile of
white powder: Tinseltown’s contribution to the war effort was to
make its Oscars from gold-painted plaster of Paris instead of metal.
After the war he was presented with a replacement.
The Volunteer garnered respectful, if slightly baffled notices:
‘Friendly, unaffected Fleet Air Arm “ personal” documentary made by
The Archers . . . ’ wrote Kine Weekly, ‘. .. an ingratiating and disar­
ming human touch . . . technically it is perhaps a trifle fragmentary,
but on the other hand it is refreshingly free from conscious pre­
tentious patriotism.’
The reaction which Ralph Richardson savoured, in particular,
came from the Lords of the Admiralty who were shown the film in a
bijou cinema somewhere underneath Admiralty Arch. Emeric,
Michael and Richardson were in attendance. ‘They sat through it in
silence,’ the actor recalled, ‘after which the Sea Lord got up and -
while we had stood up to be presented - walked straight past us in
silence . . . not a word . . . till he came to the exit door by the
projectionist’s box. He stopped. In his glass box the projectionist,
rather a naughty chap, pulling faces, cigarette dangling from mouth,
was winding the film back by hand. The Sea Lord spots him and goes
straight over. “ Very fine,” he says, “ wonderful film, congratula­
tions,” and shakes him warmly by the hand. I think he thought the
projectionist had done the whole damn thing.’
 CHAPTER I I

Blimp’s Biography

: Old Shatterhand was the cowboy hero in a series of Western novels written by the German
Karl M ay. Although he had never actually been to America himself. M ay formulated the
notion of the Wild West for several generations of Central European children.
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 205

When the police turn up an unidentified corpse the first thing they
do is itemize the contents of its pockets. I used to think about that
when I first started this book, wondering what conclusions the
defective would have drawn from Emeric’s pockets. They sagged
under the weight of peculiar objects: three hard, dry chestnuts
(which he thought were a protection against the common cold); a
large pocket knife (a sort of superior Swiss Army model with a
proliferation of tools); one white cotton handkerchief with the
letters EP embroidered in red in one corner; a stainless steel bottle
opener (because you never know when you might come across a
bottle of Pilsner); a clean plastic Silva compass (you never know
when you might get lost). All of these things are in his outside
jacket pockets. The inside pocket contains a loose-leaf pocket book
of the continental type with a variety of handwritten notes. There
is no wallet, but £ 12 5 in five pound notes rolled into a tight little
ball. There is no jewellery, only a heavy stainless steel Rolex watch
on the left wrist.
Except for a few clues, Emeric left little indication of his inner
life behind. No bulky autobiography, few diaries and only the
scattered remains of a once voluminous correspondence. I imagine,
though, that he would be quite pleased with this state of affairs. In
life he shared his real opinions and emotions with his friends only
reluctantly. He was not secretive in a scheming, deliberate way, but
cautious and reserved. No doubt he was naturally reticent, but
years of living in countries not his own also taught him to keep his
opinions to himself. I interviewed more than fifty people for this
book, friends and colleagues who had known Emeric between
19 30 and his death. With a depressing regularity they prefaced
their reminiscences with the same words: ‘You know, 1 hardly feel I
knew your grandfather at a ll. . . Yes, I had supper at his house
several times/worked on a film with him for several months —but
he always kept himself to himself.’ Of course, maybe I just spoke to
all the wrong people. Maybe the right ones are all dead. But even
Michael Powell, his closest friend and collaborator for fifty years
felt the same. Even after all that time he was still an enigma.
‘Nobody knew what Emeric thought,’ he told me with a look of
regret. ‘He was a true writer.’
But what became more and more obvious to me as I went about
my detective work, looking at the clues, piecing the fragments
together, was that Emeric put more of his inner life into his
20 6 EMERIC

filmwriting than virtually any other film-maker. The films -

normally the most impersonal of art forms - must speak for his
personal life.
The Archers made The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp in 1942,
when Emeric was 40. It became his favourite film. It was his first
Technicolor film and, at almost three hours, a veritable epic. This
behemoth purportedly developed from a single line cut from One o f
Our Aircraft is Missing. Sir George, the old gentleman, tells one of the
younger members of the crew: ‘1 was just like you thirty years ago and
you’ll be just like me thirty years from now.’ Emeric liked the para­
dox, but David Lean persuaded him to drop it, saying: ‘ It’s got
nothing to do with the plot. It’s the sort of idea you could make a
whole film about.’
The story opens in 1942. Blimp - General Clive ‘Suggie’ Candy - is
caught (literally) with his pants down in a Turkish bath by a troop of
home guard soldiers on an exercise. He rages at their leader, Spud:
the exercise wasn’t due to start until midnight - the young upstart has
broken the rules. Spud shouts back: ‘How many rules have the enemy
kept since this war started?’ A violent argument ensues when Spud
mocks the General for his big belly and walrus moustache. Fighting,
they tumble into the swimming pool. The General thumps away,
shouting: ‘ You laugh at my big belly, but you don’t know how I got
it. You laugh at my moustache, but you don’t know why I grew it!
How do you know what I was like forty years ago?’ The voice gurgles
as they submerge beneath the water. Steam passes over the lens. We
flash back forty years.
1902. Clive Candy, a dashing young officer, fresh back from the
Boer war with a VC pulls himself out of the swimming pool. He is a
young upstart and before long he is off to Berlin - acting against
orders - to do something about the anti-British propaganda being
spread by a certain group of militaristic Germans - the Burs­
chenschaften. His informant is a young English governess called Edith
Hunter. In a foolhardy moment Clive insults the Burschenschaften,
members of whom also belong to the Imperial German Army. Before
he knows it, he is being challenged to a duel by the entire regiment.
They draw lots to see who will fight him. Clive finds himself fighting a
duel against a man he has never even met, with the impressive
sounding name of Theo Kretchmar-Schuldorff. In the fight both men
are wounded and taken to a nursing home to recover. When they get
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 207

to know each other they become the best of friends. Edith Hunter
pays him visits at the nursing home. She becomes engaged to Theo. It
is only on his way home that Clive realizes that he himself was in love
with .her’all along.
19 18 : the First World War. The dashing young Clive is turning into
a middle-aged Blimp. It is obvious that he has never got over Edith; he
has put her on a pedestal. So when he catches a glimpse of a nurse
that looks exactly like her, he falls immediately in love. After the war
he tracks down the girl — Barbara - and marries her. He also finds
Theo: he is in a prisoner of war camp and proudly refuses to speak to
Clive. The post-war years pass by in a series of overseas postings,
during one of which Barbara contracts a tropical disease and dies.
1942: Second World War. Clive is now converted into Blimp. Theo
arrives in Britain, a refugee. His wife, too, has died and his children
have become ‘good little Nazis’ . Clive becomes his sponsor and their
old close friendship is restored. Clive is back on the active list, but he
is really just a sweet, sentimental old buffoon who doesn’t understand
the modern practices of warfare. Again Clive has fallen in love with a
girl who looks just like Edith. Her name is Angela - though her
friends call her Johnny —and she is his A T C driver. His relationship
towards her is more paternal than sexual. When Clive is forced to
retire, Theo and Angela try to comfort him. They encourage him to
set up the Home Guard. He gets his old enthusiasm back, but his
attitudes and methods are still out of date. He doesn’t understand
modern warfare . . . and so is caught with his pants down in the
Turkish bath. Clive finally acknowledges that he should step aside for
the younger generation, and change his ways to suit the modern
world. He salutes Spud’s young army marching through the streets. It
is the death of Colonel Blimp.
Emeric wrote Blimp’s biography with a clear propaganda aim in
mind. He was concerned that certain elements in the British establish­
ment - the Blimps - were fighting the war in the same gentlemanly,
sporting way they had fought wars in the past. These people either
had to be got rid of or made to realize that this was not just another
imperialist tussle, that it was a fight to the death, literally a battle
between good and evil, and that it had to be won by any means
necessary. The film is dedicated:
to the New Army of Britain,
to the new spirit in warfare,
208 EMERIC

to the new toughness in battle,

and to the men and women who
know what they are fighting
for and are fighting this war to win it.*
But Blimp is not an attack on Blimps. In many respects it is highly
sympathetic to them. There is a deep ambivalence at the very heart of
the film. Clive Candy’s biography is presented to show that the rebels
of today are the reactionaries of tomorrow. Clive does not grow into
a Blimp - it is the times that have changed while his attitudes have
fossilized. Moreover, Blimp represents the very aspects of Britain
which Emeric personally most admired: the fairness, the sense of
humour, the endlessly fascinating manners and mores. Each man kills
the thing he loves. But Emeric was not suggesting that these parts of
the British character should be killed off, only that they should be set
aside, locked up in a cupboard like so much precious china, until the
war was over. He and Michael wrote to the Ministry of Information:
What are the chief qualities of Clive Candy? They are the
qualities of the average Englishman: an anxiety to believe the
best of people: fairness in fighting, based upon games: fairness
after the fight is over: a natural naivete engendered by class,
insularity and the permeability of the English language . . . We
think these are splendid virtues: so splendid that, in order to
preserve them, it is worth while shelving them until we have
won the war.
The original Colonel Blimp was in fact a character created by the
political cartoonist David Low in London’s Evening Standard. In
some respects he is not at all like Emeric’s Blimp. He is a pompous,
bellicose old tyrant - a satire on the worst aspects of the conservative
British Establishment, prone to statements such as: ‘Gad, sir, Lord
Mildew is right. We English are quite right to be fonder of dogs than
of Basque children. After all, dogs are our own flesh and blood!’ or
‘Lord Ballyhoo is right. These Jews should be stopped from hanging
about the Oswald Hall trying to injure fascists by kicking them in the
feet with their ribs!’ Low was more than a little surprised when
Emeric suggested that Blimp had the makings of a film star in him. He
remembers how in April 1942 The Archers invited him to lunch at
L’Etoile to outline the project. Emeric ‘spun his tale of The Life and
*This dedication appears in the final script but is not in the finished film.
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 209

Death of Colonel Blimp into my fascinated ear . . . I was too dazed with
admiration at [his] phenomena! power of story telling (he left
Scheherazade standing) to find any reason for not agreeing. I woke up
in time, however, to make two stipulations: that Blimp had to be
proved a fool in the end, and that they, Powell and Pressburger, took
all responsibility.’ The partners agreed. Low was pleased with the
resulting film, and remained a life-long friend of Emeric’s.
Spanning a period of forty years as it does, the script required an
immense amount of research. Emeric attacked it with his usual relish.
He read scores of books on the military and social history of the
periods in question, and employed George Mikes and an out-of-work
Hungarian historian to précis scores m ore/ Even more valuable for
their use of colloquialisms and period details were the newspapers
and magazines. ‘Do not neglect Punch,’ advised Michael in a letter
from Scotland. ‘It is a mine of banality, an artesian well of Blimpid
sources.’
The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp positively revels in every sort
of detail, but particularly that of social convention, from the way
people greet each other to the way they dress. (Emeric was especially
proud of an old Savile Row tailor he discovered who could cut the
men’s costumes in all the different periods, from memory. Michael’s
big contribution was in under-garments. A keen observer of the
changing fashions in women’s figures he insisted that the costumiers
supply just the right type of corset for each period.) Some of the finest
scenes in the film are ‘set pieces’ of social convention, such as the
dinner party of ‘important men’ which Theo attends in 19 19 , with all
its almost anthropological attention to the way the men talk, move
and pass the port. The duelling scene is an extended quotation from a
nineteenth-century German duelling codex that Emeric found in the
library. In a sense the minutiae become the point of the film - again
and again the strength of convention is highlighted and the way
people do things rather than what they do, underlined.
All this gives the impression that Blimp is a realist film, which it
certainly is not. The very fastidiousness of the observation, the over­
loading of it, gives the movie, paradoxically, a sense of unreality. The
characters are ‘types’, only a hair’s breadth from caricature. At times
the colour and pace of the story are more reminiscent of an operetta

'Som e details were based on more contemporary events. The idea of having Blimp stuck in
a Boer jail with only a single record to play was suggested by the new B BC Radio
programme, ‘ Desert Island Discs’ .
210 EMERIC

than an historical epic; some sequences have a decidedly choreogra­

phed feel, such as those set in the bustling Berlin café, where the
waiters virtually seem to dance between the tables.
Blimp is a film dominated by women. A significant portion of
Emeric’s research was connected to women’s changing social status
over the forty-year period. He was particularly interested in the
suffragettes - Edith Hunter is clearly one - and in the ever more vital
role of women in wartime. (As Theo says in the Second World War
episode: ‘We used to say that we were fighting for our women and
our children and our homes. Now the women are fighting beside the
men, the children are being trained to shoot.’)
But it is Clive Candy’s unexpected romanticism, his obsessive,
Hoffmannesque, love for three different women who look the same
that is so striking. In an interview Emeric stated: ‘I think that I myself
used to be like that, and I think that many people have a certain type
that they are always chasing through their lives, trying to find in their
lives again and again and again. So we made a decision that this
Blimp was one of those . . . ’
Emeric first saw Wendy Green at the Csárda restaurant one after­
noon in December 1940. She was tall — almost 6 foot — slim, and
beautiful, with thick dark hair and a pale complexion. She radiated
charisma. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Although it was six
months before he met her properly, he became obsessed by her. He
felt his work was going badly and he blamed it on loneliness. ‘I don’t
feel well. I have great success in my career but nothing but failure in
my private life. Sometimes I lose all interest in everything.’
Mr Weiss, the owner of the Csárda, didn’t need much of a bribe to
find out where Wendy lived and the details of her personal life.
Emeric sent flowers anonymously and then a letter asking if they
could meet. He spent weeks nervously waiting for a reply:
8 January 1942
There was no mail this morning. I spent hours thinking about
Mrs Green. I felt a great desire to ring her but I don’t want to
rush things. Then I played an imaginary game of bridge to
decide whether I should phone her. I won the rubber and had to
do it . . . I rang her number. As I stated my name great laughter
and then she came to the phone. She was very sweet. She
recognized my writing, thanked me for the flowers and said she
wanted to answer my letter but could not meet me because of
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 21 I

personal circumstances. I tried and tried. Finally agreed that we

might meet for tea. 1 shall ring her on Saturday. I sent her some
roses again.
Saturday came and Wendy called the meeting off. On 1 1 March he
saw her again, quite by accident, while having lunch with the com­
poser Allan Gray: ‘Mrs Green’s boyfriend came to our table. He
knew the Grays. Then she came: more beautiful than ever.’ He called
her again that night: ‘She said it would be embarrassing to meet me,
but I may call again in two months’ time (my suggestion). She laughed
—but she doesn’t know me yet.’
Gwynneth M ay Zillah Orme, whom everyone called Wendy, was
born on the island of Anglesey in Wales in 1 9 1 1 (though until the day
she died she was reluctant to give this date away). Her father was a
major in one of the Welsh regiments. While she was still young her
parents separated and Wendy, her brother and two sisters moved
with their mother to Nottingham. Apparently Mrs Orme had grown
to associate the sound and smell of the ocean with her stifling mar­
riage and chose to live at the point farthest from the sea in the whole
of the British Isles.
In the mid-thirties Wendy arrived in London and established her­
self as a model. As much as she yearned for a sophisticated life of
leisure, she had a rebellious streak and was ‘bored rigid’ by a series of
wealthy but respectable suitors. Then she fell into the company of
Abraham Greenbaum, a dubious East End spiv and professional
gambler who went under the name of Jack Green. Wendy was used as
bait to lure punters into Green’s private tent at Ascot where they were
promptly relieved of their money. For a while she enjoyed the wild,
extravagant lifestyle of the man who was described in his New York
Times obituary as ‘the last great international gambler’. They mar­
ried. It didn’t last long. The lows started to outnumber the highs. The
final straw came when Green pawned her wedding ring to raise a
stake. She moved out. Now she was living on her own, and seeing a
string of admirers.
For two months Emeric kept his word and didn’t try to contact her.
But when the time was up he bombarded her with flowers and letters
again. Still there was no response, but Emeric was nothing if not
persistent in love. On 3 April only one subject occupied his diary:
. . . If 1 possessed the least bit of character I would regard the
matter as closed. E xcep t. . . if she reacts. But she won’t. I think
212 EMERIC

I’m in love with her. Strange: I have never spoken to her when I
saw her and never seen her when I have spoken to her. Perhaps I
like her because she has nothing to do with films, or because she
lives in a rather poor, uncomfortable house, though she could
find the means to live better. I am very unhappy. It is a lost
battle. One after the other. What’s the use if I gain standing and
money if I have nobody to share it with? Not even a chance to
have somebody. I regard this whole affair as so important that
others are not worth while mentioning.
He tried one more letter. This time she telephoned. They arranged to
meet on 22 M ay*, the day before the first cut of 49th Parallel was
ready. Emeric picked her up in his car: ‘She came out and the moment
I had been waiting for for six months was there. There she was sitting
beside me, very lovely, talking as though we had known each other
for ages.’
Thereafter things developed quickly. In November Wendy rented
the flat directly below Emeric’s in Maida Vale, then at the end of
19 42 they bought a small suburban house at 42 Green Lane, Hendon,
in north London. The name of the street must have been an unpleas­
ant reminder for Wendy. Her former husband did not approve of her
relationship with Emeric and on at least one occasion sent the heavies
round to teach him a lesson — fortunately he escaped through the
back garden. Green would not grant Wendy a divorce and Emeric
and Wendy couldn’t marry until 1946. Nevertheless, this was prob­
ably the happiest period in Emeric’s life.
Wendy worked night shifts driving an ambulance - somewhat like
Blimp’s last love, Angela, who is an A T C driver in the blackout. On
10 December 1942, with Blimp in the editing room, Wendy gave
birth to a daughter - also called Angela.f
Other aspects of Blimp have similarly personal resonances. The
marvellous café of the 1902 sequence, with its baroque decor, private
orchestra and argumentative right-wing Burschenschaften, is based
on the café Konigsbau, a haunt of Emeric’s student days in Stuttgart.
The moving scene - comprised almost entirely of a monologue -
where Theo is interrogated by the Aliens Board, was drawn from

* Which explains why that date appears in the list of ‘ favourites’ written in an autograph
book of Wendy’s, used as the epigraph to this chapter.
fH er full name was Angela Carole Pressburger. In later years Wendy insisted that she had
sent Emeric to register the name as Angela Carol and that he - ‘ typically’ - had got the
spelling wrong.
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 113
recent personal experience. But Theo did what his creator had only
wanted to do, he told the officers the real, emotional truth about
why he had come to Britain, not the convenient half-truths:
My wife was English. She would have loved to come back to
England, but it seemed, to me, that I would be letting down my
country in its greatest need, and so she stayed at my side. When in
the summer of '33 we found that we had lost our children to the Nazi
party, and I was willing to come, she died . . . none of my sons came
to her funeral. Heil Hitler!
Then in January '3 5 ,1had to go to Berlin on a mission for my firm.
Driving up in my car, I lost my way on the outskirts of the city, and I
recognized the road, the lake, and a nursing home, where I spent
some weeks recovering . . . almost forty years ago. I stopped the car,
and sat still, remembering . . . and . . . you see, in this very nursing
home, sir, I met my wife for the first time, and I met an Englishman
who became my greatest friend, and I remembered the people at the
station in '19, when we pri us like friends . . . the faces of a party of
distinguished men around a table, who tried their utmost to comfort
me, when the defeat of my country seemed unbearable . . . and . . .
very foolishly . . . I remembered the English countryside . . . the
gardens, the green lawns, the weedy rivers, and the trees . . . she
loved so much . . . and a great desire came over me to come back to
my wife's country . . . and this, sir, is the truth.

It is difficult not to see a reflection of the relationship between

Michael and Emeric in that between Clive Candy and Theo
Kretchmar-Schuldorff. Theo is foreign and somewhat defenceless,
Blimp strangely affectionate and protective. Theo is calm and reflec­
tive where Blimp is rash and hasty, and even though he is a foreigner
he seems to understand England better than his English friend. Like
Theo and Blimp, Emeric and Michael frequently addressed each
other as ‘old horse’ (or variations: ‘antique stallion’, ‘viejo caballo’
etc.) or as ‘Holmes and Watson’ (Emeric was Holmes; Michael,
Watson).
Emeric started writing the shooting script in mid-April.
The partnership with Michael had changed the style of Emeric’s
scripts. They were no longer the punctilious technical blueprints
which he had been trained to turn out at Ufa. Because he was now
involved in the production from start to finish, and could communi­
cate his ideas directly to Michael and to the composer, cameraman
214 EMERIC

and designer, he no longer had to put every little detail in writing.

Instead, he concentrated on producing something that would read
smoothly and, above all, give the reader a genuine sense of what the
finished film would be like. Camera movements are only given when
they are absolutely vital to the conception of the story. Normally the
dialogue and a few evocative descriptions are enough.
One of the finest sequences in the film is the build-up to the duel
with Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, which ends with a much-
discussed camera movement:
Sequence 38
INTERIOR. THE GYMNASIUM, BERLIN
The c lo c k , high on the w allstands at 6.50. Outside the glass roof it
is still black night.

The c a m e r a moves to show the vast, bare; brilliantly lit place. The
limits of the combat area have been marked out by the Seconds:
v o n r e u m a n n is still supervising it with c o l o n e l b o r g .

enters, accompanied by the

c l iv e c a n d y f ir s t s e c r e t a r y . Their
clothes are powdered with snow.

Clive's tw o seconds cross at once to meet him and his companion.

goodhead: 'Morning! {To Clive only) Slept well?

c l iv e : (Cheerfully) Very.

1ST s e c r e t a r y : He was still sleeping when I called for him at the

hotel.
c l iv e : They forgot to wake me.

2ND s e c r e t a r y : Your nerves are all right, my boy.

While talking, they cross to their end of the hall, where there are
two chairs and a bench. A similar arrangement exists at the
opposite end for the Germans. The En g l is h d o c t o r is waiting and is
introduced. He is an elderly man, an ex-army surgeon, Lancashire-
born.

goodhead: Dr. Crowther - Lieutenant Candy.

crow ther: d'you do? (Shakes hands and shifts hand to Clive's
How
wrist without relaxing his hold. He feels the pulse, meanwhile
scrutinizing c liv e , who smiles back good humouredly. Finally,
the d o c t o r shuts his watch with a snap, restores it to his
pocket and grunts) :
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y *5
All right! You'll do!
(Surveying his party with humour) Why wasn't I allowed any
c l iv e ;

breakfast?

goodhead: (Producing the Codex) Because the book says not.

c l iv e : It would.

He starts to take off his jacket.

goodhead: I hope you have read it?

c l iv e : Miss Hunter read it. She says it's a joke good enough for
Punch\ {Looks around.) Where is Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff?
g o o d h e a d : He hasn't shown up yet.

1 ST s e c r e t a r y : I congratulate you on your pronunciation of his

name.
c l iv e : I learnt it by heart. Then, when my grandchildren ask:

'Grandpa! Have you ever cut anybody's ear off?' I shall be able
to answer: 'Y es-Th eo Kretschmar-Schuldorff's.' Nobody could
invent a name like that. Who's this?
a t a l l o ff ic e r in a different uniform approaches.

g o o d h e a d : Colonel Borg, the Swedish military attaché. He is going to

lead the combat. (Introduces.) Colonel Borg - Lieutenant Candy.

c o l . b o r g : { B o w s ) I must of course use German expressions. I shall

say 'Los!' for starting and 'Halt' for stop. Can you memorise
these two words?
c u v e : I'll try, sir. Anyway, at the beginning I'll be pretty sure you

mean 'Start!' and during the combat you're not likely to say
'Start!' again!
c o l . b o r g : (Stolidly) That is true. Excuse me. {He bows again and

goes.)

c l iv e looks up at the dock on the wall.

c l iv e : Seven o'clock. {Looks towards entrance.) Theo Kretschmar-

Schuldorff will forfeit his entrance fee if he isn't - (He breaks
off.)

At the entrance, at the other end of the hall, three German officers of
the 2nd Ulans, have entered. The officer slightly in the lead of the
other two is t h e o k r e t s c h m a r - s c h u l d o r f f . He walks swiftly, looking
neither to the right nor to the left, followed closely by the others, the
only noise their boots on the hard floor of the gymnasium and the
swish of their heavy greatcoats, flecked with snow. They reach the
216 EMERIC

'German 'end of the hall and are greeted by the little group of their people.

theo salutes smartly, clicking his heels each time before shaking hands
with his fellow officers ( v o n r it te r and v o n n e u m a n n ,/ with the g e r m a n
a r m y s u r g e o n and c o l o n e l b o r g . He looks a tall, ominous figure in his

slightly fantastic uniform, he has, as yet, no personality beyond being

the chosen representative of eighty-two serious-minded indignant
Ulan officers.

Formalities done, t h e o at once starts to remove greatcoat, jacket and

trappings. As yet we only see these actions through c l iv e 's eyes, at the
full length of the hall. No dear conversation can be heard, only a distant
sharp mutter, sounding hollow in the rafters of the empty Gymnasium.

c o lo n el borg leaves the German group and crosses towards the

British.

c l iv e is in his shirtsleeves. He looks wistfully at the other group.

c l iv e : I w is h I'd b r o u g h t my u n ifo r m .

goodhead: {Reacts, then remarks) How a re you with a s ab re ?

c l iv e : I knowwhichendto hold.

goodhead: We drew lots for each weapon.

c l iv e : I hope mine is a nice light one.

g o o d h e a d : All sabres weigh the same.

The combatants proceed to choose their sabres, Clive’s shirt sleeve is

ripped off to allow for free movement of the arm and his torso searched
for protective bandages. Colonel Borg recites the protocol of the duel
in both German and English then asks the seconds to step forward:
c o lo n e l borg sees that all is correct, then addresses the principals.

c o l . b o r g : f e c h t s t e l l u n g e in n e h m e n i Into fighting positions, please!

In the 'Fighting Position'the sabres are extended towards the opponent

at the full stretch of the arm.

steps forward and, standing between them, takes hold of

c o lo n e l borg

the two sharp points, bringing them together until they are a little less
than two feet apart.

Fora moment, he holds them thus with the tips of his fingers. Then
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 217

suddenly he steps back, snatching his hands from the blades and
gives the command to start.
LOS!
The fight starts. They are both strong swordsmen.
The c a m e r a b e g in s t o m o v e a w a y , further and further, higher and
higher.
We see Clive's two s e c o n d s . They stand with the points of their two
sabres towards the floor, ready to intervene and strike up the
fighters' blades if necessary.

The dash of steel and the stamp of feet goes steadily on.

Then we see the g e r m a n s e c o n d s , also standing motionless and

watchful, with downward pointing swords.

The movement of the c a m e r a quickens. It sweeps away from the

fighters and high above them. They and their seconds are small
figures in the middle of the vast brightly-lit hall. The dash of steel
becomes fainter.

Above the hissing gas-chandeliers the cross-trees of the roof are in

semi-darkness.

Then - without a break - the camera slips through the huge windows
and we are out in the street.

Casting the film caused headaches. The female lead was particularly
difficult. Emeric had decided that one actress would have to play all
three of Blimp’s loves. To play three separate roles in three different
eras required subtlety as well as stamina. Wendy Hiller was an
obvious first choice. Predominantly a stage actress she had only
appeared in Gabriel Pascal’s two Shaw adaptations: Pygmalion and
Major Barbara. She was suspicious of the cinema and extremely
discriminating in the roles she would consider. ‘The quality of
writing was paramount for me,’ she recalls. The actress was invited
to the trade screening of Aircraft, and liked it, but wouldn’t commit
herself to Blimp until she had a full script. She then decided that she
would rather do a literary adaptation with The Archers before
tackling an original story. A play called Granite was suggested.
Emeric didn’t like it and countered with one of his favourites:
Maupassant’s Boule de Suif. Hiller was enthusiastic, but the war
made it impossible to locate the copyright owner. For a time it
2 18 EMERIC

seemed as though she would accept Blimp after all, but then, on 1 5
March, only two months before shooting was scheduled to start, she
delivered some surprising news:
7 discovered that / was pregnant. We were living on the island o f
Anglesey and we had no telephone. I had to walk into the village
and outside the post office there was a public telephone. I remember
that when ringing Michael and Emeric to tell them that I wouldn't
be able to do the film, the cows were being brought down the village
street for milking, and while I was talking the whole telephone box
was rocking because one o f the cows was scratching itself up against
the telephone box! It was rather odd to explain to Emeric. I said,
“ Wait a minute, the cows are coming down to be m ilked” ’
The Archers were stumped. Then one day at the Denham cafeteria
Michael ran into a young actress who had had a small part - sub­
sequently cut - in Contraband. She was only twenty years old but
she struck him as ideal for the role. Her name was Deborah Kerr.
Emeric took her to lunch the following day and returned equally
enthusiastic: she seemed to combine the strength of Edith, the home­
liness of Barbara and the glamour of Angela. Nevertheless, they
were nervous about casting an inexperienced actress in such a
demanding role. Attempts were made to sign up Anna Neagle, but
her husband Herbert Wilcox would not release her from an exclu­
sive contract. The Archers took the plunge and plumped for Kerr.
The role of Theo caused fewer problems. The part had been writ­
ten for Anton Walbrook, whose émigré background and sympathy
for Emeric’s political views made him the writer’s screen alter ego.
Bom into a celebrated family of acrobats and circus performers in
Vienna, Adolf Wohlbmck rose to prominence at Ufa in films such as
Walzerkrieg and Viktor und Viktoria. Half-Jewish and fervently
anti-Nazi, he moved into exile in the mid-Thirties, living spor­
adically in Austria and America before settling in Britain in 19 37,
where he came to represent all the sophistication and cosmopolitan
charm of the European actor. His mastery of English was remark­
able and enabled him to appear on the stage from 1939 onwards,
something few émigré actors accomplished. He always brought an
English teacher - his English governess from childhood - to the set
to help him with pronunciation. Her name was Edith Williams -
perhaps a model for the Edith of the movie?
Walbrook was one of the few actors whose work actually
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 219

improved with exile. His screen persona, like his English, was always
perfectly poised and controlled (a consequence perhaps of the constant
strain he felt hiding his homosexuality), with only a hint at the great
sublimated energy that he seemed to hold taut just below his skin. In
performance it only rarely broke loose, as it did during the ‘we are not
your brothers’ speech in 49th Parallel, or later in his role as Lermontov
in The Red Shoes.
For the part of Clive Candy himself, Robert Donat, Eric Portman
and Ralph Richardson were all considered before Laurence Olivier
was selected.
Olivier was enthusiastic about the role and keen to influence the
script’s development. One surviving letter shows that his comments
were perspicacious. He considered that not enough attention is given
to how a Blimp is made:
What makes him one? The disappointed lover isn’t enough.
Surely it should be previously pointed out how the English
constitutional complacence has re-set the English nature time and
time again simply by various attitudes of good taste, etc. ever
since Drake and his bloody bowls.
I believe our national carelessly flung public school and family
clichés have been far more potent in moulding our character, than
the most forceful slogans in the totalitarian states. Right from ‘an
Oxford man never fills a sherry glass to the brim’, down to ‘the
French army is the finest in the world’. As Fougasse has dis­
covered, you could trace our (possible) ruin to these very things.
And we ought to have masses of them in the picture —and invent
new ones, with, of course, all of Low’s for the final sequence.
He finished the letter by commenting on Emeric’s obviously
ambivalent attitude to Blimp:
Dear boy - I do hope you won’t find these suggestions very
irritating. I thought the first sequence was beautifully laid out and
written — though 1 think the statement of Spud’s case in the
Turkish bath ought to be a bit better done —1 don’t mean Spud
ought to be cleverer - but it’s a damned important bit, and there
shouldn’t be any reservation of opinion about it. After all it does
advocate hitting below the belt - I don’t mean it should be sugar
coated exactly. I mean the audience shouldn’t feel it’s a pity if at
all possible. (Insufferable!)
220 EMERIC

This letter suggests that had Olivier appeared in the film he would
have sharpened its satire and tempered the tendency towards senti­
mentality which, for a modern audience, is its only shortcoming.
Much of Emeric’s work is marred by the same proclivity, a streak of
Yiddish sentiment. It was often left to Michael to provide Emeric’s
characters with the sharp edge of cynicism. In Blimp a typical
example occurs in the scene where Blimp’s female driver gives Theo
a lift home. In Emeric’s original script the exchange ran:
What is your first name Miss Cannon?
Angela.
What a lovely name. It comes from Angel doesn't it?

It was Michael who added her response:

I think it stinks. My friends call me Johnny.
Before Olivier could accept the role he had to obtain temporary
release from the Fleet Air Arm. The M ol had always made such
matters a mere formality with the War Office in the past, and The
Archers had no reason to think it would be any different this time.
At the beginning of April The Archers sent out a treatment -
‘more philosophy than story’ as Emeric complained - to a variety of
ministry officials and establishment figures. Among those who
responded favourably were Lord Vansittart and Vincent Massey, the
Canadian High Commissioner. All the more was the shock when the
Minister of War himself, Sir James Grigg, wrote unequivocally:
I have been considering very carefully whether it is the sort of
film to which the War Office could give its support. I am
bound to say that I don’t think it is. Its chief weakness seems to
me that it revolves around a character that is more fictitious
than real.

Countering his objection that real army officers were nothing like
Colonel Blimp, The Archers agreed to distance the film from the
cartoon character by changing the title to ‘The Life and Death of
Sugar Candy’ (the actual title on the shooting script). They also
offered Grigg final approval of the film before its release, and tried
to clarify the theme for him:

Englishmen are by nature conservative, insular, unsuspicious

believers in good sportsmanship and anxious to believe the best
of other people. These attractive virtues, which are, we hope,
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 221

unchanging, can become absolute vices unless allied to a realis­

tic acceptance of things as they are, in modem Europe and in
total war.
Grigg was having none of it, and steadfastly refused to lend his
support to the film. The Archers were informed that Laurence Oli­
vier would not be available. Stunned, they sought help from the
Mol.
The M ol commissioned a reader’s report of the completed script.
The anonymous writer considered that although the subject was
undoubtedly controversial this was no reason for the Ministry not to
support it:
We should certainly hesitate to prevent the expression of
opinion even if this opinion appeared ambiguous to a minority,
but we must be very careful not to appear to stand behind and
support a film which can be taken in the wrong way by a fair
proportion of people.
He drew the example of 49th Parallel as a film which was con­
troversial, but ‘undoubtedly succeeded in conveying what it set out
to do’. There were several points which he was definitely unhappy
about, chief among them the sympathetic portrayal of a German
character:
Theo is the most fully realized character in the story. Owing to
his sufferings and his contrast to Candy he appears to have a
wisdom and a sensitivity denied to any other of the characters
except Edith - and it is significant that Edith marries him and
that throughout the film the German has this superiority over
the Englishman — he won the woman while the Englishman
continually foozled his approach. Admittedly Theo is anti­
Nazi, but in his speech to the tribunal he appears only very
weakly anti-Nazi. This is no doubt all in the interest of ‘truth’.
Whereas the final superior truth is used for Theo, exaggeration
is used for Clive.
The memo goes on to list several points where the Germans are
given a psychological advantage over the British, concluding:
All these things total up into a film which asks for sympathy
for the German (if not the Nazi) ideal. There is no serious
distinction between Germanity and Nazidom and although the
222 EMERIC

total tone of the picture is not anti-British nor pro-German, it

is to a certain extent wantonly provocative. This will not harm
the British public, but may give ammunition to the critics of
this country in America and Russia.
The Archers composed a long, detailed reply to the charges on 16
June and agreed to certain changes (for instance, axing a shot of
bedraggled, unemployed Britons outside the embassy in Berlin in
1902). Nevertheless the M ol refused to intercede with the War
Ministry on The Archers’ behalf. The definitive and final No came
from Brendan Bracken, Minister for Information:
The pressure of work in preparation for Tuesday’s debate on
Propaganda has prevented my giving as much time to your
script as I should have liked. But I have read enough to know
first that it would make an amusing and very entertaining film,
and second that it would not make the sort of film which this
ministry could properly support.
Emeric and Michael gave up all hope of using Olivier; it is remark­
able that they didn’t give up hope of making the film at all. In spite
of the government’s complaints, they decided to go ahead. It took
more than a little arrogance and a fierce belief in the value of their
project, to turn the arch-conservatives into subversive radicals.
Emeric didn’t take the matter lightly: Churchill, after all, was his
hero. He worried that critics would attack him as an ungrateful
foreigner. He fretted about his enemy alien status. He must have felt
like Theo in the film who, after arguing with Blimp says: ‘You
mustn’t mind me, an alien, saying all this, but who can describe
hydrophobia better than one who has been bitten and is now
immune?’ The partners visited Grigg personally and asked whether
the government flat-out forbade them to make the film. ‘Oh my dear
fellow,’ said Grigg, ‘you know we can’t forbid you to make the film,
but don’t make it because everybody will be very cross and you’ll
never get a knighthood.’ Which, as Emeric observed, was ‘exactly as
Blimpish as Blimp’, and only strengthened their resolve to produce
the film.
A last-minute replacement for Olivier was found in the
unexpected shape of Roger Livesey. A Yorkshireman from a theatri­
cal family - both his brother, Jack, and father, Sam, were familiar
figures in the West End, as was his wife Ursula Jeans - the 35-year-
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 12-3

old Roger had a limited number of screen appearances to his name,

but among them, were notable performances in The Drum and
Rembrandt. He had large, unconventional looks and an irrepressible
vitality, bOt his most memorable feature was his voice, a deep, husky
burr. It is an indication of Livesey’s perceived status that while
Walbrook and Kerr were paid £5000 each, he only received £3000.
To his credit, J. Arthur Rank ignored the growing controversy
and forked out what was to be The Archers’ biggest budget yet. The
final cost of the film was £ 18 8 ,8 12 against an estimate of £16 3,4 0 2.
Apart from the cast, other ‘above the line’ costs were £15,0 0 0 for
Emeric and Michael, £2500 for Alfred Junge and £500 for the com­
poser Allan Gray. Junge’s art department was the only department
which came in under budget — remarkable, considering the variety
and grandeur of the sets.
Shooting began on 8 July at Denham and continued for approxi­
mately fourteen weeks. The production attracted an enormous
amount of press interest. There was a permanent core of journalists
milling around the set of what was dubbed ‘the longest and most
ambitious British film ever’. The whole studio was abuzz with
people. Busloads of extras were brought up from London. It was
easy to find the plump old men for the Turkish bath sequence, but
harder to get hold of enough able-bodied young ones to play the
German officers in the prisoner-of-war camp. In the end three-
quarters of the crowd was composed of carefully painted and posi­
tioned plaster models. Blimp took up the two biggest sound stages
at Denham. Two other films were in production at the studios sim­
ultaneously: The Silver Fleet and Squadron Leader X —both written
by Emeric.
Amid the bustle and excitement of production it seemed as though
any official disapproval of the film had been forgotten. In fact, at the
very time Colonel Blimp was falling headlong into his bathing pool,
the fiasco was reaching new, and potentially disastrous, heights.
Churchill’s first known involvement in the ‘Blimp affair’ came on
8 September. Sir James Grigg, obviously peeved at The Archers’
insistence, wrote to the Prime Minister: i attach, as directed, a note
on the Blimp film which is in course of being produced and which I
think it of the utmost importance to get stopped.’ Two days later,
outraged by Grigg’s report, Churchill personally wrote to Brendan
Bracken at the M ol:
224 EMERIC

Pray propose to me the measures necessary to stop this foolish

production before it gets any further. I am not prepared to
allow propaganda detrimental to the morale of the army, and I
am sure the cabinet will take all necessary action. Who are the
people behind it?
Bracken told him, but also advised that to do nothing was the
soundest policy, as otherwise ‘the ministry is liable to be suspected
of abusing its censorship powers . . . ’
But Churchill’s hackles were up (perhaps he thought the film was
aimed at him?) and the very thought of laissez-faire gave him apo­
plexy. The subject was raised at the next cabinet meeting and a
unanimous decision reached that ‘something has to be done’. Oddly,
though, for some time nothing was - at least not officially.
At the same time as appearing in Blimp, Anton Walbrook was
also contracted to perform in Watch on the Rhine in the West End.
Only on matinée days did this cause real inconvenience, when the
actor had to be whisked away by waiting car at noon on the dot.
One evening during the play’s interval, there was a knock on Wal-
brook’s dressing-room door. There stood Winston Churchill, red­
faced with anger. The Prime Minister proceeded to berate the actor
for taking part in The Life and Death o f Colonel Blim p: ‘What’s
this supposed to mean? I suppose you regard it as good propaganda
for Britain?’ To which Walbrook replied: ‘No people in the world
other than the English would have had the courage, in the midst of
war, to tell the people such unvarnished truth.’
That was not the end of it. Towards the end of March the film
was nearing completion when Emeric was informed the Prime
Minister wished to see the film prior to its release. A special
screening was arranged, after hours, at the Odeon, Leicester Square:
7 was there on my own. Michael must have been shooting some­
thing outside o f London.* He marched in surrounded by three or
four people and I thought, My G od! Here I am almost alone in this
place with Mr Churchill! After all, to me and everyone I respected,
there was G od and then there was Mr Churchill —and that is how it
should be. The film started and I kept looking at him but there was
no response. Suddenly I became aware o f a loud noise behind me. It

* Michael was actually on location in the Mediterranean shooting a sequence for T h e

V o lu n t e e r on the beach at Oran.
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 225

was a familiar noise. It sounded like the cleaners had arrived and
were banging all the seats back as they cleaned. I was furious! I got
up and went and found the manager o f the cinema and said to him:
“ Can ’4 you tell them to be quiet for G o d ’s sake! Mr Churchill is
watching my film !” He looked at me sympathetically, “ But Mr
Pressburger, that is not the seats, that’s the anti-aircraft guns.
There’s an air raid on. ” ’
The statesman left the Odeon without uttering a word. Neither did
he express an opinion later. Shortly afterwards, Grigg also saw the
film and in a memo to the Prime Minister ‘took the view that it was
unlikely to attract much attention or to have any undesirable con­
sequences on the discipline of the army’. On io June the film was
given a gala première at the Odeon, Leicester Square, with none
other than Churchill himself in attendance.
What C. A. Lejeune in The Observer called ‘possibly the most
controversial film produced in this country during our entire screen
history’ received an unprecedented degree of press attention. The
flamboyant use of Technicolor and the very length of the film
(nearly three hours) brought comparisons with Gone with the Wind.
Advertisements in the trade press trumpeted Blimp as the film by
which ‘all entertainment, past, present and future, will be judged.’
More sober critics, though entertained by the spectacle, were
puzzled by the content. ‘What is it really about?’ asked Lejeune. ‘No
one decided exactly what they wanted to say with it,’ said the
Tribune.
More self-assured and conservative journalists were upset by what
they perceived as the film’s anti-British message. The Daily Mail led
the moral crusade, complaining that the film was a ‘gross travesty of
the intelligence and behaviour of British army officers as a class’.
Other papers howled with anger at the ‘sympathetic’ portrayal of a
German officer. Under a headline t h o s e c h a r m i n g G e r m a n s ,
the Sunday Dispatch made a point of indicating Emeric’s
foreignness:
The only people who would for a moment suggest that ‘the last
war was different’ are those interested in putting over the lie
that this is a war provoked not by the Germans in general but
by the Nazis in particular, and that surely cannot be the pur­
pose of the English Michael Powell and the Hungarian Emeric
Pressburger?
22 6 EMERIC

Tatler made a similar point of differentiating between Michael -

apparently responsible for ‘a grand job of work’ - and Emeric:
I cannot help feeling that this arousing sympathy for the Ger­
mans, evidenced in 49th Parallel and also in Silver Fleet and
again in this picture, in scripts all of which Mr Pressburger is
responsible for, is a mistake. There are a lot of people who
belong to the school that holds there’s no such thing as a good
German - except a dead one!
For many years this was the controversy by which Emeric’s name
was largely remembered. He never made any secret of his opinion,
born of experience which few of the carpers could claim. ‘I who
lived for quite a while in Germany and had German friends, 1
wanted to express this feeling of mine that though my mother had
died in a concentration camp and 1 was preconditioned about the
whole thing, I always believed, and I had to say that, there are also
good Germans, though the great majority of them proved to be
pretty awful, pretty horrible. But there were still Germans, one or
two, who didn’t have to go away from Germany but chose to go
away.’ Perhaps foremost in his mind was Stapi.
Once the domestic battle was fought, and the embers of con­
troversy were finally dying down, the ‘Blimp affair’ took on an
international dimension. On 1 1 June the Daily Mail leader, almost
certainly expressing the ‘official line’ demanded: ‘ b l i m p f i l m
m u s t n o t g o a b r o a d ’ , reasoning that, ‘to depict British officers

as stupid, complacent, self-satisfied and ridiculous may be legitimate

comedy in peacetime, but it is disastrously bad propaganda in time
of war.’ When Rank attempted to send the film abroad, he was told
that air transport was not available. It was a lame excuse and
Bracken wrote to the Prime Minister that he could not keep up this
tactic for long and suggested that it be dropped. ‘As the film is so
boring I cannot believe it will do any harm abroad to anyone except
the company that made it.’ But Churchill was insistent: ‘I do not
agree with this surrender. Will you please discuss the matter with
me. If necessary, we must take more powers.’
Bracken felt piqued and replied: ‘The word surrender is not in our
vocabulary! As a result of our illegal ban on this wretched film,
Colonel Blimp has received a wonderful advertisement from the
government. It is now enjoying an extensive run in the suburbs and
in all sorts of places there are notices - “ see the banned film!” If we
 b l i m p ’s b i o g r a p h y 2.2.7

had left that dull film alone it would probably have proved an
unprofitable undertaking, but by the time the government have
finished with it there is no knowing what profits it will have earned.’
On 2-5 August the unofficial ban became untenable and Churchill
was persuaded to drop it.
Still, the film was not distributed in the USA until after the war,
when it was handled by United Artists. The distributors foresaw
difficulties selling the long, narratively complex film to the American
public and launched a publicity campaign trying to sell it as a ribald
tale of a lusty old soldier. The posters showed Colonel Blimp sur­
rounded by luscious ‘dames’ with a slogan that ran:
The lusty lifetime of a Gentleman who was sometimes Quite a
Rogue! Dueling —hunting big game —and pretty girls - life’s a
grand adventure with Colonel Blimp.
What is more, they cut the film by somewhere between 30 and 60
minutes. The result was a court case. The Archers persuaded Rank
to sue Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, owners of United Artists,
for ‘misrepresentation’. In court the distributor’s main witness,
Harold Austen, held that Blimp had not even paid for its printing
and exploitation costs, and went on to state that ‘British pictures
contained too much padding and tea drinking’.
Although the suit against UA was successful, it did not prevent
others from taking similar liberties with the picture. Blimp's history
is ignominously littered with drastic edits. For forty years it was
impossible to see the film as its makers had envisaged it. Even in
Britain, Rank was soon issuing a two-hour version. The complex
flashback structure was the first thing to go. Only in 1983 did the
British Film Institute restore the film to its uncut glory. Two years
later it enjoyed a successful reissue in London and elsewhere. The
critics were startled that such a masterpiece should be almost
unknown to them. It was hailed as ‘the greatest British film’ . In
America the respected critic Andrew Sarris called it ‘the British Citi­
zen Kane\ adding that he preferred it to Welles’s film ‘ for its deeper
understanding of women’.
Blimp is a rarity: a film that has hardly dated. But why is it still so
watchable? Perhaps it is the unique combination of humanity and
caricature, of satire and tender relationships, conviction and
comedy, of realism and fantasy, of warfare and jaunty, ironic music.
It is a movie packed with ambivalence. As one critic wrote recently:
zzS EMERIC

‘It’s almost impossible to define this 1943 masterpiece by

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was ostensibly
based on a cartoon series that satirized the British military
class, yet its attitude towards the main character is one of
affection, respect and sometimes awe; it was intended as a
propaganda film, yet Churchill wanted to suppress it; it has the
romantic sweep of a grand love story, yet none of the romantic
relationships it presents is truly fulfilled.’ Blimp is a hot-house
of contradictions to which the question ‘but what does it
mean?’ seems to be irrelevant.
 CHAPTER 12

Knowing Where To Go
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came array’d
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
G. k . Ch esterto n , T h e Rolling English Road’

The most absurd of all the attacks on Blimp came from an obscure
Scottish organization called The Sidneyan Society, based in Dum­
fries.* Their crack-pot pamphlet, ‘The Shame and Disgrace of
Colonel Blimp’, written by the man and wife team of M. M. and E.
W. Robson, climaxed with a ‘conclusive proof’ that the distribution
of Blimp was the direct and sole cause of Oswald Mosley’s release
from prison. For all its idiocy the publication was given widespread
press coverage. Among the reviews was one which Emeric carefully
cut out and pinned above his desk. It appeared in the union magazine
Cine-Technician. After mockingly dismissing the Robsons’ argument
it went on to say:
I don’t think anyone would particularly want to defend Emeric
Pressburger as a scriptwriter. There is something decidedly fishy
about his Squadron Leader X or U-boat captains striding
unscathed through the stupid democracies, and I suppose there
can be few people who know as little as he does about the real
life of this country.
Emeric began his methodical study of Britain right from the moment
he stepped off the ferry from France. ‘It is not easy being born at the
age of 3 3 ,’ he said, ‘having to learn a language, a way of speaking, the
history and background of a nation, even how to walk.’ He read

*The Society had already attacked the excessive sympathy aroused for ‘ the enemy’ in 4 9 t h
in a series of articles in the D u m f r ie s A d v e r t is e r and a booklet entitled T h e F ilm
P a r a lle l
A n sw ers Back.
23° EMERIC

voraciously about British geography, etiquette and history. He was

always fascinated and obsessed by reference books; Roget’s The­
saurus, the O E D y Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, the O xford Book o f
Quotations - he could spend hours reading them. His greatest find
was a collection of about 300 slim, illustrated volumes, each of which
dealt with the minutiae of a different aspect of British life, from Ascot
to Zoology via Tea and the Monarchy.
It was even more important to observe. ‘He had such an enquiring
and curious mind,’ remembers his daughter, Angela. ‘He was always
studying how people went about their everyday business - tradesmen
who came to the house, taxi drivers, clerks, shopkeepers. I used to
find it embarrassing how many questions he asked . . . Tradesmen all
loved him because he took such an interest. He always used to invite
the dustmen in for a beer and chat to them for quarter of an hour. I
think he talked to these sort of people more than he did to us, or to his
friends . . . I remember going to the butcher as a young girl and he
would stand for what seemed like hours, discussing the various cuts
of meat, the names for them in English, how they should be cooked -
and how that compared to how they were cooked in Hungary or Italy
—all in tremendous detail. He loved detail.’
Joan Page and Betty Curtis owned the secretarial company which
had typed and duplicated the scripts for Contraband and The Spy in
Black. They got on well with Emeric and Michael, and when The
Archers was formed came to work for them full time. They ran the
office at 12 0 Dorset House, Gloucester Place (a hastily converted
service flat - there was a wartime shortage of office space) acting as
secretaries, script editors and general assistants.
They knew as much as anyone about Emeric’s writing habits. Betty
Curtis had first worked with Emeric at the flat in Maida Vale on
Rings on Her Fingers for Elizabeth Bergner in early 1940: ‘Sometimes
he dictated to me, or else he had a wodge of handwritten pages
waiting for me when I arrived in the afternoon. He lent over my
shoulder while I was typing, and my role was to make sure that he
didn’t make any great gaffes in his English. I didn’t interfere with
what he had written, only smoothed it out - I mean, he did have some
odd words that cropped up; this went on for quite a long time!’
Both Betty and Joan were struck by the fact that although Emeric’s
spoken English was uneven, when he was writing he was incredibly
precise. ‘ He knew exactly what characters should be saying in a script
at a particular moment. He seemed to know instinctively what was
 K N O W IN G W H ER E TO GO 2-31

right. Sometimes he couldn’t quite grasp the word or the phrase that
he wanted, but he always knew when he wasn’t right. He would ask
Michael or us to suggest things . . . Sometimes he would become
terribfy irritated because he couldn’t find the right word and we
would suggest something and he would say, “ No, No, No! That’s not
what 1 want at all!” . . . And if, as with A Canterbury Tale, we told
him that the script was, shall we say, rather odd, he just said, “ Oh
well you don’t understand i t . . . ” ’
Emeric believed that good writing was the outcome of both inspir­
ation and perspiration. In an interview he described his creative
process.
‘ When you have done as many scripts as I have, you work out a sort
o f method. With m e - I cant do it any other way - I like to work out
the whole structure o f the script, but if I don't succeed and yet know
I'm on the right track, I start writing and suddenly, it is as if the
characters take over and they bring me so far that I can stop again
and set up the whole structure. But if I can help it, I never sit down to
write the real script until I know where I'm going and I've worked
out the rhythm and so on beforehand. I'm very musical and that
might have something to do with it. But I cannot work on anything
until I have a certain rhythm in myself about it. So I write down the
theme o f it again and again and again and soak it up.'
Writing, as he saw it, was a constant battle to balance the rational
‘mind’ and the emotional ‘body’. By writing the theme out over and
over again he hoped to ‘lift it from the brain to the blood.’
Emeric wrote all his scripts longhand, in that beautiful, rounded
handwriting he had - one of his few inheritances from the Habsburg
Empire. He usually wrote in pencil on quarto-sized pads which he
inserted into ring-binders. The first draft was then given to Michael. It
was often the first clear indication Michael had of what his partner
intended. Emeric was very superstitious about telling anyone -
including Michael —too much about his ideas until they were written
down. I remember once when I was staying with him, 1 asked him to
tell me about the novel he was writing. He refused, and I was upset.
Later he wrote to me to explain his philosophy:
Each time you create something - and 1 don’t mean ‘each time
you make something’ - it will live. Creating is when you give it
something from yourself. Parents give their children something
* 32. EMERIC

from themselves. Their youth, their vivaciousness, something

that is uniquely their own. In time the child has more, the parent
less of it. If I spoke to you about a subject, the next time I spoke
to you again, I’d have the urge to say something different to you.
And the day will come when I have nothing new to communi­
cate and I’ll be sorry for myself.
Sometimes Emeric read the first draft aloud to Michael, although he
complained that he didn’t like doing so because Michael always
interrupted the flow of the thing, and second-guessed the plot.
Michael would then write his own version, correcting the dialogue,
suggesting colloquialisms, adding detail, but never changing the basic
shape of the scene. ‘What we always did’, recalled Michael, ‘was that
he would write the script and then I would rewrite it completely in my
version, sometimes with very little change and sometimes with a very
great deal of change. The changes would be because I was naturally
interested in how to present it, how to create the actual atmosphere of
the place, and how to get over Emeric’s storyline in the most effective
way.’ The script would then go back to Emeric for a final draft -
though it was occasionally known for them to pass it backwards and
forwards up to a dozen times before they were both satisfied.
Once finalized, the script was typed up by Curtis and Page, usually
from a handwritten draft, though occasionally it was dictated and
taken down in ‘beautiful books of shorthand all laid out like a script’.
Once the script was bound and printed Emeric was loath to make
alterations. ‘If we suggested anything,’ remembers Joan Page, ‘he
would look at us quite sternly and say: “ I will not have any change-
mentsV’ That was one of his words . . . we thought it was rather nice,
and never corrected him!’
But Emeric’s Flaubertian obsession with the mot juste and rever­
ence for the printed script did not mean that he totally rejected
alterations. He was - unlike his peers Billy Wilder and Preston
Sturges - open to suggestions once the script was in the hands of the
actors, though he insisted that they consult him before any decision
was made. ‘Actors help enormously’, he said, ‘because even the best
lines, the most perfectly English lines, can be spoken by one kind of
actor and not by another.’
The Archers’ scripts are generally so spartan that it is difficult to
judge to what extent Emeric visualized as he wrote. How much did
Emeric manage to ‘co-direct’ the performances and pictorial aspects
 KNO W ING WHERE TO GO 2 33

of the films without directing on the set? Apart from his casting
decisions and his communication with technicians like Junge, Emeric
felt nothing was more crucial than to talk through the script in depth
with his partner: ‘Nothing in the world was as important as for me to
transfer to Michael how 1 felt about an idea, who, on the floor, made
it into what it was finally.’ Even Curtis and Page were not privy to the
long discussions that went on behind closed doors prior to shooting,
and they can only guess at how the partners worked. Emeric himself
thought that about 80 per cent of the time things were realized on the
screen as he had visualized them.

Small-scale, black and white and shot mainly in rural locations, The
Archers’ next two films were, visually at least, a complete contrast to
the sprawling, Technicolor epic that preceded them. The partners had
been taken aback by the strength of feeling aroused by Blimp, and set
out to make something in a less combative register. Instead of
challenging the status quo, A Canterbury Tale and I Know Where Tm
Going reinforce it. They are celebrations of the oddities, the irr­
ationalities, the mysteries of British life. They are intimate films,
stories of self-discovery, about individuals finding the correct values
to live by. No longer were The Archers interested in how to win the
war (by 1943 an American-aided victory seemed assured sooner or
later), but in the moral health of the country. They were asking the
population to remember the values they had fought for, and to think
about what sort of brave new world they would like post-war Britain
to be. The film-makers had turned from propagandists into preachers.
Emeric called A Canterbury Tale the Archers’ first blow in a
‘crusade against materialism’ . Its roots lay in a conversation he had
had with Michael during the filming of One o f Our Aircraft is
Missing at Denham: ‘We often used to sit in a car when we wanted to
be alone. We were chatting and I said to Michael, “ There is so much
talk about the country and the people, about protecting the women
and children, but who is going to think about the human values —the
values that we are fighting for?” And we sat there and Michael said:
“ That should be our next film.” ’
As far as Emeric was concerned those values were found in rural
life. From Marvell to Churchill, patriots have invoked the myth of
‘little England’ - or its Scottish equivalent - with its villages, pubs and
.fields. It is thought to embody the heart and soul of the country.
Emeric’s vision was basically old-fashioned anglican Tory: a belief in
234 EMERIC

the wisdom and beauty to be found in continuity and tradition. From

his lips, of course, the message had a certain wistfulness, for it is the
very continuity from which he was splintered in his own country long
ago.
Although Emeric was not a practising Jew (he did, it seems, hap­
hazardly observe the major Jewish festivals for a period later in life)
nor Michael a practising Anglican, both had a mystical bent allied to
a strong sense of morality, which was amplified by the war. In 1942.
and 1943 Michael gave several lectures on ‘religion and films’ . After
one he told The Daily Telegraph: ‘What films lack now is a sense of
responsibility.’ There was some suggestion that The Archers’ next
film would be an adaptation of Pilgrim’s Progress. Rank, who was a
confirmed Methodist himself and had started in films by funding
religious shorts, gave enthusiastic personal support to the project.
But Emeric was dubious about Bunyan’s filmic potential and
instead suggested that he write his own pilgrim’s progress, a modern
parable about modern problems. He proposed to set the film around
Canterbury Cathedral and use Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as a rough
blueprint. In a press release he described his story as ‘a tale of four
modern pilgrims, of the old road that runs to Canterbury, and of the
English countryside which is eternal.’
Michael, brought up in the shadow of the cathedral and the sur­
rounding countryside, was understandably enthusiastic. But as he
later admitted, A Canterbury Tale was much less of a personal film
for him than he had expected. He always said that it was the film
which was most fully Emeric of all those they did together. Emeric
went even further saying: ‘This is the only one of them that is entirely
mine.’
In Scotland to shoot a few exteriors for The Volunteer with Ralph
Richardson while Emeric wrote the first draft of A Canterbury Tale in
London, Michael wrote excitedly to his partner:
Great Central Hotel
Glasgow

Tuesday

Dear Imre,
The new ship is much better for our purposes than either of
the ones we saw. She is smaller and has a bigger lift at one end.
 K N O W IN G W H ER E TO GO 235

At the other the hangar is open, on to the open deck, so a good

deal of light comes in. If we treat the hangar as if it was half one
of the big ones, I think it will look alright. They welcomed us
with open arms, as 1suppose Ralph has told you.
I have been reading up on Canterbury etc. in Mother’s books.
I think that Chatham, or Chilham is the village we need. It may
give you an idea if I tell you that Chatham has the big Canter­
bury lunatic asylum dominating the landscape; while Chilham
has the castle (inhabited). Both are about 4 miles from Canter­
bury and on the hills which look down at the city. Chatham
Asylum is the prominent landmark on Canterbury’s Western
horizon, it stands up, with an odd-shaped tower like a pointing
finger. The local magnate would probably be a hop-grower, if he
was a farmer; he would be a J.P. (Justice of the Peace) and
would sit on the Bench (for minor crimes) at least once a week,
in Canterbury. He would also there meet other hop-growers and
cattle-dealers. Canterbury Barracks are on the east of the town.
The army camps used to be on Scotland Hills, over the Barracks.
The river Stour is, of course, a great feature of the whole valley.
You would like Fordych very much; it used to be the fort of the
town but is almost nothing now. I am longing to come back and
start work. My love to Wendy and Angela and to you, mon
vieux chou,
Micky
A Canterbury Tale is a decidedly odd film. It starts out as an historical
romp, quickly becomes a war film, then seems to be developing into a
mystery story, until the suspense is totally knocked out of it when the
criminal is revealed in the first ten minutes. Emeric appears to be
following Hamlet’s advice: ‘By indirections find directions out.’
With typical Archers’ bravado, the film opens with the actual
Canterbury Pilgrims travelling along the old road, and a quotation
from the first lines of Chaucer’s Prologue:
Whanne that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote . . .
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye
(So Priketh hem nature in hir corages):
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.
236 EMERIC

A hawk is cast up into the air to catch a pheasant, and as it flies

through the air we hear the hum of an aircraft and the bird has
changed into a Spitfire: we have leapt forward 600 years to 1943.
Emeric found this opening immensely moving, and it made him tingle
with an almost physical excitement: ‘This causes a tremendous
upheaval in my being. It is so strange. I feel it always even when I am
talking about it.’ And after that moment nothing was important but
‘what was going to happen to the human values, not to human beings
themselves, but the human values’.
In 1943 it is pitch-dark when three modern pilgrims arrive by train
at the little village of Chilham, a few miles from Canterbury. One is
an innocent American soldier, the second a land girl from the north of
England, and the third a cynical, world-weary young soldier. As the
original synopsis put it, ‘One who came seven thousand miles, one
who came three hundred miles and one, the furthest traveller of all,
who came from the great city of London, fifty miles away.’ All three
have experienced disappointments or losses: the American soldier has
not heard from his girl in seven weeks; the land girl’s fiancée was shot
down over enemy territory; the soldier, about to be posted to the
front, studied at the Royal College of Music, but has to play the organ
in a cinema to make a living.
Walking down the dark main street the mysterious ‘glueman’
strikes and pours a pot of glue over the land girl’s head. Thrown
together by the crime, the three set out to solve the mystery - not that
it is much of a mystery; we are pretty much told who did it immedi­
ately: Thomas Colpepper the local landowner and Justice of the
Peace. Colpepper is a deviant, crusading mystic who gives lectures on
local history and who is obsessed with making the soldiers at the
nearby camp aware of the history and continuity of rural Britain. But
the soldiers would rather go out with girls than attend boring slide
lectures about their ancestors. And so, in a desperate attempt to stop
the girls going out with the soldiers, he starts pouring glue over their
heads. (The utterly bizarre idea of the ‘glueman’ was actually a
compromise: in the original script, Colpepper slashed the girls’
dresses with a knife. This was considered too sadistic.)
The three pilgrims collect the evidence that will condemn Colpep­
per, and at the same time come to know the village and the history of
the surrounding countryside: Colpepper has achieved what he set out
to do, even if it is at the cost of being reported to the police. But on the
train Colpepper comes into the carriage and explains himself:
 K N O W IN G W H ERE TO GO 2 37

'He didn't think what he did was a crim e. . . some parents have to
force their children to go to school. Is that a crime?'
'You're not going to defend pouring glue on to people?'
'Certainly not. But I am going to defend pouring knowledge into
people's heads, by force if necessary.'
'What knowledge?'
'Knowledge of our country and its beauty.'

Colpepper tells the three that pilgrims go to Canterbury, ‘either to

receive a blessing or to do penance’ . This is the most successful and
most moving portion of the film, as each receives a blessing, and their
sense of loss is healed. The land girl finds that her boyfriend is not
dead after all; Bob, the American sergeant receives a wad of letters
from his girl; the disillusioned musician is allowed to play the great
cathedral organ at Canterbury.
The American sergeant occupies a similar position in the story as
Germans and émigrés normally do in Emeric’s scripts. He is the
detached and intelligent eye, bemused by the quirkiness of British life:
mirrors that won’t stay straight, phones with A buttons and B
buttons, enormous beds, tiny streets, tea drinkers, driving on the left
. . . (Nothing, as Chesterton observed, is guaranteed to make the
British more fighting mad than the thought that some efficient
foreigner would come and interfere with their sacred, time-honoured
ways of doing things —try to straighten out their crooked roads).
Significantly, Sergeant Johnson is the pilgrim with the clearest
insight into the rural life and traditions of Chilham. He has been
brought up with the same values and spouts the same country lore.
You can be a foreigner and understand the British better than the
British themselves. Michael considered the scene where Johnson
strikes up a friendship with the old wheelwright by talking about
timber (‘Folks go mad in the war. They cut oak in mid-winter!’) one
of the best things Emeric ever wrote. One line from the scene, ‘you
can’t hurry an elm!’, became a private joke, and Emeric’s way of
telling his partner not always to be in such a frantic hurry.
Perhaps the greatest influence on the curious ‘non-plot’ of A Can­
terbury Tale was G. K. Chesterton who, of course, specialized in
writing about ‘apparent’ mysteries. His stories are a disconcerting
blend of the serious and the comic, the cosmic and the domestic,
where good and evil are frequently mistaken for each other - much
as they are in the film. According to Michael, Chesterton shared
z 38 EMERIC

a world view with the Hungarians: ‘They always see the world inside
out. All their jokes are reverse jokes. They deal in paradoxes, that’s
why Chesterton is to them a revered writer.’
The film bears most relation to a little-known collection of stories
called The Club o f Queer Trades, in which a retired judge and
mystic, Basil Grant, investigates a series of apparent crimes only to
find out that they were not crimes at all. Thomas Colpepper would
fit very nicely into this book. Chesterton, like Emeric, was intrigued
by the notion that good deeds are frequently mistaken for crimes.
The club of Chesterton’s title was a fictional place where only those
who made their living by a completely unique trade could become
members/
Eric Portman brought the same crusading intensity to the part of
Colpepper as he had to Hirth in 49th Parallel, but he was the only
star in the film. With Deborah Kerr, their first choice for the female
lead, now gagged and bound under an M G M contract, The Archers
opted for three complete newcomers. Sheila Sim, who was engaged at
the time to a young actor called Richard Attenborough; Dennis Price,
a repertory actor invalided out of the army and, most riskily, Sergeant
John Sweet of the US Army who they had seen playing a small part in
an amateur production of Maxwell Anderson’s Eve o f St Mark.
There was a new cameraman, too, in the shape of Erwin Hillier,
who did so much to create the uncanny atmosphere of the finished
film. Hillier, whose first feature had been The Silver Fleet, was of
mixed German and English origins. After a brief stint at art school in
Berlin, he had been forced to find a job. Someone suggested he try his
hand in the film business. Through a friend he was introduced to the
great genius of German silent film, F. W. Mumau, who looked at his
paintings and asked him to be camera assistant on his next (and final)
picture, Tabu, set in the South Seas. Erwin was delighted, but his
father less so when he discovered that Murnau was a promiscuous
homosexual. Erwin was forced to make his excuses to the director.
Murnau took no offence and instead introduced Erwin to another
director friend of his: Fritz Lang. So Erwin’s first job was as a camera*

* London’s clubland contains many institutions almost as peculiar. Emeric, fascinated by

these most English of English oddities, was himself briefly a member of the infamous
Eccentrics’ Club in Ryder Street, Piccadilly. Founded by a group of Victorian ‘theatricals’,
the rules of the club stipulate that any member seen wearing a jacket in the bar will be fined,
that umbrellas must be carried indoors at all times and that dinner parties be held for
thirteen, if at all possible.
 K N O W IN G W H ERE TO GO 2-39

assistant on Lang’s first sound film, M, starring Peter Lorre. It is

tempting to see echoes of the photographic style of that film in A
Canterbury Taley in particular the willingness to use almost total
darkness throughout the first five minutes of the film.
Emeric himself was not allowed to stay in Kent for the location
filming during August. Although now technically exempt from the
numerous regulations imposed on enemy aliens, the Chief Constable
for Kent, one Percy Sillitoe, saw fit to refuse him a temporary resi­
dence permit. Instead Michael invited Emeric, Wendy and baby
Angela to spend the time at his new holiday house at Bratton Fleming
on the north Devon coast. Michael’s father, the French hotelier, was
also there, itching to get back to his beloved Riviera. But they were all
glad to be out of London, where the new plague of buzz bombs had
started.
In late August the film moved to Denham for the interiors, shooting
concurrently with Olivier’s Henry V, a film which also strived to
connect a past of long-bows and heraldry with a present of sandbags
and stirrup-pumps and to invoke the myth of a mystical English
unity.
In 1943 Vivienne Knight, a young journalist on a woman’s maga­
zine, was hired as The Archers’ publicist. On her very first day in the
office Emeric handed her the script to A Canterbury Tale and told her
to read it. ‘As I read I started to cry, and the more I read the more I
cried. How was I ever going to publicize this?!’ It was a hopeless case.
The Archers’ had an unbeaten record of five hits out of five. But this
time they had not only missed the bull —they had barely hit the target.
‘At the time the film was made,’ recalled Emeric, ‘pouring glue on
girls’ hair seemed unacceptable - especially as an expression of good
intentions.’ It was, says Knight, ‘considered the kind of outré thing
the continentals did but that we didn’t.’
The public stayed away in droves, and the film was only released in
America in 1949, severely cut and with a new framing device (featur­
ing Kim Hunter) shot at the Rockefeller Centre. The critics were
reluctant to dismiss the film completely. They were puzzled.
‘Somebody has tried to do something dignified, unusual and
respectworthy. But what?’ asked James Agate. ‘The whole film’, said
Dilys Powell in The Times, ‘wobbles between a serious modern
fantasy, as I suppose you might call it, and a rather childish thriller
. . . it is only half coherent and half serious.’ The New Statesman and
Nation concurred: ‘A queer story even for wartime . . . I carried away
240 EMERIC

from A Canterbury Tale an enjoyment I was loath to examine too

closely.’ The only unequivocal praise was for Hillier’s photography
which captured the English countryside with vigour and freshness,
and endowed the interiors with a gloomy mysticism.
Michael blamed himself for the film’s failure: ‘It was one of
Emeric’s most complicated ideas and 1 really let him down for not
insisting that it was simplified.’ Oddly, A Canterbury Tale is now
recognized as one of The Archers’ finest, if most eccentric, achieve­
ments. Over the years the dormant power of the film came alive.
‘When the critics got at it in 19 44,’ said Emeric, almost forty years
later, ‘I always thought that all we wanted to do had not come off.
But it had. I know now it had. I now love the slender storyline which
doesn’t seem to lead anywhere, except perhaps to an old caravan, but
in fact leads to the majesty of Canterbury Cathedral.’ When Emeric
was asked to retrospectives of his work in later years, A Canterbury
Tale was the one film which he always agreed to introduce, as he did
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1980:
We have made some good films, some less good films and one or
two very good films. I think that a film should have a clear story
and it should have, if possible, something which is probably the
most difficult thing in film-making: it should have a little bit of
magic . . . Now this is why A Canterbury Tale is one of our
favourite films, because in this film we have somehow managed
to coax out a little bit of magic. Magic being untouchable and
very difficult to cast, you can’t deal with it at all. You can only
try to prepare some little cosy nests, hoping that a little bit of
magic will slide into it somehow. Well, this is so in A Canter­
bury Tale.

Back in 1944, ‘there wasn’t time for any regret,’ says Betty Curtis,
‘Micky and Emeric certainly didn’t show that they were upset, they
were much too full of plans for the future.’ The immediate plan was
to make a more straightforward propaganda film for Jack Beddington
at the Mol films division. The partners had been taken to lunch at
L’Etoile and asked to make a film to improve strained Anglo-
American relations. The Americans felt bitter about ‘their boys’
losing their lives in a European war, and half a million G l’s in
England, guzzling all the whisky, buying all the food and stealing all
the women, hadn’t exactly endeared the Americans to the British.
 K N O W I N G W H E R E TO GO 24 I

Emeric suggested that to illustrate such a serious message what they

needed was a fantasy. ‘This was basic Hungarian dramatists’ think­
ing,’ revealed Michael, ‘They like to treat serious things lightly. They
like to^keep tragedy in reserve as the hidden weapon of comedy.’
Instead of making a film about America and Britain, Emeric proposed
a story about this world and the next, heaven and earth, which he
would call A Matter o f Life and Death. It was an area already
explored by his compatriot Ferenc Molnar in the play Liliom (filmed
by Emeric’s fellow exile Fritz Lang in Paris before his departure for
America). The Ministry took the bait, and more importantly, so did
Michael. He adored the idea of doing a fantasy on the scale of The
Thief o f Bagdad, but this time without Alex Korda whispering direc­
tions from around the flats. There was only one problem. Integral to
Emeric’s whole scheme was the use of Technicolor - and at just that
stage in the war Technicolor was not available. The Treasury couldn’t
afford the dollars. A Matter o f Life and Death was postponed.
For the first time since the outbreak of the war there was a lull in
The Archers’ production schedule. Michael, who had always wanted
to dabble in the theatre, decided to put on the first British production
of Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War play, The Fifth Column. Emeric,
although a keen theatre-goer, had little interest in being actively
involved and left his partner to get on with it. The production opened
disastrously in Glasgow and lamely toured the provinces before
closing. The Archers, who had funded the enterprise, were almost
bankrupt. Michael limped away to lick his wounds in Devon and
thought about A Matter o f Life and Death:
Dear Imre,
It is very calm here. I do nothing except work with my hands
and browse upon books as far removed as possible from reality.
I think a good deal. The unwanted exercise makes me sleep
better.
This is almost the first time that I have been able to pause and
consider our friendship. How lucky we have been! What
struggles we have shared and what happiness it has been to
struggle and succeed together at just the time when we can do
our best work. ‘Funny how the war can open our eyes to a lot of
things.’
I am sorry about the play. I think it might have been a success
if brought to London but Hemingway is out of luck. You have
24 2 EMERIC

been a real friend and partner all through. I have learnt a great
deal and 1 only hope that it will be of use to both of us in other
times; and it isn’t only about the theatre that I have learnt a
lesson.
I walked yesterday to the North coast near Lynton: the valley
of Rocks and Woody bay, fantastic and Dore-esque scenery. The
sea was so calm that not even on the rocky shore was there any
movement. The cliff road is a thousand feet above the sea there
and you look down on the seabirds flying below. I saw ravens and
buzzards as well as gulls. The coast looks like Corfu and yester­
day there was a light haze over the landscape, making luminous
colours on the cliffs and a flat milky sheet over the sea so that the
coast of Wales floated like a mirage along the horizon. This might
be the setting for the exterior scenes with the young airman: it
could have been any country, here or hereafter, and further along
where the coast flattens there is a great American camp.
‘A Matter of Life and Death’ ! It has style —‘very much style’.
1 have thought over your opinions and fears of the future. I
don’t think that these fears are for us, except to urge us to make
more and better pictures. We can’t change other people except by
our own example. And it seems to me that we must worry first
about our own spiritual growth - there will be enough material
things to hinder that anyway.
I must rush to catch the post,
Love
Micky
With A Matter o f Life and Death temporarily shelved, Emeric decided
to have another crack at the ‘crusade against materialism’ . ‘Let’s have
another go at it,’ he told Michael, ‘so we can see what will happen
when the war’s over.’ This time the film would be more accessible, a
romantic comedy with a thicker layer of sugar than he had allowed in A
Canterbury Tale.
The provisional title was ‘The Misty Island’. Emeric had a simple
plot outline in his head: i have always wanted to make a film about a
girl who wants to get to an island,’ he told Michael. ‘At the end of the
journey she is so near that she can see the people clearly on the island,
but a storm stops her getting there, and by the time the storm has died
down she no longer wants to go there, because her life has changed
quite suddenly in the way girls’ lives do.’
 K N O W I N G W H E R E TO GO M3

‘Why does she want to go to the island?’ asked Michael.

Emeric smiled. ‘Let’s make the film and find out.’
Since making The Edge o f the World in 19 37 Michael had a passion
for islaikls. He thought they would find just the place they needed on
the west coast of Scotland. Erwin Hillier, Emeric and Michael spent a
fortnight exploring locations and soaking up the atmosphere from
Glasgow to Kinloch Moidart, living on a collection of Hungarian
salamis which Emeric kept in his briefcase. Their island of choice was
Mull - beautiful, relatively accessible and close to the awesome
whirlpool of Corryvreckan which Emeric had embroidered into his story.
As soon as they returned south, Emeric started work on the script.
‘It just burst out, you couldn’t hold it back,’ he remembered. ‘I wrote
the full script in four days . . . as with Blimp I felt very strongly about
the idea.’ In contrast to A Canterbury Tale the script was neatly,
classically structured. The partners then met at Michael’s house in
Bratton Fleming, and went through their usual process of collabor­
ation, with Michael ransacking popular Scottish novels for Gaelic
phrases (the final script suggested that subtitles would be used). The
scripts were then typed up by Curtis and Page and bound in green
card. The front page bore an epigraph from Marlowe’s Hero and
Leander:
It lies not in our power to love, or hate,
For Will in us is over-ruled by fate.
It was Frankie, Michael’s wife, who came up with the film title, taken
from an old Irish folk song:
I know where I’m going
And I know who goes with me
I know whom I love
But the dear knows who I’ll marry.
I Know Where Tm Going (or IK W IG , as it became known) is the
story of a headstrong young girl who knows exactly what she wants
from life - or at any rate, thinks she knows. ‘A girl’, said Emeric,
‘who was brought up to become a rather superior sort of being, and
whose standards were entirely different from the standards I was
aiming at or people I liked were aiming at.’ The girl, Joan, has caught
herself an immensely rich, but rather old, husband, in the shape of the
industrialist Sir Robert Bellinger, who, in spite of the war, is planning
a no-expense-spared wedding on the Highland hideaway island of
244 EMERIC

Kiloran which he has rented. Joan travels from Manchester by train,

boat and car to meet her fiancée, but when she reaches Port Erraig on
Mull, from where she is to catch the boat to Kiloran, a storm blows
up and prevents her crossing. For a week she has to wait, and while
she waits, and despite her best efforts, she falls in love with Torquil, a
young naval officer who tries to teach her the values of the island
communities:
jo a n :People are very poor around here, I suppose?
t o r q u il : Not poor. They haven't got any money.
j o a n : Isn't that the same thing?

t o r q u i l : Oh no, something quite different.

Torquil is the real laird of Kiloran and has leased the island to Sir
Robert. T h e clash of these two characters’, said Emeric, ‘was some­
thing that interested me.’
The more the girl fights against her passion, the worse it becomes.
In a desperate last-ditch attempt to reach the island — ‘ I’m not safe
here, I’m on the brink of losing everything I’ve always wanted!’ —she
risks her own life and that of Torquil and the young ferryman, Kenny,
trying to cross in the storm. The engine stalls, they drift closer and
closer to the whirlpool of Corryvreckan, the external symbol for her
internal maelstrom. They escape drowning by the skin of their teeth
and return to the mainland. The following morning the storm has
subsided and tranquillity reigns. The girl no longer wants to go to the
island: she would rather stay with the poor laird, and learn the values
of the islanders.
In common with A Canterbury Tale, the film has a tremendous
sense of place and a sprinkling of mysticism. ‘There must be a curse,’
Emeric told Michael, ‘people will expect it.’ In a Chestertonian way,
it is a curse that turns out to be a blessing (‘He shall be chained to a
woman for the rest of his days . . . ’, meaning he will fall in love and
marry). ‘It reads like an old-fashioned message,’ recalled Emeric,
‘from Emeric Pressburger the Hungarian Jew who has come from
Berlin to France and then to this country and he writes this. How does
he dare?’
The values espoused in / Know Where I ’m Going hardly seem to
differ from those of the standard Hollywood romantic-comedy: love
conquers all, and money isn’t everything. But the love is not of the
saccharine variety, it is passionate, physical, at times almost destruc­
tive. As for the anti-materialism, it can be seen as part of a nationwide
 K N O W IN G W H E R E TO GO 245

disgust at the black-marketeers and war profiteers. Sir Robert Bell­

inger, it is insinuated, is one of these. Emeric’s attitudes, although
founded in an old-fashioned conservatism, coincided with those
which'were to sweep Attlee’s socialist government to victory in the
1945 election, with its programme of nationalization and super-tax
for the rich. The 1945 general election, wrote Cyril Connolly in
Horizon, ‘was not a vote about queues or housing, but a vote of
censure on Munich and Spain and Abyssinia . . . talk of it as a vote
against the religion of money and the millionaire hoodlums.’
James Mason, riding high on the success of the melodrama The
Man in Grey, was publicized as Torquil MacNeil and Deborah Kerr
as the headstrong Joan Webster. But again Kerr was unable to lib­
erate herself from the M G M contract. Ironically, her replacement
was the actress she herself had replaced on Colonel Blim p: Wendy
Hiller. ‘I had been very choosy over my scripts. I had been spoilt
having Bernard Shaw for my first two films. But when I read I Know
Where Vm Going I immediately wanted to do it.’ The actress, so used
to working with Shaw, was particularly impressed by the psychologi­
cal accuracy of the script: ‘He’d more than just got the physical side
of the Hebrides, he’d got the psychological side of it, you know, in the
most remarkable way. I never asked him how he managed to write
that story, which might have been written by an indigenous writer,
but certainly not by a scriptwriter, however well-educated and eru­
dite, from Europe.’
Perhaps what made I Know Where Tm Going so easy for Emeric to
write was a certain personal resonance in the characters. Since the
birth of his daughter Angela the prospects for a young lady growing
up in the post-war world must have been uppermost in his thoughts.
But Joan Webster also owes a lot to Angela’s mother. Like her
fictional alter ego, Wendy was stubborn, ambitious, sophisticated,
materialist and beautiful. That cast Emeric in the role of Torquil who,
despite his numerous disadvantages - his lack of classic good looks,
the insecurity of his life and his foreignness - had ‘got the girl’.
Six weeks prior to shooting James Mason dropped out, moaning
that he was too old to play boy scouts in the Western Isles. Roger
Livesey, who had read the script and loved it, begged to replace him.
When The Archers complained that, at almost 40, he was too old and
too portly for the part, Livesey immediately lost 2olb and trans­
formed his appearance. Michael and Emeric relented, despite the
added complication that Livesey had a prior engagement, to appear in
24 6 EMERIC

Peter Ustinov’s West End play, Banbury Nose, which would prevent
him from travelling to Scotland for the exteriors. Michael contrived
to blend long shots with a double and back projections so that it is
almost impossible to tell that the actor never came within 500 miles
of the Highlands. Hiller adored working with Livesey: ‘He was one of
the rare actors who listens to you.’ Together they were positively
stunning. The combination of Livesey’s growly burr and Hiller’s
voice, pulsating with repressed emotion, gives the film an incredible
sense of passion.
On IK W IG , Emeric and Michael again disagreed over the casting
of a secondary female lead. For the role of Catriona Mclean, Michael
wanted to cast Pamela Brown —a woman with whom he was soon to
have romantic connections. Primarily a stage actress, Brown was a
favourite of Gielgud and Olivier - a strange androgynous figure with
a long neck and bulging, bovine eyes. Michael saw her as one of the
most beautiful women in the world - Emeric, as one of the ugliest. In
Michael’s opinion Emeric disliked Brown not only because he
thought her ‘hideously ugly’ but because she was ‘hideously intel­
ligent’ . It is true that Emeric, in common with many Eastern Euro­
peans of his generation, thought a woman should be a gorgeous
object, seen and not heard - certainly not argumentative and
opinionated like Brown. His daughter Angela felt that in some way
she had disappointed her father because she was ‘too intelligent and
not nearly beautiful enough’.
After some argument Michael —as was usual on matters of casting
— prevailed. But in retrospect Emeric was correct to feel uneasy.
Brown’s performance was marred by theatricality and a plumy voice
a million miles from the Highlands. Moreover, during filming,
Michael let his growing romance with the actress influence his direc­
tion. Emeric’s script insinuated that Catriona was in love with Tor-
quil. (‘When I realized that this was two love stories and not just one,
the story practically wrote itself.’) Her love was a mystical, ancestral
one, between her family and Torquil’s. Michael latched on to this
and, blinded by his own feelings for Pamela Brown, shot reel after reel
of exteriors with her hunting on the mountain with her wolf hounds
and added other bits here and there. Emeric would have none of it
and ruthlessly excised the lot. It was an extreme example of the way
the partners always worked. Emeric recalled: ‘When I am writing the
script Michael always says, “ Do we need that? . . . Don’t you think
we could get rid of that scene? Do we really need this dialogue?” And
 K N O W IN G W H ER E TO GO *47

I really begin to resent him. Then he goes off and shoots and shoots
and shoots and 1 have to say, “ Michael, do we need that? Why don’t
we pull out this bit, or join these two scenes together?” and he hates
me forit —but that’s really why we work so well together.’
Shooting began on Mull in the autumn of 1944. The locals com­
miserated with them about the poor weather and couldn’t understand
when The Archers explained that they wanted rain and fog. They
were even more bemused when they learned that the unit had brought
their own rain machine with them. ‘You won’t be needing that!’ they
laughed.
Emeric only visited Mull twice during shooting. Otherwise, he
stayed in London to supervise Alfred Junge’s sets and check the
rushes. Michael enjoyed roughing it in the great outdoors. As always
he dressed for the part (he had a theatrical love of fancy dress) and
wore a saffron kilt and fisherman’s jumper. Emeric, as usual, was his
partner’s complement. Wendy Hiller remembers one of his infrequent
visits to the location: ‘One day while we were on the Isle of Mull,
Emeric appeared. We were all standing around waiting for the wind
to blow the right way - of course, it never did! - and I remember
Emeric standing dressed as I imagine he always dressed, impeccably,
for the café life in Vienna, with a suit and tie and a black homburg
hat, totally inappropriate but absolutely lovely! He hadn’t changed it
for Mull, of course! And I remember him looking out, as we were
waiting for this weather, when the wind started to blow and all the
grass on the sand dunes started to move - and he said softly, “ That is
what 1 want. That is what 1 know I want, that wind that blows up
there” and 1 knew that in that wonderful way of a true artist he had
the essence of those islands - he had caught it and he knew that that
wind was the essence of it.’
In October, the crew returned to Denham for the interiors. A huge
tank was constructed by Rank’s art department head, David
Rawnsley, in which an imitation whirlpool was created, using a
technique of jellied water learned from Cecil B. de Mille’s classic
‘parting of the waves’ in The Ten Commandments. Back projections
shot by Erwin Hillier - ‘myself and the operator went out in a boat
and almost got ourselves drowned in the whirlpool collecting that
stuff!’ - completed the illusion. It was the kind of technically
challenging task which made the best technicians in the business want
to work with The Archers.
The whirlpool accounted for a large proportion of the £40,000
248 EMERIC

spent by the art department. I Know Where Tm Going had a surpris­

ingly large budget of £200,000 (£20,000 more than Colonel Blimp),
and a final cost of some £30,000 more. The partners themselves were
still on £15,000. The largest single expense was talent - a total of
£50,000, a third of which represented Wendy Hiller’s fee.
Hiller did not find Michael an easy man to deal with, on or off the
floor. There were disagreements and rows throughout production,
which Emeric, forever the diplomat, was called upon to smooth out.
Things reached a head in the last days of filming:
‘Michael took it for granted that when my contract was up I would be
willing to go on working for several days over it. He d id n t even ask
me, nobody did. It was just assumed. And he treated me so badly that
I just stormed out o f the studio - something Tve never done since and
hope r i l never do again. I wept with rage and swore I would never
return. About five days later in a large car came a small, compact
Emeric Pressburger. He gave a note o f apology from Michael which I
tore up, and then he sat me down and we talked. He apologized for
Michael, and said that they were absolutely stuck without me, would
I please come back? And he was so calm and diplomatic that next
morning there I was, on set, on time. *
Emeric believed passionately in beginnings. ‘There is a right way and
a wrong way to start every story,’ he said. All The Archers films have
startling openings: the mystery of the Marie Celeste plane in One o f
Our Aircraft is Missing, the skyline of Heidelberg in The Tales o f
Hoffmann, the hawk transformed into a plane in A Canterbury Tale.
The beginnings were like little films in themselves, which drew the
audience into the story and gave them clues as to what was to come.
These opening sequences never appeared in the script, but Emeric
would work on them while Michael was shooting the body of the
film.
I Know Where I ’m Going is a perfect example. ‘Are you sure it
won’t empty the cinema?’ said Michael when Emeric told him that
they would start the film with a series of shots showing a girl growing
up. In the first she would be a baby crawling determinedly across the
floor, then a schoolgirl, then a working girl. Each sequence would
incorporate one of the titles: on the side of a passing van, on a
blackboard etc. The Archers liked to play with their audience, and the
opening was often in a totally different register or genre from the rest
of the film. In A Matter o f Life and Death it would be a documentary
 K N O W IN G W H ER E TO GO 249

introduction to a fantasy film; in A Canterbury Tale a romping

historical introduction to a modern parable, and in I K W I G , the
opening is like a kitsch commercial - in complete contrast to the
values^espóused by the film. It is yet another example of The Archers
taking an ironic step back, of telling the audience: this is only a film!,
before plunging them into the story.
I K W I G was a commercial hit. British film attendance was at its
peak - a staggering 30 million seats were sold a week, and even an
expensive film like I Know Where Tm Going could show a profit in
the home market alone. The Rank Organisation, nervy after Gabriel
Pascal’s enormous flop with Caesar and Cleopatra, was pleased. So in
general were the critics - though after the débâcle of A Canterbury
Tale they were on the look-out for dubious lapses in realism and
unpleasant eccentricities. C. A. Lejeune objected to the opening and
the playful dream sequence in the train, asking the film-makers to
‘stick to the plot’. The News Chronicle found the story itself confused
but charming: ‘It can be said that Powell and Pressburger don’t know
where they’re going, but they’re so madly enthusiastic about the trip
that they sell you on it.’
The finest compliment came a few years later. In 1947, while on a
trip to Hollywood, Emeric visited his old friend Anatole Litvak at
Paramount. Having lunch in the studio restaurant Emeric was intro­
duced to the head of the script department. Paramount, he said,
owned its very own print of I K W I G . Whenever his writers were
stuck for inspiration, or needed a lesson in screenwriting, he ran them
the film, as an example of the perfect screenplay. He had already
screened it a dozen times.
 CHAPTER 13

Other Archers
Reprieved from total ruin, men may begin to breathe again and
indulge in visions . . .
The Times, 9 May 1945 (the day after VE Day)

In 1945, after more than a year’s delay, The Archers were in a

position to make A Matter o f Life and Death (or A M O L A D , as it
became known). The timing couldn’t have been better. A film about
this world and the next, in colour and black and white, was an apt
metaphor for the transition from war to peace. Moreover, it was a
convenient bridge - or perhaps a staircase - between the serious
propaganda pictures The Archers used to make and the colourful,
artistic entertainment movies they were now going to do.
The original brief from the M ol was a film to improve bruised
Anglo-American relations. Emeric’s fantasy story centred on the rela­
tionship between an Englishman and an American girl. David Niven,
everyone’s (or at least Hollywood’s) idea of the English gent was
already cast, but they had no idea who to use opposite him. The
partners realized that they could drum up a good bit of advance
publicity for the film, and for themselves, by launching a Scarlet
O’Hara-style ‘star search’ - only this time they would steal an Ameri­
can girl. They planned a trip to New York and Hollywood in April to
coincide with the delayed American release of Blimp and The Silver
Fleet. Rank, full of post-war optimism, and hopeful of success in the
American market, happily picked up the bill.
Michael set sail first, leaving Emeric to tidy up a few loose ends on /
Know Where Tm Going. On the way over he polished the final draft
of the script.
A Matter o f Life and Death is the story of two worlds, this world
and the next, and the forces that control them. Crucial to Emeric’s
scheme was the use of Technicolor and black and white to differenti­
ate between the earth and the hereafter, i suppose heaven is all colour
and gold and that sort of thing,’ said Michael when he first heard the
idea. Emeric gazed quizzically at his collaborator. ‘What’s the matter
 OTHER ARCHERS 25 I

with you?’ he asked, ‘this world we’re in, is it in colour or in black

and white?’ Michael admitted that, yes, it was in colour. ‘Yes
Michael, and so heaven’s in black and white.’
Peter Cárter, a young poet and an R A F pilot, sits in his burning
plane, his parachute shot to ribbons. He is in radio contact with a
young American girl at an airbase. He quotes poetry at her and asks
her to send a telegram to his mother.* Then he jumps out of the
burning plane . . .
Somehow he survives.* He meets the young American girl whom he
thought was the last person he would ever speak to in his life. Her
name is June. But Peter’s happiness is disrupted by a series of visits
from a ‘heavenly conductor’ (a Frenchman who always smells of
onions), who claims that the fall from the plane was meant to be fatal,
and that it was only the ‘accursed English fog’, which stopped the
conductor from finding him at the time. Peter refuses to accompany
the conductor to the other world. It is unjust, he says, his circum­
stances have entirely changed since he bailed out of the plane. He has
fallen in love. Irritated, the dandified conductor returns to heaven,
has a talk with his superiors, and arranges a trial to determine Peter’s
fate.
Simultaneously, June has arranged for Peter to be examined by a
brain specialist, Dr Frank Reeves. Reeves diagnoses Peter’s ‘visits’ as
complex hallucinations brought on by the fall. He decides they must
operate. The lead-up to the operation coincides with the build-up to
the trial in the other world. Peter, on the enormous moving staircase
that connects heaven and earth, cannot decide who should represent
him in court. He can have anybody at all: Solomon, Voltaire, Alexan­
der . . . ‘What about Plato,’ suggests the conductor, helpfully, ‘he
knew all about love.’ Peter doesn’t think any of them are right and
time is running out.
On the way to the hospital for the operation, Reeves has a motor­
cycle accident and dies. Peter chooses Reeves as his counsel. The trial
proceeds in heaven in front of an infinite crowd, at the same time as
the operation takes place on earth. Reeves’ adversary is rabidly anti­
English —Abraham Farlan, the first American to die from an English
bullet in the War of Independence. The trial becomes a rhetorical

*His mother lives at 88 Hampstead Way, London - Stapi’s old address.

fThe inspiration behind the screenplay was a real event. In early 1944 German radio
broadcast the story of a British rear gunner who had fallen 18,000 feet from his plane into
enemy territory, without serious injury.
252 EMERIC

debate on the relative merits of the two countries. Reeves pleads that
his client is in love. Farnan warns him not to break the immutable
laws of the universe. Before reaching a verdict the court descends on
the staircase into the operating theatre itself. Reeves tells June that
only by taking Peter’s place in the next world can she save his life.
June is ready to sacrifice herself. She steps on to the escalator and is
being carried skyward away from Peter . . . then j o l t ! the escalator
comes to a halt and she runs down the steps into his arms. ‘ Yes Mr
Farnan,’ says the Judge, ‘in the universe nothing is stronger than the
law, but on earth, nothing is stronger than love.’ Then he quotes Sir
Walter Scott:
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
This world below and heaven above,
For love is heaven and heaven is love.
As soon as his boat docked in New York, Michael had the script for A
Matter o f Life and Death typed, copied and bound. By the time
Emeric arrived, about a week later, Michael had already cased Broad­
way for possible Junes without much success.
In 1945 British films, which had developed a style of their own
during the war, were very much á la mode in America. United Artists,
who had a deal to distribute all Rank’s films, were excited about their
exploitation potential. Michael and Emeric were treated like visiting
celebrities and handed sizeable wads of ‘spending money’ on arrival.
They made the most of it, relishing the ration-free lifestyle, eating and
shopping to their hearts’ content. Michael bought his wife, Frankie,
dozens of pairs of gloves. Emeric, who had a fetish for gadgets,
particularly culinary ones, searched the stores for unknown contrap­
tions — patent bottle openers, egg slicers, noodle makers, purée
squeezers. (When he died three sackfuls of gadgets were removed
from Emeric’s house. Nobody could figure out what most of them
were for.) At Emeric’s behest they stayed at the Carlyle Hotel —that
was where Alex Korda stayed when he was in town. The Archers,
who had once been provincial film-makers, were trying to become
international moguls like him.
In those days there was only one way to travel if you wanted to
make an entrance to Hollywood, and that was by the legendary
Twentieth Century Express to Chicago and then on to California in
The Chief. It was a journey of three days and nights. Emeric and
Michael were given an entire suite of rooms to themselves. Among
 OTHER ARCHERS 253

their fellow travellers they discovered none other than Fritz Lang. The
great director struck up a friendly conversation with them. He didn’t
seem much like the ‘wrathful God’ whom Emeric had seen but never
spoken to in the Neubabelsberg canteen. Exile and Hollywood had
softened the old demagogue.
Virtually cut off from the outside world for five years, Emeric and
Michael had no idea of the reputation they had built up for them­
selves in Hollywood. They stepped off the train to find themselves hot
property. Billy Wilder was among those who were impressed, not to
mention influenced, by The Archers: ‘Their films had colour even
when they were in black and white,’ he recalls. ‘I went to see them the
moment the picture came o u t . . . they were so different to what was
being made in America.’
The search for June had been well publicized and all the studios
had a selection of young actresses ready for inspection. Between
auditions, press interviews and negotiations with Samuel Goldwyn
over David Niven’s price, Emeric found time to visit old friends. His
appointment diary read like the Ufa payroll of twelve years before:
Anatole Litvak, Steven Geray, Franz Roswalt, Miklos Rôzsa, Robert
and Curt Siodmak, Billy Wilder, M ax Ophuls, Alexander Esway,
Reinhold Schünzel, Eugène Schuftan, Erwin Leiser and Lilo Veidt,
Conrad’s widow.*
Michael also had a few friends in Hollywood. Among them was
Alfred Hitchcock. He had heard about The Archers’ search and said
that he had seen the perfect girl only the day before acting as Ingrid
Bergman’s stand-in at a screen test. Her name was Kim Hunter and,
like Hitchcock himself, she was under contract to David O. Selznick,
Hollywood’s ‘flesh-peddler’ extraordinaire. At 1 1 a.m. the following
day — 17 April - Miss Hunter came to Emeric’s bungalow at the
Beverly Hills Hotel. She was perfect: the wide-eyed all-American girl,
with hazel eyes and dark brown hair. Aged 23, she had appeared in
four films, but only the first, The Seventh Victim, was of any note.
The Archers learned from Hitchcock that Selznick - up to his eyeballs
with personal worries and financial problems on Duel in the Sun -
was not planning to renew her contract, and negotiated a suitably
good price for the loan-out.
A fortnight later the partners were back in London and casting the
secondary roles. Roger Livesey, who had twice stepped into starring

* Veidt had died unexpectedly in 19 4 3, shortly after appearing in C a s a b la n c a .

254 EMERIC

roles for the Archers as a second choice, was given a part especially
written for him as Dr Reeves. The role of the conductor was offered
to Marius Goring (who had appeared briefly in The Spy in Black), but
when he read the script the young actor was so taken with it that he
refused the part and pleaded instead to be given the lead. ‘But Emeric
was wonderfully calm. He said to me, “ Yes 1 know that you wish to
play a juvenile lead, Marius, but if you play the part that 1 hope you
will play, you will not be sorry, because there are many juvenile leads,
but there is only one conductor to heaven!” ’ Goring took the part.
At Pinewood Studios —the new base of Independent Producers —
work began designing and constructing enormous sets for the heaven
sequences. For the ‘staircase to heaven’ a special escalator —
nicknamed Ethel by the crew —was constructed with 106 steps, each
twenty feet wide.
Michael frequently compared himself to a magician, or a conjuror.
Cinema was the medium of fantasy, and nothing was able to ‘open up
this marvellous box of tricks’ for him like one of Emeric’s stories. A
Matter o f Life and Death gave him more opportunities than ever for
magic: roses that turned from colour to black and white, moments of
frozen time, a point of view shot from behind a man’s eyelid, a
staircase that connects earth with heaven. It was a truly cinematic
story that could not be told in any other medium. It was his favourite
of all The Archers’ films.
As The Archers’ films grew in ambition and changed in style so they
became less a magic act performed by two individuals and more like a
circus, with Emeric and Michael as the ring-masters. The contribu­
tion of designers, composers, dancers and cameramen grew, and with
A Matter o f Life and Death and afterwards ‘The Archers’ increasingly
became a collective name for a group of collaborators.
‘Serious artists’ have often found the collaborative nature of
cinema distasteful. Emeric and Michael, however, operated The
Archers like a theatre company, gathering together the best of talents
and actively encouraging them to experiment, and to contribute to
the finished product. Production meetings were held long before
filming began, to discuss possibilities and exchange ideas. Emeric and
Michael would explain what they wanted, but as often as not their
collaborators would improve upon it.
The most vital contributor to those pre-production meetings was
often the art director, Alfred Junge. In his late fifties, Junge was
significantly older than anyone else around the table and his
 OTHER ARCHERS 255

Germanic, no-nonsense attitude, commanded respect. Chris Challis,

camera operator on A M O L A D , remembers ‘Uncle Alfred’ (as he was
called — but only behind his back), as ‘a marvellous film technician.
He knew' a great deal about how you make films. Alfred was a
martinet. He ran the art department like a hospital: it was
immaculate. They literally wiped up your footprints as you went in.
Everything was marvellously organized, down to the last detail.
Alfred was brilliant with matte shots, hanging miniatures, all that sort
of thing . . . ’ Junge’s background was in opera and theatre, though his
meticulously detailed sets, which managed to create a whole totally
believable world in the studio, are surprisingly architectural and
solid. He had entered films in 1920 at Ufa and come to England in
1928 to work with E. A. Dupont at Elstree on Piccadilly and Moulin
Rouge. In the Thirties he was supervising art director on scores of
notable films.
Junge’s work was transformed, and reached its apotheosis, with the
advent of colour. Blimp was his first colour film and his work was
light, imaginative, almost painterly. Perhaps he was inspired by mem­
ories of his own youth in Berlin. His contribution to The Archers’
visual style cannot be overestimated. Sydney Streeter, their regular
assistant director, recalls how he would ‘mark on the set with a cross
the position of the camera for the main shot and woe betide anyone
who didn’t observe it or tried to shift it. He’d designed it from that
position and that was it. There was this cross and the size of the lens
was on it . . . ’ Junge relished the unique opportunities given him by
The Archers, ‘where I was able to work as freely and imaginatively as
ever, and to feel that 1 was helping to contribute creatively to the
artistic results achieved . . . such opportunities are all too rare.’
Another German whose input had become synonymous with The
Archers’ style was the composer Allan Gray. Bom Josef Zmigrod in
Poland in 1902, Gray studied under the great pioneering modernist
Arnold Schoenberg. To pay for his tuition he composed popular,
jazz-influenced tunes for cabaret acts in Berlin. Schoenberg, a puritan
and a purist, disapproved and so Zmigrod adopted the pseudonym
‘Allan Gray’ for his work (taken, in true Weimar style, from the name
of Wilde’s narcissistic hero, Dorian Gray). Gray soon realized that his
talents lay more with cabaret than serious, original music, and he
devoted himself to it full time. His was a talent for pastiche, for
incidental music. Soon he was composing for films and got to know
Emeric at Ufa. Though never close friends, their paths of exile later
z 56 EMERIC

crossed several times and both ended up in London in the mid­

Thirties and worked on The Challenge. In June 1940 Gray was
among the first batch of ‘enemy aliens’ to be interned on the Isle of
Man. Released in late 19 4 1, Emeric employed him on The Silver
Fleet. More appropriate to his talent, however, was Blimp, with its
playful, referential score. For A Matter o f Life and Death his most
memorable composition was to be the hauntingly simple, slightly
atonal piano theme which accompanies the staircase to heaven.
The third crucial collaborator on A M O L A D was the cameraman
Jack Cardiff. On Blimp, their only Technicolor film to date, The
Archers had used George Perinal, Korda’s old photographer. He did a
beautiful, if somewhat staid job, but he didn’t much enjoy working
with them. Cardiff had been a child actor as early as 19 18 and
entered the industry as a cameraman in the Thirties, working as an
operator on Clair’s The Ghost Goes West and Feyder’s Knight With­
out Armour. Then he was trained by Technicolor as a colour expert,
making all the company’s promotional films. Cardiff had never
photographed a feature film before A M O L A D (although he was
second unit on Blimp), but he had a reputation as an ‘enfant terrible’
and an experimenter. He loved working with The Archers because
‘they wanted to do what hadn’t been done before’. He worked closely
with Junge to control the light on the set and create an overall
composition of colours. It was Cardiff’s idea to use monochrome -
Technicolor stock bleached of colour - instead of black and white in
A M O L A D to give that pearly look to heaven and to enable the
colour to be gradually faded up and down.
The concept of setting a film partly in heaven and partly on earth
was not an entirely novel one. Besides Fritz Lang’s two films, Der
Müde Tod (‘Between Two Worlds’, 19 2 1) and Liliom (1934), there
had recently been Here Comes Mr Jordan (194 1) and Heaven Can
Wait (1943). The hereafter was a popular wartime subject. But in wit,
design and execution A M O L A D was more sophisticated than any of
them. The hinge concept of the film is that all the fantasy sequences
are given a logical, scientific explanation. The trial in heaven is just
the figment of a sick, but highly imaginative mind - its way of coping
with a dangerous brain surgery (the judge is played by the same actor
as the brain surgeon). The inspiration for Peter’s medical condition
came from the semi-autobiographical novel, A Journey Round My
Skull, by the Hungarian novelist Frigyes Karinthy, in which the
narrator wittily and ironically recounts the onset of hallucinations
 OTHER ARCHERS 257

and the brain operation he had to get rid of them. More precise
medical detail came from Emeric’s research in the British Library and
consultations with Michael’s brother-in-law, a consultant plastic
surgeon/Recently, an American medical researcher wrote an entire
paper on the case of Peter D. Carter. Apparently all the symptoms
and diagnoses are medically correct.
A M O L A D started shooting in September, a few weeks after the
war finally ended with that terrifying vision of the future —the bomb
at Hiroshima. It gave the film a much broader significance than
Anglo-American propaganda. It became an appeal for tolerance in
the face of the new, horrendous possibilities of science. At the
beginning of the film, the audience is given a guided tour of the
universe and shown the alternative: a planet explodes in a great ball
of flame, ‘Oops,’ says the dead-pan commentator, ‘someone’s been
messing around with the uranium atom again.’
The twelve-week shoot finished in the first week of December, a
week ahead of schedule and £43,000 under budget at £300,000.
A Matter o f Life and Death was chosen for the first Royal
Command Performance. It is an event which signifies little today, but
in 1946 it was, as Variety put it, ‘equivalent to winning six Oscars’.
Tickets were 20 -30 guineas each, and the cream of British showbiz
turned up, flaunting the silk gowns and diamond tiaras that had been
locked in the attic for the duration of the war. Over 50,000 onlookers
crowded into Leicester Square to catch a glimpse of the glamour as it
pulled up outside the Odeon. Every black limousine in London was
rented out. The post-war crowd was hysterical. The Royal car was
almost overturned by the excited mob and the King and Queen were
stuck for ten minutes before the police rescued them. Several
policemen and spectators were hospitalized in the pandemonium.
The partners were introduced to the King. Emeric always treasured
the moment with a schoolboy’s enthusiasm. He was particularly
thrilled when the monarch told him that The Spy in Black was one of
his favourite books and that he had had the film screened for him
several times at the palace.
The critics were divided over whether the film merited the honour
of the Royal Command. Many found the fantasy distasteful, i t is
hard to grasp why A Matter o f Life and Death became the choice for
Britain’s first Royal Command Performance,’ wrote the News
Chronicle. ‘The film has technical originality and a firmer narrative
shape than anything we have seen from Michael Powell and Emeric
258 EMERIC

Pressburger who wrote, produced and directed it, but it is even

further away from the essential realism and the true business of the
British movie than their two recent films, I Know Where Vm Going
and A Canterbury T a le'
The Spectator was more positive, comparing the film favourably
with all the previous P& P efforts which had ‘a baffling obstacle
between intention and achievement . . . With A Matter o f Life and
Death, however, Powell and Pressburger have escaped the cage and
stretched their cinematic legs. The dazzling result is worth all the
growing pains.’
For the most part, though, the critics were bewildered - it was
growing to be the standard response to The Archers’ films. The movie
did not conform to a particular genre, which left one, as C. A. Lejeune
said ‘in grave doubts whether it is intended to be serious or gay’.
Others worried about the lack of human warmth and noted an ironic
detachment which had steadily increased in The Archers’ work and
was typified by the conductor’s immortal line on his first trip to earth:
‘Ah! One is starved for Technicolor up there!’ This confusing playful­
ness — so very Hungarian and not at all British - left Dilys Powell
feeling that ‘once more —as so often before with the work of Michael
Powell and Emeric Pressburger - one has the feeling that the game
wasn’t worth the candle.’

With the war over, the great spur to Emeric’s work was removed.
What sort of films should he be now making? The certainties of
propaganda had long gone and he was no longer inclined to preach to
people about the direction of their lives because he himself had lost
his direction. The foundations upon which he had built his life for so
long had collapsed. There was no longer a Nazi state to be fleeing
from or fighting against. If he had felt for a brief time during the war
that he belonged in England, it soon dawned on him that he only
belonged because they were fighting a common enemy. He felt
foreign.
Shortly after VE Day Billy Wilder was sent to Berlin to act as a
liaison officer for the Psychological Warfare department, vetting Nazi
film-makers. En route he spent a week with Emeric in London. ‘All
we did, I remember, was talk. We talked about a thousand things. We
wondered where we should go now that the war was over. None of us
- I mean the émigrés — really knew where we stood. Should we go
home? Where was home? . . . Do you know the story about the two
 OTHER ARCHERS 259

émigrés who meet in New York? One says, “ Walter! How are you!”
And the other says, “ I’m fine. How are you, Leo?” He says, “ I’m
great. Tell me, are you happy?” And the other guy says, “ Sure I’m
happy^- but I’m not glucklig [German for happy].” I was always
happy and glucklig and I think Emeric was the same, but sure, for a
while we were uneasy . . . ’
Even if they had wanted to, neither of them had much to go back
to. Emeric had heard nothing from his 7 3 -year-old mother since a
three-line Red Cross note in 1942. Reams of telegrams were now
dispatched from The Archers’ offices to the authorities in Miskolc.
Straining to cope with the hordes of displaced and dispossessed, it
was not until November that anyone replied, and then only to say
that they had no word of his mother. Emeric must have guessed the
worst. He was informed that most of Miskolc’s Jewish population -
some 20,000 people - had been deported to the death camps in the
summer of 1944 by the retreating Nazis.
In 1992 I went to Miskolc to see what I could find out about my
great-grandmother. It is impossible to visit Eastern Europe without
sensing the cold shadow of the Holocaust. Emeric’s family - my
distant relatives —were decimated in the war. Of the twenty or so
cousins, uncles and aunts who lived in and around Subotica and
Baçka Topola only three survived. Jozsef, son of Marco the
shoemaker, became Yugoslavia’s ambassador to the UN. Yoli,
Margit’s daughter and Emeric’s niece, went to Israel. Andor,
M ihâly’s son, continued to live in the old Pressburger house in
Backa Topola with his wife Gizella. At 88 she is still alive today,
giving piano lessons and living through another war in what was
Yugoslavia. Her own son, also called Imre Pressburger, a grain
merchant, died before the most recent conflict began, but she is
frightened for her grandson who leaves school next year.
The only other surviving members of the family living in Eastern
Europe are in Budapest. Gyôrgy is the youngest son of Karoly,
Emeric’s favourite uncle, and brother of the rascal Bandi. He lives
in a small apartment in the centre of the city with his wife. He is in
his late seventies and not too well. He tells me that his father
Karoly was shot during a forced march out of the Ukraine for tying
his shoelace too slowly.
Gyôrgy and his family have changed their name from
Pressburger to Péteri. I ask them why. His wife Margit explains
2.6o EMERIC

that near the end of the war she was put into a deportation camp.
She escaped but was caught in Budapest. The police asked her what
her name was. In those days all the Jews had to wear, above their
yellow star, the monogram of their name. She knew that if she gave
her real name they would look up the lists and send her back to the
camp. In a flash she said: ‘Margit Péteri’. They let her go and she
survived. Since then the family have kept the name of Péteri.
In my search for my great-grandmother I had an address, 26
Horváth Lajos Utca, which was the last place she had lived before
the war. An old Jewish lady came to the door and told me that in
1945 t^ie street numbers had been changed. Her house was not my
number 26, but she invited me in for coffee. Although she had lived
on the same street since before the war (‘it was the most beautiful
street in the town’) she had never heard of Gizella Pressburger. She
herself was a survivor of Auschwitz and had lost her husband and
children. In 1950, after several years in a sanatorium in Sweden,
she had decided to return to Miskolc alone. She was desperate to
help me and phoned up her friends. Had any of them heard of
Gizella Pressburger? No, but then there were so few Jews left and
there had once been so many.
I decided to try the synagogue. There was no longer a rabbi —
there weren’t enough Jews —but there was a secretary with a
shabby little office behind the Holocaust memorials. By a peculiar
quirk of fate he looked just like Billy Wilder, in his jaunty pork-
pie hat. He had a weary, cynical, but not unfriendly air. It was
improbable, he said, that anyone would remember Emeric’s
mother, or know exactly what had happened to her. There was a
chance, however, that her name would be in the register of those
deported from Miskolc to Auschwitz which he had inherited from
his predecessor. He got out his keys, went to the cupboard and
pulled out a sizeable tome and started to flick through it in front
of me. I saw her name near the bottom of a page, typed in purple
ink on cheap paper: Gizella Pressburger. Aged 73. Widow.
Deported May 1944. I suddenly felt very moved out of all
proportion.

Emeric rarely talked about these things, though he could never

forget them. They became, quite literally, the focus of his life. He
felt guilty about his mother. Why hadn’t he got her out while he
still could? Perhaps he also looked at those ranks of lost relatives in
 OTHER ARCHERS 261

his mind’s eye and asked himself, like Primo Levi: ‘Are you ashamed
because you are alive in place of another? And in particular, of a
man more sensitive, wiser, more useful, more worthy than you?’
In 1946 Emeric became a British citizen, and on 29 March the
following year he finally married Wendy. He was trying to put down
roots. But with so many points of reference gone in the outside world,
Emeric’s films began to retreat from politics and ethics and busied
themselves with an alternative world of music, colour and art. He
stopped writing original stories. Perhaps he found it too painful to
confront his inner life —at least in so public a medium.
The Archers experienced several false starts in their search for a new
direction. In September 1945, with A M O L A D on the floor, Emeric
and Wendy had taken a two-week trip to Scotland. It was a working
holiday. They were thinking of making a film about Bonnie Prince
Charlie to celebrate the bicentenary of the Jacobite rebellion. Emeric
spent the fortnight visiting a few of the locations of Charlie’s short­
lived escapade, including Moidart, Stirling and Culloden. David Niven
was asked to play the dashing prince. The film was to be called ‘The
White Cockade’, and when A M O L A D finished a week ahead of
schedule, Niven and the crew stayed on to shoot a pilot sequence. But,
as Michael noted, the piece lacked the vital spark and although The
Archers went through the preliminaries of negotiating with Goldwyn
for Niven’s services, ‘The White Cockade’ was still-born.
Emeric next considered Rumer Godden’s Indian novel, Black Nar­
cissus. Then there was an idea for a musical based on the running of the
American GI wartime newspaper, The Stars and Stripes. Emeric was to
write the ‘book’, while the musical numbers and choreography were
done in New York. The working title was ‘The Lamb and the Lark’
(after the pub where the editorial staff met). Emeric also thought of
reviving his old favourite ‘The Miracle in St Anthony’s Lane’.
Michael had plenty of ideas of his own. In January 1946 he and his
wife Frankie set out on a horse-ride from one side of Ireland to the
other. In the village of Dongloe in Donegal they visited Paddy the
Cope, the founder of the Co-operative in Ireland, and optioned his life
story. But the project barely lingered before dying. Michael next
embarked on a trip to South America and returned with the idea that
The Archers should make a South American epic. This was the kind of
international film he was convinced would beat Hollywood at its own
game. He tried to persuade his partner:
z6z EMERIC

Mexico . . . is a civilised country, old horse, much more Euro­

pean than US-onian, I’m glad to say, my old caballero, and
Mexico seems to be a great touchstone for the rest of Spanish
America. We ought to make a big picture in Mexico one day
when we have a colour-system which doesn’t need UNO to get
the prints for us. The country is magnificent and charming and
the Aztec remains are astonishing, enough for three de Milles.
How about Cortés and Montezuma’s daughter?*
But Michael’s real enthusiasm was not for any particular subject
but for an entirely new film-making process. Independent Frame was
a complex amalgam of back and front projection techniques and
special effects, which, as Sidney Gilliat recalled ‘meant that you didn’t
have to leave the studio for anything’.t Independent Frame was the
brainchild of David Rawnsley, head of Pinewood’s art department.
Michael was carried away by the idea —he saw it as an opportunity to
escape the stifling ‘naturalism’ prevalent in British films, into a world
of illusionism. He wrote to Rank in February 1945 with fiery passion.
. . . using process backgrounds and foregrounds in the way they
should be used, combining actors, settings and cartoons, setting
free a whole new world of possibilities in design and startling
theatrical effects.
The money men - Rank and his chief accountant, John Davis - were
keen when they were informed that, after the initial outlay, the
process would produce six films for the price of one.

*In fact, a year later, Emeric and Michael were involved in a film with a South American
setting. T h e E n d o f th e R iv e r , the second and final film produced by Emeric and Michael
but not written or directed by them, was something of an indulgence, an opportunity to give
a couple of friends a break. The script was by Wolfgang Wilhelm, and the director Derek
Twist, the editor who, according to Michael, had ‘saved’ his film T h e E d g e o f T h e W o r ld .
Wilhelm was an earnest, political man and some of that rubbed off on the script. Told in
a series of flashbacks, it deals with the destructive influence of ‘civilization’ on a naive
young Indian boy (played by Sabu), outlawed from his own tribe. The central theme is a
familiar one in Archers’ films: that the rights of the individual - ‘the uncommon man’ -
must be respected above all organizations and unions. Emeric cannot but have noticed the
parallels with the plight of the individual exile from Nazi Germany and perhaps that was
the original spark behind the production. Unfortunately, the film does not live up to its
possibilities. Documentary footage, shot in a remote corner of Brazil, sits uneasily with the
studio style, the direction is uninspired, the acting hammy. Even the great Amazon river is
rendered dull. It was given a hammering by the critics, and the producers were unreas­
onably chastised for their involvement. One sequence in particular became a notorious
example of The Archers’ ‘ bad taste’ : Esmond Knight, playing a nasty, Dickensian brute, has
a cigarette stubbed out on his diseased leg, and despite the smouldering flesh, feels nothing.
f ‘ It was so complicated that few of us reallv understood it,’ admitted Gilliat.
 OTHER ARCHERS 2é 3

Gilliat believes that ‘It had lots of things in it that were attractive,
such as television monitoring . . . but it was very much a mega­
lomaniac production designer’s dream.’ The main problem was that
nobody had thought through the practicalities, particularly how it
was going to affect the actors. Michael was blinded by the excitement
of it all and Rank was too interested in how much money he was
going to save. The idea became a threat to all the film-makers in
Rank’s stable. Gilliat and his partner, Frank Launder, took the lead
and drafted a twelve-page letter to Rank detailing the system’s fail­
ings. They did the rounds of the other Independent Producers asking
them to sign it, which they all did, including Emeric. ‘Micky, I didn’t
even ask, for obvious reasons,’ says Gilliat, ‘but I sent him a copy and
he sent me a note back: “ Thank you for the copy of your memo­
randum. I have put it immediately into the waste basket.” But Emeric
had endorsed it. Now there was clearly a great division of opinion
there. But to me, and other observers, it never surfaced beyond that.’
Another of Michael’s ideas had been an adaptation of Nigel Bal-
chin’s wartime novel, The Small Back Room , about a psychologically
damaged explosives expert. He planned to film it using the new
process, but Emeric, as he made clear in a telegram in September
1945, was not interested:
1 d o n ’t m in d a b a n d o n m e n t b l a c k n a r c iss u s a n d

UNDERSTAND YOUR C O N CEN TR ATIN G ON IN D EP EN D EN T

FRAME BUT IT M UST BE YOUR OWN VENTURE STOP I
REGARD IT N O T A R C H E R S BUT YO UR OWN BABY AND I AM
R E L U C T A N T TO BE FA TH E R NO W A F T E R NO T H A V IN G PAR­
T I C I P A T E D IN T H E F U N H O P E Y O U S E E M Y P O I N T S T O P

There was a general feeling that Emeric’s and Michael’s interests had
diverged. On 2 1 July 1945, an article had appeared in the Daily
Express under the headline f i l m t e a m s e p a r a t e s :
One of the most famous film partnerships, that of Michael
Powell and Emeric Pressburger, producers of 49th Parallel and
Blimp, is to end.
In future they will produce pictures separately. Michael
Powell said last night: ‘Under the arrangement we hope to
produce two pictures to the one we made formerly.’
Their latest film, to be shown in September, is I Know Where
Vm Going, followed by A Matter o f Life and Death. After that
264 EMERIC

Mr Pressburger will produce one of his own called The Miracle

in St Anthony's Lane.
The suggestion that The Archers was dissolving was quickly repudi­
ated by Emeric in the next number of Kine Weekly. He insisted that
the partners would continue to produce together, and share ‘the
responsibility, the cheers and the jeers’.
Right up to the end of the year, however, a ‘division of responsi­
bility’ within The Archers seemed the most likely course of events.
Kine reported on 20 December:
For the last five years The Archers have averaged a film a year:
next year they will make two. Emeric Pressburger will be direc­
ting for the first time when he goes on the floor with The Miracle
in St Anthony's Lane early next year. Powell follows with The
Small Back Room , an adaptation of Nigel Balchin’s bestseller.
At the last minute, however, Michael woke up to the impracticality
—and tyranny —of what was meant to be a liberating technique. He
realized that many of the effects he wished to create with Independent
Frame could be achieved just as well using more traditional methods.
Simultaneously, Emeric got cold feet about directing. Like symbiotic
organisms, the partners could not exist apart. On 4 January 1946
Emeric cabled Michael in Scotland:
D EAR M ICK H AVE PO STPO N ED M IRA CLE D O N A T C A N ’T SEE
H I M S E L F IN P A R T L A R R Y G O E S W I T H O L D V I C T O A M E R I C A
IN M A Y R E D G R A V E O N L Y M A N A V A I L A B L E H A D LONG TALK
W ITH H IM AS RESULT SH A RIN G YOUR O PIN IO N OF H IM
STOP DONAT R EAD IN G N A R C ISSU S STOP WANT TO KNOW
HOW STRONGLY YOU FEEL ON TH IS SU B JEC T STOP I SEE
FO LLO W IN G PROBLEM S IN VO LVED WE HAVE EIG H T TO
T W E L V E W EEK S T IL L ST U D IO D AT E D E P E N D IN G N U M B E R OF
W EEKS N E C E S S A R Y FO R SH O O T IN G STOP DO W E W A N T K E N ­
N E T H P E R R Y A N D N A T I V E A C T O R S R E S E A R C H IN I N D I A R E A L
CO STUM ES ETC DO W E W A N T PAT ROC STO P H O W BIG ARE
OUR C A ST IN G P RO BLEM S STOP W H AT SH A LL W E DO A BO U T
A M ER IC AN CEN SO R SH IP STOP IS THERE ANY OTHER SUB­
J E C T Y O U W O U L D A N D C O U L D DO L O V E E M E R IC

Rumer Godden’s novel Black Narcissus is a melodramatic, even

hysterical, tale of nuns and repressed sexuality set in the Himalayas.
 OTHER ARCHERS 265

Like E. M. Forster’s A Passage to In d ia* its central theme is the

impossibility of Europeans ever coming to terms with, let alone
understanding, the sub-continent. It was Wendy who originally read
the book and recommended it to Emeric. He met Godden on several
occasions and, on 1 June 1945, personally optioned the novel.
Commercially speaking it was an astute move. Post-war Britain
had an appetite for the colourful and exotic, and was obsessed with
India, the jewel in the crown of a collapsing empire. But despite the
undoubted success and originality of the resulting film, neither Emeric
or Michael was particularly fond of it. Michael called it merely a
‘handsome film’ . It was a convenient subject, but it lacked the per­
sonal conviction of their wartime work. It was The Archers’ first
non-original screenplay and, as Emeric said, ‘If you are looking for
something new, something interesting then why start reading up
books? It is certainly very, very difficult to take a book and suddenly
subjugate your own talent, which cannot be exactly the same as the
talent of the writer of this book has been, so it will be a compromise,
it must be a compromise . . . ’
But the point should not be overstated. Emeric was in sympathy
with the novel and, thematically at least, it has something in common
with his own work. Like I Know Where Vm Going and Blimp, it
dwells on the brute power of sexuality to shape our lives. In common
with the pilgrims in A Canterbury Tale, Sister Clodagh, the central
figure in the story, has a sense of loss and disappointment that is faced
up to, and healed, during the course of the film. Although Rumer
Godden later professed herself disappointed with the film, Emeric’s
adaptation was remarkably faithful to the plot of her novel.
At the invitation of an enlightened local ruler, five Anglican nuns
travel to a remote region of the Himalayas to establish a convent
school and hospital. They are quartered in an exotic mountain-top
palace called the House of Women, which was once a harem.
Nothing about the place is welcoming: the wind howls, the natives
are superstitious and Mr Dean, the difficult, drunken but sexually
attractive land agent, bets that they’ll be gone before the rains. Soon
the place begins to get to them. They find it increasingly hard to
perform their duties. Sister Clodagh, the slightly haughty Sister
Superior, catches herself thinking for the first time in years about the

* Later in life Emeric wanted to film Forster’s novel too. David Lean’s 1985 adaptation was,
in fact, the last film Emeric ever saw in the cinema.
266 EMERIC

unsuccessful love affair that drove her to the convent. Sister Philippa,
in charge of the gardens, plants wild flowers instead of vegetables.
Sister Ruth becomes hysterical. She is in love with M r Dean and
mistakenly thinks her feelings are reciprocated. When Dean rejects her
she becomes insanely jealous of Sister Clodagh, attacking her on the
edge of a precipice. In the ensuing fight Sister Ruth slips and plunges to
her death. The final shot of the film has the nuns, with all their
belongings, winding their way down the mountain just as the first
drops of rain are falling.
As Emeric’s January telegram makes clear, there was never any
intention of shooting Black Narcissus in India. It was standard practice
at the time to send a second unit on location to pick up exterior shots.
But as Michael wrote in his autobiography: ‘The atmosphere in this
film is everything, and we must create and control it from the start.
Wind, the altitude, the beauty of the setting - it must be all under our
control. If we went to India and shot a lot of exteriors, according to the
usual plan, and then came back to Pinewood and then tried to match
them here, you would have two kinds of colour and two kinds of style.’
This stress on control, on an integration of all aspects of the production
towards a single expressive end, can be seen as Emeric’s pragmatic
answer to Michael’s enthusiasm for Independent Frame.
The Himalayas in Black Narcissus are as much a product of Alfred
Junge’s imagination and Jack Cardiff’s lighting as was the heaven of A
Matter o f Life and Death and, as Bernardo Bertolucci commented,
while filming Little Buddha, ‘The real thing doesn’t quite live up to
them.’ The film is not realistic, it is surrealistic. The starting point was a
huge plasterwork set for the palace, built to allow Cardiff complete
control over the lighting. Then there were model shots, glass shots and
matte shots - all the fantastic tricks of a fantastic trade and executed by
‘Papa’ Day, a scruffy, bearded wizard. The only exteriors, for the lush
Himalayan vegetation, were taken on a set built at Leonardslee gardens
in Sussex. Visually, Black Narcissus is completely composed; not for a
moment are we allowed to escape this deliberate world of saturated
Technicolor pigments, spectacular precipices and precarious buildings.
Emeric’s first casting ideas for the film included Robert Donat and
Patricia Roc. Neither was to appear in the film. The role of Mr Dean
went to the patrician-looking David Farrar. The actor was surprised
by how cautious the partners were about casting. He underwent a
whole series of interviews and auditions, feeling ‘the searching
scrutiny of Emeric’s gaze and Michael’s piercing blue eyes’. He was
 OTHER ARCHERS 267

questioned on every aspect of the script and Mr Dean’s character.

Even then he was forced to take a screen test before the part was his -
something of a humiliation for such an experienced film actor.
The-'Archers had tried, unsuccessfully, to cast Deborah Kerr in two
films since Blimp. M G M had her under contract and demanded an
exorbitant fee. Now they wanted her again, to play Sister Clodagh.
Rank, buoyed by post-war optimism and the temporary American
taste for British films, liberated £18,000 to secure her (Emeric and
Michael themselves were given a pay rise - from £15,0 0 0 to
£20,000). Almost as expensive, at £15,000, was Sabu, for the role of
the young general. The Indian waif who had captured the world’s
imagination in Elephant Boy and The Thief o f Bagdad, was now a
chunky, sulky adolescent, who had lost much of his charisma. Other
roles were taken by Flora Robson, Esmond Knight, Jean Simmons
and Kathleen Byron.
Byron, cast as Sister Ruth, was yet another actress with whom
Michael was amorously involved and of whom Emeric disapproved -
because she wasn’t right for the part, he said. It was only Byron’s
third film role and she was particularly possessive about it, refusing to
accept that her character was insane: ‘Micky and Emeric used to say
to me: “ You’ve got to be more mad!” and I would say, “ I’m not
mad!” They’d say: “ You are mad!” And I’d say, “ She doesn’t know
she’s mad —she’s just a bit intense. She’s not mad!” We had terrible
rows about this . . . ’
Emeric was worried that Byron would have to be removed from the
picture. He asked Deborah Kerr, who was always calm and unflap­
pable, to try to stop Byron arguing with every direction that Michael
gave. Kerr would approach her fellow actress and say to her: ‘You
shouldn’t argue with him. Just say, “ Yes, yes, what a good idea,” and
then do exactly what you were going to do!’
The film began shooting on 23 May, scheduled for thirteen weeks
with an estimated budget of between £275,000 and £300,000. But as
things got under way it soon became obvious that it was going to cost
a good deal more. Nevertheless, Emeric felt able to absent himself for
a full fortnight during shooting to take Wendy on a tour of Scan­
dinavia which coincided with the Swedish première of I Know Where
Vm Going. Michael cabled his partner at the Royal Stockholm Hotel:
D E A R IM R E L O V E L Y N EW S IKW IG G L A D YO U A R E T H E R E TO
R ECEIVE FLO RAL TR IBU TES STOP VERY PLEASED TO SEE
268 EMERIC

FROM PAPERS THAT YOU ARE B RIN G IN G ME BACK A

CEZANNE* STOP YO U ARE W RO NG A BO U T BYRO N AM K EEP­
IN G Y O U R C A B L E F O R Y O U TO E A T L A T E R STO P A M K E E P IN G
C A L M IN S P I T E O F B L A C K N A R C I S S U S B U D G E T . L O V E M I C K Y .

On his return Emeric saw Byron’s rushes and admitted he was wrong,
but the budget had continued to grow, and action was needed. Cap in
hand they paid a visit to Rank. Marius Goring, who witnessed a
similar meeting, remembers the technique:
7 1 was the combination o f these two, the peace-makerIdiplomat
Pressburger and this incalculable, fiery creature Powell, that made it
an irresistible pair. I was once present at a meeting with Arthur Rank
—they wanted some more money . . . the whole case for The Archers
was put by Emeric Pressburger and he was so reasonable about it. He
explained everything so simply and sweetly - how everything was
going so well, that there was nothing they had to ask for really at all,
just a report o f how things were going. And Rank and everybody was
beaming. Then suddenly Micky Powell who, up until then, had been
looking up at the ceiling, suddenly said, “ O f course, we must also
have some more money . . . ” Without batting an eye Emeric picked it
up and said, “ Oh yes, I did forget there is that other matter but it is so
unimportant that I . . . ” and so on and so on. Emeric put them all in
such a marvellous mood by the preparation he had done that Micky's
comment passed unnoticed and they got exactly what they wanted. . .
They were incomparable, those two, in working out that sort o f plan.'
Ultimately, the film finished shooting on schedule but some £50,000
over budget at £3 51,494.
Then came the post-production. The scoring, dubbing and editing
were very much Emeric’s domain. Michael loathed having to go into
the cutting room. Emeric saw editing as a natural continuation of his
job as a screenwriter, particularly when there were problems: ‘When
things went wrong on the floor, I worked in the cutting room with the
editor to try to put things right . . . playing with the available scenes
(or even simple shots of people and objects). I was always there to
regroup these building blocks - to find the solution.’
For the first time since Blimp The Archers hired a new composer.
They were not displeased with Allan Gray’s work on A Matter O f

Several Cezannes had recently been stolen in an art heist.

 OTHER ARCHERS 269

Life and Death, but thought that Black Narcissus required a com­
poser with knowledge of oriental music. Consciously or not, it was
another indication of the new ‘art for art’s sake’ direction of their
work.'Music was no longer incidental, but formed the emotional core
of their films.
Brian Easdale had flirted with the documentary movement in the
Thirties and during the war he was drafted into the Crown Film Unit
to write music for several propaganda and training shorts. Stationed
in Calcutta he studied Indian music and befriended Rumer Godden.
When he read, in the Indian edition of the Telegraph, about The
Archers’ plan to film Black Narcissus, he knew he was the man for the
job. Back in England, he arranged an appointment with Emeric and
Michael at Pinewood. Emeric described to him the scene in which
Kanchi, a young Indian girl played by Jean Simmons, performs a
spontaneous dance in front of a mirror when she first sees the young
general. Could he write a two-minute piece of music for that? Two
days later Easdale returned with a composition, ‘mostly on different
types of drums — I particularly liked the Indian percussion instru­
ments’. Jean Simmons danced and Easdale was hired.
Easdale was asked to be present at the rough-cut screenings which
Emeric and Michael had with the editor, Reginald Mills. They would
watch the cut straight through once, then review bits they didn’t feel
happy about. Easdale would take notes and listen to musical sug­
gestions, but otherwise he just sat and listened: ‘Sometimes they spent
all night arguing about what to change and how to do it. Frequently I
didn’t get home until dawn.’ Only when the cut was finalized did
Easdale start seriously composing, often playing excerpts on the
piano for Emeric and Michael. ‘If Emeric liked something I had done
he would say, “ Yes, that’s nice, let’s use that.” Michael, on the other
hand, could be frightfully analytical. He might pause for a whole
minute before replying, or he might ask you his famous high-pitched
“ W hy?!” and stare at you with those cold blue eyes, if he wasn’t
absolutely convinced of what you were saying.’
It was late autumn by the time Easdale began composing. The
weather was freezing and his Hampstead bed-sit was virtually un­
heated. ‘ I had a gas fire, but I didn’t want to put it near the piano - the
heat doesn’t do the instrument any good - so I sat there with a rug
over my knees, shivering. One day Emeric came round in his big,
cream Bentley to see how I was doing. “ How is the music going? It’s
frightfully cold isn’t it?” I told him my situation. He didn’t say
270 EMERIC

anything, but the next day a car delivered a brand new electric
heater.’ Perhaps the producer understood what it was like to be cold
and poor.
In his autobiography Michael claimed that a ten-minute section
towards the end of Black Narcissus - leading up to sister Ruth’s
death - was pre-scored by Easdale and directed by him in keeping
with musical timings. In this and many other ways Black Narcissus
was a forerunner of the ‘composed films’ which were to dominate
The Archers’ output in years to come and, in some people’s eyes, be
their single most significant contribution to the history of cinema.
A ‘composed film’ * is one in which the entire soundtrack -
usually a musical score —is recorded before a foot of film is exposed.
The film is then directed and shot to playback. It is a method which
allows for complete pre-planning of every aspect of the production,
to achieve a single, intense, expressive end under the guidance of the
music. It is the music that carries the emotional meaning of the
movie - watching a ‘composed film’ one is struck by how similar the
experience is to listening to a full-scale orchestral work.
Already in Black Narcissus the visual aspects of the film were
utterly controlled. A further step was to allow Brian Easdale to
supervise the entire soundtrack, not just the music, so that the sound
effects became part of the score — less naturalistic than dramatic.
The Archers were reacting against the static, talky naturalism of
contemporary British films, trying to create a more cinematic and
expressionist style, heavily influenced by music and the movies of
the late silent period.
Although the partners agreed about the general direction they
wanted their films to take in the future, Michael was —for a time at
least — more extreme in his views. He talked in terms of a battle
between words and images and complained that ‘even a film writer
as subtle as Emeric’ was limited because he used words. He grew
impatient with Emeric’s dialogue* and suggested that only a com­
poser could ‘write’ good films. But as Michael soon came to realize,
he was erecting a false dichotomy. The main reason he had col­

*The history of the composed film is a predominantly Germanic one. The operettas
Emeric worked on at Ufa, for example, were often at least partly composed. Ludwig
Berger, the director Michael had replaced on T h e T h i e f o f B a g d a d , was a great experi­
menter with the technique. The only composed film produced in England was Feher’s T h e
R o b b e r S y m p h o n y of 19 3 7 , which both partners had seen. Indirectly part of the same
tradition was Disney’s F a n t a s ia , where music was master of the animation, and which
Michael in particular cited as a great inspiration.
 OTHER ARCHERS 271

laborated with Emeric in the first place was because of the latter’s
skills as a film writer to whom structure and image were more
important than dialogue. In an article written at around this time,
Michael discusses the role of the screenwriter, and while he lambasts
most of them, we can sense that the skills he describes as desirable
are to a large extent the very ones possessed by his own partner. He
calls for ‘a new understanding of the screenwriter, the best paid, the
least credited and the laziest craftsman of us all, for the whole shape
of the film is in his hands and he has done less about it than any­
body. Perhaps now that more writers are becoming producers and
directors (and there can’t be too many), they will turn their energies
from politics and union activities to the creation of a new form of
story-telling, which is also the oldest in the world: visual wit, move­
ment, pantomime, comedy, eked out with music, songs and dialogue
when it is needed —and only when it is needed.’
In America, and the Catholic European countries, Black Narcissus
did extraordinarily good box office despite the scalping it received at
the hands of the censors. The American critic Andrew Sarris
recalled: ‘Many of us cinephiles used to think that Black Narcissus
had anticipated Jean-Luc Godard by more than a decade in the
matter of the jump cut, when actually the pioneer with the scissors
was censor Cardinal Spellman of the New York Catholic Arch­
diocese.’
Black Narcissus won three Oscars: one for Jack Cardiff’s colour
cinematography and two for Alfred Junge, for art direction and set
decoration.
But while the public flocked to see it - for its colour, its flam­
boyance, its melodrama — the British critics were disconcerted,
unsure of themselves. There was no lack of praise for the cinemato­
graphy and set design. T h e most important thing about Black Nar­
cissus, Powell and Pressburger’s new film at the Odeon is that it is in
colour,’ wrote C. A. Lejeune in The Observer. ‘The colour is beauti­
ful, imaginatively chosen, tactfully used and arranged, in scene after
scene with the vision of a painter; so that the ravished eye carries the*

* Michael cited an example from A M O L A D . The cynical Trubshaw looks down at the
heavenly records office and expresses surprise to the ‘ reception angel’ that even up here
people have to work in offices. A callow youth (Richard Attenborough) approaches, gapes
at the same view and murmurs, ‘ It’s heaven isn’t it?’ ‘ You see,’ says the angel, ‘working in
an office is many people’s idea of heaven.’ Michael admitted that it was a beautiful line,
but says that it didn’t interest him, that it got in the way of the image.
272 EMERIC

willing mind more than half way to satisfaction. This is just as well
since the story . . . is just a little too subtle for the producers’ craft.’
They could not deny its power, but where was that power direc­
ted? Where were the recognizable characters? Where was the social
concern? The Sunday Times was concerned with ‘the oddly uncom­
fortable air of a work which has never quite decided on its mood.’
Kine Weekly thought the film ‘singularly lacking in warmth, power
and lustre.’ Accusations of elitism (or plain pretension) were even
more frequent than those which had greeted A Matter o f Life and
Death.
As far as the critics were concerned the undoubted improvement in
British films over the war years was due almost exclusively to one
factor: realism. ‘The documentary movement’ , wrote the producer
Michael Balcon, ‘was in my view the greatest single influence in
British film production and more than anything helped establish a
national style. With Black Narcissus The Archers were stepping yet
further away from this supposed “ national style” .’
 C H A P T E R 14

The Red Shoes

✓ '

Although good ballet is assured box office in London and

possibly other big cities, its popularity in small towns and country
districts is dubious. And in America, too, it will probably only
attract a limited audience.
Variety, 27 July 1948

In his New York apartment, the director Martin Scorsese has a

tryptich of Red Shoes posters strategically placed so that they are one
of the first things he sees every day. The Red Shoes tends to have an
obsessive effect on its admirers. Few movies have gripped the psyche
of a generation as forcefully, and few have been as influential both
inside and outside the world of film. Brian de Palma pinpoints it as
the film which made him want to be a director. Gene Kelly said that it
inspired him to make An American in Paris. It is the film which made
thousands of little girls want to be ballerinas and popularized ballet
across the world. ‘I was absolutely stunned,’ said Emeric in 1980,
‘when I visited the Drury Lane Theatre in London, to see the musical
A Chorus Line, and the choreographer asked one of the dancers,
“ How did you become a dancer?” And back came the reply: “ I saw
The Red S h o e s . . ” '
The Red Shoes is the most famous film that Powell and Pressburger
ever made. It has become an icon for artists. Emeric wondered why in
a letter to one of the many Broadway producers who have tried to
turn it into a musical:
Michael and I have made several good films, among them
several better films than The Red Shoes. Why then is The Red
Shoes by far the best known film that we have made? Those who
try to see it with magnifying glasses (like most critics) see only
the rough, the crude, the immature bits (especially the last
sequence between Vicky and Julian in her dressing room). But
audiences understand better; they inhale mechanically the air of
the whole thing and find something disturbing, something
274 EMERIC

mysterious, almost - dare 1 say - religious, something which

they feel must be true, without having been told what.
The Red Shoes was made in 1947 and released in 1948. A post-war
population starved of colour, glamour and art flocked to see it. ‘I
think that the real reason why The Red Shoes was such a success’,
wrote Michael, ‘was that we had all been told for ten years to go out
and die for freedom and democracy, for this and for that, and now
that the war was over, The Red Shoes told us to go and die for Art.’
It seemed to be yet another example of Emeric’s remarkable talent
for predicting the Zeitgeist. But in reality the history of the project
stretches back far before the war and is as convoluted and improb­
able as the influences which sprang from the finished film.
In the spring of 1934 London Films was basking in the success of
The Private Life o f Henry VIII. A string of ambitious follow-up
projects were announced, including one which was to be the germ of
The Red Shoes: a bio-pic of ballet’s ‘mad genius’, Nijinsky, based on
the biography written by his wife.
On 4 June Variety carried a brief announcement: ‘Paul Muni as
Nijinsky and Charles Laughton as Diagheleff in a filmization of the
Nijinsky biography. A. Korda to direct (London Films).’ Muni was
an inspired choice for the unstable dancer but, like so many Korda
projects, this one never made it past the press release. In 19 37 the
rights to the biography reverted to Madame Nijinsky.
But visions of a ballet film were still germinating in Korda’s mind.
In 19 37 he resurrected the idea as a vehicle for his exotic discovery,
Merle Oberon. He was both personally and professionally obsessed
with the actress, and after a projected version of /, Claudius directed
by Joseph von Sternberg collapsed, he calculated that a Technicolor
dance film was the way to transform Oberon into the new Dietrich.
On 9 April, PEM reported that Giinther Stapenhorst and Korda
were going into co-production. Their first film was to be the Oberon
ballet picture. It was known under two titles: ‘The Tempest Within’
and ‘The Ballet Story’. Oberon apparently took several dancing less­
ons, and Anton Dolin conducted two days of screen tests for real
ballet dancers. Ludwig Berger, a cultivated German émigré renow­
ned for his innovative use of music on film, was slated as the direc­
tor and the popular and prolific novelist’ G. B. Stem, prepared a
script ‘ from an original story of hers dealing with the life of a
Russian dancer’.
 THE RED SHOES 275

At this juncture Emeric and ‘the ballet film’ first crossed paths. As
Stapenhorst’s right-hand man he discussed the subject with him, read
Stern’s script, and - quite possibly - worked on the screenplay with
the dramatically inexperienced novelist.
But again Korda’s endless ability for caprice intervened and the
subject joined the sagging shelves of his half-finished, half-started
enthusiasms at Denham. Ludwig Berger remained expensively under
contract until, in desperation, he was attached to The Thief o f Bag­
dad, a project which grew to be totally unsuited to his talents and on
which he was soon replaced by a host of other directors, including
Michael Powell.
Two years later - in 1939 - the project resurfaced. Returning to
England after conquering Hollywood with Wuthering Heights,
Oberon married Korda in June at Antibes. A Technicolor film set
among the world of international ballet seemed the perfect setting to
show off a beautiful wife. G. B. Stern rewrote her script, even using
the name ‘Merle’ for her central character. But as much as Korda
might have liked that, he clearly didn’t think much of the script. The
rewriters got their teeth in. Walter Hackett, the playwright, penned
one; Marjorie Deans another; Robert Liebmann, Emeric’s old
Dramaturgie boss at Ufa, yet another. None of them met with Kor­
da’s approval. Finally, on 1 May Emeric was employed as ‘scenario
writer and adviser on scripts’ at the weekly wage of £60, to write a
completely fresh story and screenplay.
7 remember the meeting well. “Emeric, ” he said to me, ‘7 want to
make a film with Merle based on the ballet. I have already asked
several people to write it and nobody has got it right. ” There was no
story at all except that Alex had the idea o f basing it on the Hans
Andersen tale, “ The Red Shoes”, which is a great favourite for
children in Hungary. I was rather puzzled that he wanted Merle to be
in the film, I don't think she had ever taken a single ballet lesson in
her life. But, o f course, I didn’t say anything.’
The great pile of material which Stern and the others had produced
was sent round to Emeric with a note:
Script, ‘Ballet story’, G. B. Stern.
The whole of this wad of material — the result of much hard
work and (doubtless) innumerable story conferences, is a mess.
2?6 EMERIC

The story is no longer a ballet story. The dialogue is awful. The

characterisation is non-existent, the [unreadable] inept.

I should throw it away.

Alex.
Emeric’s first impulse - as so often - was to do research. ‘I asked
Covent Garden for permission to sit in on rehearsals. I sat there for
weeks. 1 think it was the original Ballet Russe. Michel Fokine was
creating an entirely new ballet: Variations on a Theme o f Paganini,
with music by Rachmaninoff. Irina Baronova and Tatiana Riabou-
chinska were the ballerinas and Dimitri Rostov danced Paganini. The
conductor was Antal Dorati, a Hungarian - I was sitting there for
weeks at rehearsals; he never spoke to me once. I went to the first
performance as well and I remember how wonderful I found the solo
and that it was played on a piano. It would have been terrible if they
had tried it on the violin, everybody would have thought: “ Now is he
playing as Paganini would have played?” ’
All the backstage detail of the final film stemmed from these visits:
the technical language of dance, the relationships between the various
collaborators in the company, and the last-minute pandemonium
before the curtain goes up.
It is unlikely that Fokine’s ballet had much of an influence on The
Red Shoes, but it is certainly tempting to see thematic connections.
G rove’s Dictionary o f Music describes the figure of Paganini as
possessing ‘a demonic element which irresistibly took hold of those
that came within his sphere’ . The shoemaker in The Red Shoes ballet
has similar supernatural powers. Again, Fokine’s description of his
female protagonist who ‘dances to Paganini’s music until she falls
exhausted at his feet’ and of the mad, demonic dance at the climax of
the ballet when ‘evil spirits and horrible shades’ taunt the violinist,
have parallels in The Red Shoes.
The treatment which Emeric presented to Alex Korda told of a girl
who wants to dance more than anything else in the world. She makes
her name dancing a new ballet based on Hans Andersen’s ‘The Red
Shoes’, but then she falls in love: she is torn between Art and Life.
Confused and tormented, she finally takes her own life, echoing the
fate of the girl in Andersen’s fairy tale who, possessed by her new red
shoes, cannot stop dancing until the shoes are cut from her feet. The
centrepiece of the script was a 15-minute performance of the ballet,
 THE RED SHOES 277

without any dialogue, only music and dance. The plan was to double
a real ballet dancer for Oberon in all the dance sections.
‘Yes, there is something in that,’ said Korda when Emeric finished
telling-him the story.
With this go-ahead, Emeric was assigned a collaborator to work
with him on the dialogue. Keith Winter was a young playwright and
novelist. He recalled that they worked together for about a month.
Emeric dictated characters, scenes, action and shots, while Winter
took notes. The next day the novelist would read the results out to his
collaborator. Their relationship was an easy one, with Emeric ‘very
much in command’. It was Winter who supplied many of the English
character names: Lady Neston was called after a railway station
where his sister lived in Cheshire, and Julian Craster after a town in
Northumberland with which he was acquainted.
By the end of July 1939 they had a complete screenplay. Korda was
pleased with it, but this time it was the war which put a block on the
production. Korda decamped to Hollywood, forgetting all about The
Red Shoes. But Emeric did not forget his script. Even while writing
about bombers, refugees and Nazis, The Red Shoes were dancing at
the back of his mind.
In Hollywood Korda was even more strapped for cash than usual,
so when Miklós Rózsa told him in December 19 4 1 that Emeric was
interested in buying back The Red Shoes he immediately cabled his
business manager in London.
UNDERSTAND EM ER IC PRESSBURGER W ANTS TO BUY RED
SHOES P L E A S E C O N T A C T H IM AND QUOTE ANY PRICE YO U
T H I N K IS R E A S O N A B L E I F P A I D IN C A S H . A .K .

Emeric was contacted and given the London Films file copy of The
Red Shoes. On 20 January 1942 he noted in his diary: ‘Gave Miss
Page Red Shoes to retype. We want to give a copy to Vivien Leigh.’
Incredibly The Archers’ initial plans for an extravagant, Technicolor
ballet film coincide with the stark music-less realism of One o f Our
Aircraft is Missing. Whether Leigh (whom Emeric had got to know
through Laurence Olivier on the set of 49th Parallel) considered the
part, it is impossible to say. To Korda’s evident disappointment the
project was dropped.
Only in February 1945 did negotiations start again. This time
Independent Producers were buying the property on behalf of The
Archers. Yet again they did not follow through, and on this occasion
z?8 EMERIC

the vacillation nearly cost them dear. At the end of October Korda
cabled his private secretary, David Cunynghame, with a frantic
message.
W E O W N ED OR ST IL L OW N RIGH TS OF M A D A M E N IJIN S K Y ’ S
BIO G R AP H Y OF N IJIN SK Y STO P AM C O N V IN C E D T H A T TH IS
WOULD MAKE FIR ST RATE IN TE R N A TIO N A L FILM TODAY
AND I L O K E [sic] T O P L A N T H I S A S O U R F I R S T O R S E C O N D
P R O D U C T IO N FOR LO N D O N FILM S STOP P LEA SE DO E V E R Y ­
TH IN G PO SSIBLE TO GET MADAME N IJIN SK Y HERE STOP
MAYBE PALLOS COULD GO A N D SEE HER IN V I E N N A STOP
ALSO G E T IN T O U C H W I T H KAY H ARR ISO N AND BOOK FOR
L O N D O N F IL M S O N E T E C H N IC O L O R U N IT FRO M M ID D L E OF
M ARCH FOR AT LEAST ONE YEAR REGARD S ALEX

Korda’s excitement is tangible. He had grasped the commercial possi­

bilities of the subject but they obviously weren’t attractive enough
and again he let the subject slip to the back of his mind. Korda had
recently separated from Merle Oberon. Perhaps the project brought
back too many painful memories/
So, without opposition from Korda, The Archers finally purchased
The Red Shoes on 2 1 M ay 1946. The price paid was £9,000 - more
than four times what they had paid for the rights to Black Narcissus,
but a bargain considering that Korda’s own pre-war layout on the
project was almost £7,000.
Now the work began. With the clarity of vision which a distance of
seven years gave him, Emeric completely rewrote the script. While the
plot was retained almost intact, much of the dialogue was stripped
away, characters and themes radically altered, changing the film from
a typical piece of Thirties’ drawing-room melodrama with a ballet
background, to a real ballet movie. For example, in the original
version Julian is a working-class rebel who resents the high society for
whom he has to perform his music. The final ‘battle for Vicky’ —the
battle between human Love and Art — is watered down by a sug­
gestion that Lermontov and Vicky may be having an affair. The
general effect of the rewrite was to increase the importance of the Art
versus Life theme, accentuate the dark, repressive side of Lermontov’s*

*Oberon announced their separation in January 19 45 and the marriage was officially
dissolved in Mexico in June. Korda was reportedly deeply upset by the divorce. Reviving
the ballet story might have been a last-ditch attempt to lure Oberon back.
 THE RED SHOES *7 9

character, and to downplay the straightforward human relationships

between characters. This is not to say that certain of the most striking
sequences were not already in the original script, among them the
famous exchange between Vicky and Lermontov at their first meeting:
lermontov: Why do you want to dance?
v ic k y : Why do you want to live?

The entire end portion of the script also remained unchanged. Indeed,
the original description of Lermontov’s final speech uncannily pre­
figures Anton Walbrook’s performance:
Lermontov in a spotlight before the curtain. There is an expression of
terrible suffering on his face. His voice, when he speaks is quite dead
and toneless.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am sorry to have to tell you that Miss
Victoria Page will not be able to dance tonight. ..
(Lermontov's face, his emotion is so great that it looks fora moment
as though he will be unable to continue, but finally he manages to
say:)
Or indeed on any other night.
(A very sharp intake of breath comes from the whole house.
Lermontov continues, though clearly every word is agony to him:)
Nevertheless, we have decided to present The Red Shoes'
tonight. It was, as you know, the ballet in which she made her
name, the ballet whose name she made. We present this ballet
because we feel she would have wished it so. She was, you know,
a very. . .
(Suddenly he can control himself no longer, the tears stream down his
cheeks. He retires abruptly behind the curtain.)

The plot is certainly not the strong point of The Red Shoes. At times
melodramatic and derivative, it is far from Emeric’s best. He was
much more interested in the characters and themes it presented and
with the opportunities it gave for experimentation - to do something
new with the medium.
7 was always fascinated by the idea o f actually creating and showing
a genuine piece o f art on the screen. You know how in books and in
films you are often told that such and such a person is a genius, or
writes wonderfully, or composes extraordinary music —but o f course
it is always a cheat, the audience is never allowed to see it - because if
28o EMERIC

they did they would see how mediocre it was. But in The Red Shoes I
wanted to show the work o f art on the screen, so that people would
actually say: “Ah that's what all the fuss is a b o u t!"y
This was the crucial decision: to make the 15-minute ballet at the
centre of the film a genuine work of art, comparable to anything
being performed at Covent Garden or Monte Carlo.
The Archers set about putting together not only a film crew but a
complete ballet company of their own, composed of the very best
talent available: dancers, choreographer, composer and designer.
Allan Gray was commissioned to write a ‘really first-class piece of
music - something which will stand up on its own in the concert hall’.
Robert Helpmann, premier danseur at Sadler’s Wells and a distin­
guished choreographer, was hired to act as a general adviser, choreo­
grapher and play the part of Ivan Boleslawsky.* Surprisingly, after all
the great work he had done for The Archers, Alfred Junge was not
asked to design the ballet.
It may have been a deliberate slight. According to Jack Cardiff,
Junge felt that his contribution to The Archers was under­
acknowledged. He thought he deserved equal billing with Emeric and
Michael and a share in the end credit. By offering The Red Shoes
ballet sequence to someone else they may have been showing Junge
that he was not indispensible. But there was also a more aesthetic
reason. Junge’s sets were solid, architectural constructions, planned
to the last detail. In this respect, for all his imagination, he was
essentially a realist. For the ballet sequence Emeric and Michael
wanted something more theatrical, more impressionistic. They
wanted a painter not a designer.!
Unknown to them, the very man they needed was already working
in their art department. Another German exile, Hein Heckroth was a
painter and set designer who had been associated with both the
expressionist Otto Dix and the surrealist M ax Ernst. In 19 32 his
designs for Kurt Jooss’s ‘apocalyptic ballet drama’, The Green Table,
brought him international celebrity in dance circles. In 1934 he
followed his Jewish wife, Ada, into exile and taught at the alternative

*Australian-born Helpmann was no stranger to The Archers; his first film role was as the
quisling in O n e o f O u r A ir c r a f t is M is s in g .
tBritish halier companies of the Thirties and Forties continued the tradition established by
Diaghilev of using the best contemporary easel painters for their sets. Where Diaghilev used
Picasso and Matisse, Sadler’s Wells used John Piper and Graham Sutherland.
 THE RED SHOES 281

art school in Dartington Hall, Devon. He mixed with the avant­

garde circle led by Roland Penrose and Lee Miller, and continued to
work with experimental dance companies. He detested the British
tendency towards narrative ballet, preaching the value of the sub­
conscious in art. His influences were Picasso and the surrealists Dali
and Paul Nash - and at its weakest their influence appears as
undigested lumps in his work.
Interned at the outbreak of war, Heckroth spent almost two years
in an Australian camp. On his return Vincent Korda got him a job
as a costume designer on Pascal’s Caesar and Cleopatra. He
developed a reputation for reliability and historical accuracy. On the
strength of this he was hired by Alfred Junge to design costumes and
titles for A Matter o f Life and Death and Black Narcissus.
On 4 June 1946, only two weeks into shooting Black Narcissus,
Heckroth was asked to design the ballet segment of The Red Shoes -
leaving the remainder of the film to Junge. But Junge himself was
not informed of this new state of affairs within his own department.
Only a month later did he discover, by chance, what was going on.
He was enraged. He considered it an insult to his authority and
immediately tendered his resignation. Perhaps he didn’t think it
would be accepted, but it was. Junge’s departure heralded a startling
change in the style of The Archers’ films.
With Junge gone, Heckroth was asked - not without some trepid­
ation —to design the entire film. Due to his lack of technical know­
ledge he was given a more practically minded collaborator in the
form of Arthur Lawson.
Heckroth’s contribution to The Red Shoes was immeasurable. For
the first time The Archers made use of extensive storyboards. The
whole ballet sequence, which Heckroth ‘rewrote’ from Emeric’s
original outline, was sketched out in a series of 1 1 8 ink drawings.
Additionally, he produced a set of colour sketches which were
filmed like a primitive cartoon and synchronized to the pre-recorded
ballet music, to act as a guide throughout the filming. ‘My picture’,
Heckroth wrote in his diary on 28 May 1947, ‘has a very practical
idea: cutting before shooting - which is important for a musical
picture but not for a literary story.’ When the ballet sequence was
shot each day’s rushes were inserted into the ‘animated’ film,
replacing sketches with live action. According to Christopher Chal-
lis, the camera operator, the whole crew, from electricians to make­
up, were fascinated by the transformation and used to wait behind
zSz EMERIC

after a long day’s work to see the ballet come to life /

Adding to the ‘composed’ feeling of the ballet sequence is Heck-
roth’s carefully orchestrated use of colour. ‘To make a symbol that
represents nature,’ he said, ‘you cannot copy nature’s colouring, such
pigments don’t exist. You must set out to use colour dramatically like
you use an actor, and it is essential that the person using the colour be
a painter . . . 1 like to use them [colours] as a musician uses melody.
Every mood and emotion has its shade.’ Under the influence of the
Bauhaus, Heckroth developed his own colour theory and created an
expressive colour scheme for the film. First he painted a colour key
which was his colour interpretation of the film’s narrative and then he
and sketch artist Ivor Beddoes followed it for every one of the
hundreds of sketches they did for the ballet sequence: ‘Starting with
the grey of the morning, going on to the brighter tints of midday,
going to the deep tints of the evening, on to the exciting colours of the
fête, down to the black night and the frosty colours of the Sunday
morning, the last morning of the girl who danced in the red shoes.’
To attain the exact colours which he required, Heckroth worked
closely with Jack Cardiff. Together they experimented with different
filters and lighting arrangements to reproduce on Technicolor exactly
the effect they wanted. Chris Challis recalls the trouble Cardiff went
to: ‘He was very keen on the creative use of filters and had all his
filters made by two old ladies, the Misses Gaigen who lived at
Chalfont St Giles, who made filters by hand. They painted them on
gelatine and then sandwiched them between optical glass and they
would make anything you wanted. He got them to make graduated
colour filters, filters with bars of colour across the middle for all sorts
of effects. They were the only people who could make these sorts of
things and now they are dead the secret has died with them.’
Cardiff found the experience of making The Red Shoes ‘the most
exciting film-making experience of my life. There was such a sense of
collaboration and experimentation around.’ He himself experimented
not only with colour, but with camera movement: ‘Before we started*

* Hein’s animated storyboards for the ballet sequence were such a success that on 17 M ay
he wrote in his diary: i would like to illustrate the whole script of R e d S h o e s with action
sketches. Sometimes I think 1 would direct the picture much better than anybody.’ This
delusion was soon cast aside when filming began: ‘ For the first two days I sit on the set
watching Micky and the cameraman. If 1 had a pistol I would have shot them both. They
play havoc with everything. It seems to me that they are doing everything wrong. But when
I see the rushes next day everything is right. I realize then that if 1 had been director it would
have been the end of the picture.’
 THE RED SHOES 283

shooting on The Red Shoes I wanted to do some experiments with the

camera, and they let me shoot for a few days on my own . . . I had two
or three dancers and 1 experimented with different speeds of the
camera^—slow motion and fast and different lenses and ideas. And I
photographed a dancer pirouetting with the normal speed - 24
frames per second - then 1 turned the speed, so that they were going
round very fast, you know. And this idea was used to great effect in
the scene when Moira is dancing with a piece of paper. 1 did many
effects like that.’
The last of the major collaborators to join the creative team was
also the most prestigious. Leonide Massine was the acknowledged
genius of contemporary ballet. At the age of 52 he was the last of the
holy quartet of modern dancers (the others were Pavlova, Nijinsky
and Karsavina) still to be dancing. He was engaged to play the role of
Grischa Ljubov, the company choreographer.* Although initially
tempted into the film by the substantial amount of cash on offer
(£10,000) Massine was full of enthusiasm and curiosity about the
cinema and asked to create the choreography for his own part. Hein
Heckroth wrote in his diary after Massine’s first visit:
He asked me some technical questions, ‘Do you think the
camera will improve dance - I don’t think on cutting in, more
turnings, pirouettes etc. It will be obvious that we have here a
typical cinema trick - what I mean is like the microphone helps
the voice - could the camera improve an elevation - in an
absolutely normal way - no slowing down etc.’ 1 promised that
we will go into this question. Interesting that Massine here
asked for an improvement where Robert Helpmann has been
asking for typical cinematic effects.
Heckroth was impressed with the dancer and pleased to have him
involved in the film:
See Massine to discuss make-up and mask . . . We went with
Massine to the British museum to look at Degas, Lautrec etc.
Massine was looking for inspiration for his part as ballet master
in Red Shoes. I know about this mania - Gerry Kirsta told me - *

*Emeric’s script had always contained the line for Ljubov: ‘ When 1, who have seen Pavlova
and Karsavina dance, say “ not bad” . . . now that is something.’ But they take on an added
significance when spoken by Massine who had indeed seen them dance — and danced with
them.
284 EMERIC

that M. will start any production by going to the museum. Papa

Diagheleff told young M. to do so and so he does. 1 pointed out
Oscar Wilde’s face to him and M. liked the idea . . . 1 discussed
with him and his wife the part of the magician. He would prefer to
be actually the man who produces the shoes (he thought of the
Meistersinger Hanns Sachs etc) I have thought of this idea before
and better come back to it. Massine in the picture will be a big help.
The Red Shoes was probably the pinnacle of the collaborative principle
in movie-making. Life echoes art. In the film Lermontov the impresario
is the guiding hand who oversees the collaboration of his company all
contributing their own special skill to the finished product. In life
Emeric and Michael were the Lermontovs. It is ridiculous to speak of
The Red Shoes as a Powell-Pressburger film. It is a production of The
Archers.
Emeric had learned about collaboration during the day-long Regies-
zungen in Stapi’s garden at Babelsberg, and Michael made a great
effort to extend the sense of collaboration to everyone on the studio
floor. ‘He called out to the electricians sitting up in the gantries,’
recalled Marius Goring. “ You must all understand that it is impossible
for any film to be made without electricity and you people are
supplying it and it’s how you supply it that’s going to make this a good
or a bad film. Follow what is going on down here and please make your
own suggestions, then we will achieve something together . . . ” Never
once during all those pictures I made with them did 1 ever see anyone
reading a book or a paper up there. They were too interested in what
was going on down on the floor.’
But as in any creative fraternity there was dissent. Allan Gray was a
slow worker, and the pre-production was already well advanced
before he had even portions of his score ready to play to Emeric,
Helpmann and Heckroth who were collaborating with him on the
scenario for the ballet. Nobody was very happy with what they heard.
Gray was basically a pasticheur and he was unable to escape from the
confines of incidental music and cabaret to create an original score.
Emeric was put in an awkward situation; he felt a certain loyalty
towards his old Berlin friend. Helpmann openly declared that he
thought the music ‘utterly commonplace’ and said that if the film
became any more ‘to the public taste’ he would withdraw from it.
When Massine heard the music he could only agree, as Heckroth wrote
in his diary:
 THE RED SHOES 285

He thinks making a ballet with this music is building a house on

water. To stand up against the ideas in this ballet asks for a
composer of personality. Maybe it would be possible to arrange
the^music with existing compositions, but I don’t know how to
arrive at a climax - the scene with the water - you just can’t take
parts from Stravinsky and put it into your own finieree [?].
Gray was allowed to continue with the music for a fortnight and
though Helpmann agreed that it was improving, nobody had much
enthusiasm for it. On 25 March all the main collaborators met at
Gray’s cottage to hear the complete score. The atmosphere was
leaden. After the performance Helpmann took Emeric, Michael and
Heckroth upstairs and told them that the music was second rate at
best and that if he was offered it at Covent Garden he would refuse it,
‘but I will not say that I cannot make the film with it.’
That was it. They could delay no longer if they genuinely wanted
The Red Shoes’ ballet to be a first-class work of art. That same
evening Emeric called Brian Easdale. The next day Easdale came out
to Pinewood and read the outline for the ballet and looked at Heck-
roth’s sketches. Within a week the whole Archers ‘committee’ met
again, to hear the first results of his efforts.
‘I thought maybe something like this,’ suggested the composer as he
picked out The Red Shoes theme. The room was swept with relief.
Massine started tapping his feet.
‘That’s wonderful, Brian, when can you give us the complete
score?’ asked Michael.
‘When would you like it?’
‘Yesterday.’
Massine and Helpmann, the two choreographers-cum-actors, were
only the start of a first-class, cosmopolitan cast. Albert Bassermann,
the grand old man of the pre-war German stage, made his last screen
appearance as Ratov. Ludmilla Tcherina, the youngest ever prima
ballerina at the Monte Carlo ballet, made her film debut as Bor-
onskaja. Marius Goring finally got to play that ‘juvenile lead’ as
Julian Craster. That Archers’ regular, Esmond Knight - almost totally
blind - appeared as the conductor, Livy. In the lesser roles stalwart
character actors like Irene Browne and Hay Petrie mixed with the
likes of Madame Rambert, playing herself.
Undoubtedly, the best performance came from Anton Walbrook.
Emeric had written the part of Lermontov, the autocratic impresario,
286 EMERIC

with him in mind. He had a repressed, pent-up energy about him that
was perfect for the part. Emeric thought that Lermontov was one of
the best characters he ever created, but he was too readily accused of
basing him on the tyrannical impresario par excellence, Sergei Diagh­
ilev. Emeric denied the charge: ‘There is something of Diaghilev,
something of Alex Korda, something of Michael and quite a bit of
me.’ *
There was still one crucial part uncast, that of Vicky Page, the
ballerina who puts on the red shoes and dances to her death. Michael
was adamant that they should not use a double for the dance
sequences, but would have to find a first-class dancer with film star
looks who could also act. Their first choice was Moira Shearer, a
flame-haired young Scot, second only to Margot Fonteyn at the Royal
Ballet, who knew exactly where she was going. That was the trouble.
All she wanted to do was dance. She considered the cinema a pretty
second-rate means of expression. The Archers were astonished that
any young girl would turn down the opportunity of being a film star.
Moira Shearer remembers clearly the first day that she met Michael
Powell. It was early 1946, the company had taken up residence of the
Royal Opera House and Shearer had just started to dance major
roles. ‘The last thing I wanted to do was to go off and do anything
else,’ she says. ‘And I looked at the script. . . and I thought it was - I
suppose inevitably - utterly unlike any ballet company that there had
ever been anywhere. They just weren’t like that. And so I turned it
down.’
And for the better part of a year she kept on turning it down.
Reluctantly, Emeric and Michael looked around for alternatives.
Other ballerinas were tested, including the Americans Nana Gollner
and Edwina Seaver. But none of them was quite right. Characteris­
tically, Michael - itching to do the movie now, no matter what —lost
patience with the search and suggested that they use a double after all.
He considered both red-headed newcomer Hazel Court and Ann
Todd, at the height of her appeal as a romantic lead after The Seventh
Veil. Emeric, backed up by Helpmann and Heckroth, insisted that
this would be too great a compromise. The presence of Moira Shearer
was everywhere, taunting them. On one occasion Emeric, Michael
and Helpmann went to see Nana Gollner dance Coppelia with the

*The manuscript of Emeric’s and Michael’s 19 7 8 novelization of T h e R e d S h o e s contains

the dedication: To Alex Korda, a good friend, a great impresario.
 THE RED SHOES 287

International Ballet. But Gollner had fallen ill and Shearer danced in
her place.
It looked as though the production would fall through. Then, quite
unexpectedly, when Emeric had tried apd failed with all the subtle
and unsubtle means of persuasion known to a Hungarian producer,
Shearer agreed to play the part:
‘Oddly enough, o f all unlikely people it was Ninette de Valois [foun­
der and autocratic head of the Royal Ballet] who called me into her
office one day — and she’s a very frightening lady, you know, we
always had to stand to attention practically on a little mat in front o f
her desk. It was extraordinary, I ’ll never forget it. She saidt “For
G o d ’s sake do this film because w e’re absolutely sick o f this man
coming round here all the time and bothering us . . . ” I was amazed at
her saying this. I remember saying to her: “And if I do, what happens
to me afterwards? ” And she looked at me oddly and I said: “ Can I
just come back to the company and go on as if nothing had hap­
pened* ” “ Oh yes, dear, Oh yes!” And in fact that is exactly what I
did.’
In May 1947 the 2 1 -year-old Shearer did a screen test. Emeric and
Michael thought the results ‘almost miraculous’. Heckroth alone had
qualms: ‘Personally I am not that excited about her - something very
middle-class, bourgeois.’

In the space of five or six years Emeric the enemy alien, who scraped a
precarious living on the fringes of the film industry, had turned into a
prosperous, internationally renowned, independent producer. In
keeping with his new-found prominence and his relative wealth,
Emeric sold the house in Hendon the following month and moved his
family to a far less modest premises down the road in Hampstead. 72
Redington Road (now the Czech Ambassador’s residence) is an
imposing 1 920s redbrick mansion. It was a sizeable place with six
bedrooms, two nurseries, two drawing rooms (one formal, one infor­
mal), two studies, a dining room, a ping-pong room and full staff
quarters. It was set in one of the biggest privately owned gardens in
London: two acres, with an orchard, a covered walk, lawns and rose
beds.
The interior was a compromise between Emeric and Wendy’s
opposing tastes. Wendy’s sitting room was formal, furnished with
imitation Louis Quinze furniture, embroidered carpets and porcelain
z88 EMERIC

ornaments. Their bedroom was also Wendy’s prerogative, and consis­

ted, according to their daughter, Angela, of ‘miles of padded pink satin
and frills’. The remainder of the house was more or less under Emeric’s
control, with a Thirties, minimalist feel. Wendy loathed Emeric’s
modernist taste and all the more extreme Bauhaus-style furniture was
relegated to his private study where he did his writing, listened to the
football and held auditions on a little ‘stage’ at one end of the room.
Even less to Wendy’s liking was Emeric’s ‘sausage room’ . Banished to
the servants’ quarters on the top floor, well out of reach of Wendy’s
nose, Emeric, like any good Hungarian, kept his collection of ripening
salamis. ‘There were scores of them, all different kinds,’ recalls Angela,
‘he would go up there to inspect them and prod them every now and
again.’
Indeed, the whole house had a foreign flavour to it. Not only was
Hampstead the favoured area for all the better-off intellectuals and
artists among the European émigrés (their neighbours included Zoltán
Korda and Anton Walbrook), but Emeric insisted on staffing the house
almost exclusively with ‘continentals’. He felt it was one of the few ways
he could help his fellow émigrés. Five was the normal complement of
staff. There was Mrs Kollarik the Hungarian cook, two French Jewish
maids, the Misses Kofler and Lemke, old Miss Grainger the nanny
(known as Ganna) and morose M r Christie the gardener, whose duty it
also was to look after Emeric’s cream-coloured Bentley. Over a period
there was a succession of different Polish ex-Cavalry officers as butler.
Wendy loathed the continental atmosphere. She felt suffocated by
Emeric’s control over everything in her daily life, and all the foreigners
only made her feel more trapped. Although Emeric still saw a lot of
Ralph Richardson and his wife Mu, Valerie Hobson, the producer
Anthony Havelock-Allan and David Farrar, his close circle of friends
were still Hungarian and German - the Kordas, Wolfgang Wilhelm
and George Mikes. Wendy felt excluded. The foreign staff only
exacerbated matters. Mrs Kollarik, the cook, went through the form of
knocking on Wendy’s door every morning to ask what she wanted for
lunch. Wendy would make a request, but Mrs Kollarik spoke hardly a
word of English, so she always served up the same Hungarian food:
stuffed cabbage, chicken paprika, poppy-seed cakes and fried goose
liver. (According to Angela, Mrs K., as she was known, also made
apple strudel once a week by placing her cat on a cushion on top of the
mixture to provide the perfect temperature for the dough.)
Emeric lived very well, always insisting on the best in everything,
 THE RED SHOES 289

whether it be a car, a pair of shoes or just a tin opener. In his world

there was a right place and a wrong place to buy every single item
and once he had pinpointed his special shop or supplier he stuck
with them loyally. His shirts came from.Sulka, his shoes from Lobb,
his private blend of coffee from an Italian delicatessen in Soho.
Perhaps betraying his Central European, Jewish upbringing, he car­
ried around an exaggerated respect for good quality tradesmen of
every type. He was particularly fussy about his food and his laun­
dry. In the course of his life he befriended a whole series of butchers
and spent hours discussing the intricacies of various cuts of meat.
Most of his other groceries came from Harrods or Fortnum and
Mason. As far as laundry was concerned he didn’t trust anyone at
all in London to do it properly. ‘The English know how to cut a
shirt, they can even manage to wash it, but they haven’t a clue how
to press it properly.’ Every week Emeric sent his shirts by airmail to
Paris to be laundered. He would sing the praises of the little family
laundry on the avenue Kléber to anyone who would listen. Angela
recalls that whenever the family went to Paris she had the choice of
accompanying her mother to the hat-maker or her father to the
laundry, for a chat about technique with the proprietor. ‘I always
chose the laundry.’
Emeric belonged to that certain group of Central European Jews
who look on present-giving as an art. He lavished an endless suc­
cession of jewels and couture dresses on Wendy and enjoyed her
reputation as a society beauty (Hein Heckroth’s personal nickname
for her was the Welsh Dresser). When not entertaining at home they
were seen at film premières and at the opera. Emeric had his own
box at Covent Garden on the extreme right-hand side of the theatre,
from where you had to strain to see the stage, but with a perfect
view of the orchestra —which was what he was really interested in.
Instead of the modest wartime holiday in Scotland and Devon, the
family now travelled regularly to all Europe’s top resorts. In the
winter it was Davos, Zermatt or Kitzbiihel; in the summer, Italy and
Monte Carlo. Emeric dreamed of owning a villa on the Riviera, and
would certainly have bought one if it hadn’t been for post-war
currency restrictions: only about £20 per person could be taken out
of the country at a time. Not much if you stay at grand hotels and
eat in Emeric’s favourite restaurants. It was Stapi - his company
Carlton Films was thriving - who paid for everything while they
were in Europe, while they picked up the bills when he made his
290 EMERIC

frequent trips to London. These were the days of supertax, and

Emeric saved nothing.
But the seeds of domestic discontent had already been laid. Valerie
Hobson recalled that the big, new house never had the same atmos­
phere as the one in Hendon. ‘It was terribly big and impersonal and
Emeric seemed to be rather lost in it somehow.’ Whatever problems
there were in the marriage, they were exacerbated by a particular
personal tragedy. On 8 July 1947 Wendy gave birth to a second
daughter, christened Sally-Sue. It was a difficult birth and she stayed
in a nursing home for over six weeks. Despite the fact that the baby
was weak and sickly and that Wendy was still not entirely recovered,
Emeric insisted that she accompany him on a trip to America at the
end of October. When they returned Sally-Sue’s condition had wor­
sened and she died of pneumonia in February 1948. Wendy never
really forgave Emeric for that.

The Red Shoes started shooting on 5 June in Paris with Boronskaja’s

tearful farewell at the Gare de Lyon. A week later the company
moved to the south of France. Emeric and Michael scouted the entire
coast between Nice and Monte Carlo in search of ‘ Lermontov’s villa’,
which they found in the shape of the Villa Leopolda, near Villefran-
che, built by an earlier king of the Belgians for his mistresses. It was
exactly what Heckroth had envisaged in his drawings, down to the
weed-covered staircase which is Vicky’s entrance into the enchanted
world of the red shoes.
For the first time Emeric accompanied the crew throughout loca­
tion shooting. After the austerity of post-war Britain there was
nothing like the Riviera. In spite of the long hours and sweltering
heat, a holiday atmosphere prevailed. Vivienne Knight, the unit pub­
licist, recalled a typical lunch: ‘We drank Pernod and more Pernod
and more Pernod. One by one we dropped out. Micky thought to ask
Emeric whether he didn’t think he had had enough. Emeric replied
deadpan: “ It is one of the great tragedies of my life that I can never
have enough Pernod, because long before I have had enough the
waiter can no longer understand what I am asking for!” ’
The Riviera was part of Emeric’s and Michael’s youth and they
enjoyed taking the cast and crew to all their old haunts. Michael told
stories about his time with Rex Ingram in Nice and the Russian
émigré dancers he had known, and Emeric about his days on an
extravagant Ufa expense account with Reinhold Schünzel, or the
 THE RED SHOES 291

bohemian times with Pierre Brasseur and Kurt Gerron. The partners
argued about which were the best restaurants and hotels, and from
where the best views of Monte Carlo were to be had; Emeric insisted
it was from the men’s toilets at the casino.
But Emeric’s time was not spent entirely on trivialities. On 17 June
he began a new career: as an actor. This debut - also his swan song -
met with some publicity: ‘Mr Pressburger does a Hitchcock!’
exclaimed Nice-Soir. If you have a quick eye and a slow projector you
can spot him, in three-quarter profile wearing a blue short-sleeved
shirt as the train bringing Vicky to a reconciliation with Lermontov
pulls into Cannes station.
Shearer and Massine only arrived on location after the Covent
Garden season had finished at the end of June. A champagne recep­
tion was held for them at the Hotel de Paris. But as far as Shearer was
concerned, that was the end of the fun. She remembers with horror
her very first scene - the penultimate one of the movie - Vicky’s death
on the railway tracks. She had to lie out in the sun for hours, her fair
skin ‘burning up like mad’, underneath a real French train ‘with oil
dripping all over me’. Unaccustomed to film-making, she couldn’t
understand why everything was taking so long. The black rubber
stretcher on which her lifeless body was to be placed had also been
left out in the sun. ‘And so when they put me down on this thing I
stuck to it and burned my back! I leapt up, I can tell you, leaving bits
of my back behind!’ Shearer was convinced Michael had planned the
whole episode and a tension verging on outright animosity developed
between them.
Shearer actually had little to do on location. The long shots of
Vicky’s suicide leap from the balcony and many others were done by
her stand-in, Joy Rawlings. At the beginning of July the unit returned
to Pinewood to start the interiors. The remainder of the film was to be
shot in two separate halves, the narrative section first, followed by the
ballet sequence, with a two-week gap in between —a holiday for the
crew, rehearsal time for the dancers.
Shearer remembers that Emeric came down to the set once or twice
a day to consult with Michael and discuss script problems with the
cast. Not that he would often change anything. Shearer had resigned
herself to the ‘unreality’ of the script, and only asked for one or two
small alterations. ‘He was, I thought, incredibly obstinate . . . “ No,
No, I don’t want it like that,” he would say, “ so you’ll just have to
leave it and say it as best you can.” ’ According to Shearer, it was only
292 EMERIC

Anton Walbrook who ever persuaded Emeric to change lines,

‘because he trusted Anton more than any of us’ .
The film was already running over budget and The Archers tried to
negotiate for more money. But there had been radical changes going
on at the Rank Organisation. Having recently announced a deficit of
some £ 13 million (the result of poor management, combined with a
continued inability to break into the American market*), the banks
had forced Rank to hand over day-to-day running of the company to
his chief accountant, John Davis, who promptly announced a
sweeping programme of ‘rationalization’. Unlike Rank, he was not a
believer in high-budget, ‘prestige’ pictures, and was shocked at the
ease with which Emeric and Michael could run over budget. He
would only authorize an extension of The Red Shoes* budget if
Emeric and Michael themselves took a £10,000 cut in their salaries in
exchange for an increased percentage of the profits (from the stand­
ard 25 per cent to 37.5 per cent). The film was half finished and they
were in no position to argue.
The narrative section of the film was completed in late September
and Michael took a fortnight’s holiday while the dancers rehearsed.
When he returned, Emeric left for a fact-finding trip to America with
Wendy, safe in the knowledge that the ballet could not stray far from
the animated drawings and scenario which Heckroth, Helpmann and
he had agreed upon.
On the whole the dancers did not share Massine’s enthusiasm for
cinema. There were practical complaints about the early starts and
the discomfort of dancing on the studio’s concrete floors. There were
also artistic ones about the ‘jigsaw’ nature of film-making - having to
perform a single movement in isolation numerous times without the
necessary build-up. Helpmann himself was opened-minded on this
point. ‘There was only one piece of ballet which I insisted must be

* During the war Rank negotiated a much publicized deal with United Artists to distribute
his films in North America. The tie-up was a disaster. It was generally recognized that a film
had to make $ 2 million in the States and Canada to be considered a success. Even the most
run-of-the-mill Hollywood B feature could expect to earn $50 0,00 0. Rank’s pictures
occupied a subterranean region even below this. A ‘ prestige’ film like Rank’s M r E m m a n u e l
made a paltry $ 2 2 9 ,2 4 9 . T h e W a y to th e S t a r s , one of the most commercially successful
films in Britain, clocked up a shocking $ 6 3 ,4 3 4 . Even The Archers’ O n e o f O u r A ir c r a ft is
M is s i n g , despite the critical praise heaped upon it, made only $ 4 7 8 ,9 3 9 . C o l o n e l B l i m p
managed $ 3 0 5 ,9 4 3 . In 19 4 5 Rank dumped United Artists and made a deal with Universal,
who fared slightly better with British films. Between 19 4 5 and 19 4 7 the annual figure of
British sales rose from $7 50 ,0 0 0 to $4 million. To date 4 9 t h P a r a lle l and B la c k N a r c is s u s
had been the only Archers films to make significant profits in America.
 THE RED SHOES 293

shot as a whole - the dance of exhaustion; you couldn’t possibly

break it. It had to be danced continuously.’
Shearer, in particular, failed to grasp the basic differences between
stage ffncf screen, and was infuriated by The Archers’ lack of ballet
knowledge:
They had no idea about what was good from the point o f view o f
actual dancing and what was less good and what was actually bad -
not that I think there was anything that was particularly bad that was
filmed. They would take three or four, or maybe half a dozen takes o f
the same sequence . . . we always had to stop because the lighting was
wrong or because the sound was incorrect or because the tape was
running at the wrong speed, I don't know. There would be something
technical, and we would be left hanging in the air. And we were lucky
if you were able to dance for 25 seconds continuously - you can't
dance like that. It stops you before you get going. They didn't
understand us at all. And when they came to look at the rushes,
without fail they chose the least good performance because it was
always the one where they had got everything just right cinematically.
And so they threw away really good dancing . . . It was only when we
saw a rough cut that we realized what they had done. And I remem­
ber weeping in the dark in the little cinema at Pinewood when I saw it
because I thought, this is a travesty o f so much that a lot o f people
have done.'
In most circumstances Michael was a deeply generous and charis­
matic individual, but he could be a ‘difficult director’ and, at times, an
unpleasant man. He inspired a profound loyalty in those who worked
with him regularly, but in general he was an unpopular figure in the
British film industry, with a reputation for arrogance, bad-temper and
even cruelty. Many technicians and actors flatly refused to work with
him. In my interviews for this book the subject of Michael’s unpleas­
antness came up time and time again. Most people had witnessed, or
been the victim of, one of his attacks. Those who worked with him
regularly recall a definite occasion when they were ‘tested’. If they
answered back and stood up for themselves, everything was fine,
Michael respected them. If not, they were bullied mercilessly. ‘He
chose his targets carefully,’ said one technician, ‘he only went for
those he knew were too weak to do anything about it. He was a
bully.’
Occasionally his behaviour was justified by positive results, as
294 EMERIC

when he forced a good performance from an actor. More often than

not, however, the effect was negative when actors were made to feel
upset and nervous, or technicians such as Ronald Neame walked off
the set in disgust. In the final analysis it was deeply self-destructive
and detrimental to the films and to The Archers’ relationship with
financiers and actors. Time and time again Emeric found himself
vainly trying to patch up the disastrous results.
During the filming of The Red Shoes, observers say that Michael’s
sadistic streak surfaced more than ever before. One particularly
infamous incident concerned his public humiliation of the 80-year-
old Albert Bassermann — an incident which he conveniently re­
fashioned in his autobiography. Anton Walbrook, to whom Basser­
mann was a legendary figure both as an actor and as an anti-Nazi
Aryan, was so infuriated by the director’s behaviour that he vowed
never to work with The Archers again/
In the climactic scene in Shearer’s dressing-room where she is torn
apart by the conflicting interests of Art and Life (personified by
Lermontov and Craster) Michael created a genuine hysteria. Accord­
ing to Shearer, he ‘demolished Yvonne Aundrey [who played the
dresser], so she couldn’t even turn the door handle.’ And when it
came to the point where Vicky Page was supposed to break down,
Shearer cried real tears, ‘more for poor Yvonne than anything else.’
Why did Emeric put up with it? There is no doubt that he was
frequently revolted by his partner’s behaviour. When things were
particularly bad, and when Michael was personally unpleasant to
him, he seriously considered dissolving the partnership. But in the end
he always forgave, his personal affection - his love - for Michael was
strong. And perhaps he was also scared of being on his own. Would
other people understand his ideas like Michael did? Would other
partners put up with Emeric’s own failings? There were plenty of
them and they were growing ever more prominent. He was obstinate,
reclusive, hypersensitive, increasingly prone to fits of melancholia and
impatient with those who didn’t live up to his impossibly high stand­
ards. Without the fiercely energetic Michael to kick-start him, to
needle him and bear with his little tics, Emeric would have been lost.
He was no longer the energetic exile of before the war who could fit in
and succeed anywhere.*

*A vow which he fortunately broke to star in O h . . . R o s a l in d a !! in 19 5 5 .

 THE RED SHOES z 95

The Red Shoes came in substantially over budget and behind

schedule. Planned as a 15-week shoot costing £300,000, in reality
the film shot for 24 weeks and cost a staggering £ 5 5 1,9 2 7 . The
Rank Organisation grew twitchy. Their financial problems were
only getting worse and the last thing they needed was a film like The
Red Shoes — an obvious Art House movie - going quarter of a
million pounds over budget. Relations between Rank and The
Archers grew increasingly strained.
It had been obvious to both Emeric and Michael for some time
that the halcyon days of Independent Producers were over. What
had started out as an exercise in creative liberation, was becoming
increasingly swamped with bureaucratic detail. Moreover, J.
Arthur’s own laissez-faire attitude was being abandoned as the Rank
organisation’s chief accountant, John Davis - whom the normally
equitable Emeric called ‘a monster’ and whom even his friends
called a philistine - took greater control of the company. Previously,
as Ronald Neame remembers, if the accountant hounded the film­
makers about their rising budgets, Rank would say: ‘Don’t discour­
age the boys, John.’ Now even Rank couldn’t keep Davis at bay and
he became the bête noire. Budgets were slashed, freedom restricted.
The Archers decided to sample the grass on the other side of the
fence in February 1947 and signed a single picture deal with Korda
to make a film called The Promotion o f the Admiral directly after
The Red Shoes. But as pressure grew over The Red Shoes’ budget, it
became apparent that the split from Rank would not be a tentative
or temporary one. Various options were explored for the future. On
18 November Michael cabled Emeric, then in the middle of his
American trip, at the Beverly Hills Hotel:
WE SH ALL F IN IS H ON OR ABO UT NO VEM BER 2IS T STO P
F IN A L SEQ U EN C ES VERY GOOD P A R T IC U L A R L Y SH EA R ER
STO P ROM E CEN SO R HAS O KAYED N EW V E R S IO N NAR­
C IS S U S STO P PLEA SE C L A R IF Y W H IC H V E R S IO N W IL L BE
A C C E P T A B L E IN L A T I N A M E R I C A S T O P H O P E N O T U S A V E R -~
SIO N STO P ID E A L H U SB A N D * H A N D SO M E O LD F A S H IO N E D
VERY STAG EY STO P W H IL E ON CO AST HOPE W IL L SEE
G O LD W YN AND S E L Z N IC K STO P AM SU R E O NLY P O S S IB L E *

*The last complete film directed by Alexander Korda, summed up perfectly by Michael.
With too much decor and too many epigrams, this was London Films regressing to their
pre-war style.
29 6 EMERIC

F U T U R E W I L L B E C O M B IN A T IO N W IT H T H E M A N D K O R D A TO
M AKE O NLY B IG F IL M S AND M ARKET THEM O U R SELVES.
LO VE = M IC K Y

Michael’s suggestion was more prescient than he could have known.

Again, it was Emeric who took the part of Theseus facing the
Minotaur, screening the rough cut of The Red Shoes for leaden-faced
Rank executives early in 1948. Not a word was uttered from the
moment Emeric signalled the projectionist to begin until the end. On
the final credit the whole posse stood up and filed out in silence, utterly
convinced that they had lost their shirts. A meeting was held to decide
whether it was worth sinking yet more money into the film to complete
it.
Emeric took the initiative, loading the rough cut into a taxi and
taking it round to Korda’s new offices at 144—5 Piccadilly. They
screened it for the mogul.
‘We believe in this picture,’ they said, ‘but the Rank organisation
doesn’t. Are you willing to take it over?’
‘Yes,’ replied Alex without a moment’s hesitation.
‘It means £500,000 in cash,’ Michael warned him.
‘1 think it can be arranged,’ smiled Korda.
The two partners returned in triumph to Rank’s headquarters on
South Street. But Korda’s offer forced Davis to reconsider. Perhaps the
film had some value after all. He declined to sell it, and provided the
completion money.
The Red Shoes was released in July, with limited publicity and
without a gala première, at the Gaumont cinema in the Haymarket —
not the prestige Odeon, Leicester Square, where The Archers were
accustomed to showing their wares. The critics were stunned by the
film’s sheer audacity. At the press show, there was spontaneous
applause after the ballet sequence - in the middle of the film. But the
reviews, as usual, were mixed. The Daily Film Renter was repre­
sentative:
Powell and Pressburger have once again fumbled over a fine idea,
and their opulent work trembles between the heights and the
depths. On balance an exciting novelty with stirring moments for
class audiences, a feast for ballet fans, and an impressive adver­
tisement for the potentialities of British production.
It was the story that came in for the severest flak: ‘Having spent more
 THE RED SHOES 297

than £250,000 on production,’ wrote the Daily Herald, ‘the makers, I

meekly suggest, might have sent someone a postal order for a better
plot.’
Another oft-voiced criticism concerned the goryness of the ending.
‘ The Red Shoes is probably the loveliest spectacle the screen has ever
seen,’ wrote Jympson Harman in the Evening News. ‘Only one thing I
cannot forgive the producers - the horrible scene of the blood-stained
body of their lovely creation after the suicide. No true artist would do
a thing like that.’ The brutal ending (which hardly seems brutal
today) was, of course, taken from Hans Christian Andersen’s original
tale. Nevertheless it was chalked up as yet another of The Archers’
lapses in taste. The most thoroughly understanding review came from
C. A. Lejeune of The Observer:
A film that is in love with the ballet is clearly not going to be
everybody’s love; but enthusiasm is a strong infection, and any
picture that deals as single-heartedly with its subject as The Red
Shoes (Gaumont) will have something to say to people who
know what it is to concentrate passionately on one job, to live
for it and live in it.
Considering its limited release the film did good business. But it was
in America that it really took off. Opening in New York, relatively
unheralded, and later across the country, theatres held it over for
week after week. At the Bijou in New York it played continuously for
over two years. Little girls begged their parents to take them to The
Red Shoes, and they went back again and again. A few years later
Variety published its list of the top grossing films of all time —The
Golden Fifty. The Red Shoes was among them. By some accounts it
was the biggest grossing British film ever.
It was tempting for Emeric and Michael to thumb their noses at
Davis and Rank —especially with that 37.5 per cent bulging in their
wallets. But soon enough they were to realize just how lucky they had
been during their six years at Independent Producers. Never again
were they to have such freedom. It was out of the frying pan and into
the fire.
 CHAPTER 15

Production Values
A producer shouldn’t get ulcers, he should give them.
SA M U EL G O LD W YN

In 19 42 Kellner Sandor, the estate manager’s son from the Hungarian

puszta, knelt before the King of England and arose Sir Alexander
Korda. After only six years as a British subject, he was the first film
producer to receive such an honour. The entire Hungarian expatriate
community was proud —if not a little envious - of his achievement.
He was what every émigré aspired to: cultured, charming, wealthy,
influential and now an English knight.
In 1946 Korda set about resurrecting the film empire he had
abandoned in tatters at the outset of the war. The new London Films
rapidly acquired a studio (Shepperton), a distribution company
(British Lion) and, in keeping with his aristocratic pretensions, pres­
tigious offices at 14 4 -5 Piccadilly, in a building where the King
himself had lived as a young man. Having recently sold his shares in
United Artists for a substantial profit, and successfully reissued a
batch of old films, Korda was, for once, properly capitalized. But his
determination to recapture his old stature in the industry was
seriously hampered by the dominance of the Rank Organisation,
which not only controlled all the major exhibitors, distributors and
studios, but the creative talent as well.
The Hungarian recipe for an omelette begins: ‘First, steal an egg
. . . ’ Korda’s recipe for the reborn London Films began: ‘First, steal
the film-makers . . . ’ At the top of his list, of course, were The Archers.
His tactics for wooing them were characteristic. He invited Emeric
and Michael to elegant dinner parties at his Claridges penthouse,
flattered them, introduced them to the rich and powerful, and plied
them with the best champagne and caviar (even when rationing was
in place, Korda lived, as someone observed, ‘like a Jewish cardinal’).
He also offered them financial terms which were half as good again as
what they were getting from Rank.
The Archers played the coy mistress to Korda’s advances (in fact, a
 PR O D U C T IO N VALUES 299

disaffected Carol Reed was the only major talent who defected to
London Films immediately). They knew that they would never have
as much freedom with Korda as they had at Independent Producers.
Korda was hot an enlightened outsider like Rank; he was a hands-on
creative producer. Moreover, although Emeric felt a certain loyalty
towards Korda as a fellow Hungarian and the instrument of his
introduction to Michael, he didn’t entirely trust him. Korda could
double-cross and intrigue like a Borgia. The difference being that he
did it with such panache that people always forgave him. On one
notorious occasion he promised the actress Ann Todd a starring role
and then gave it away to someone else. She stormed into his office in a
rage and told him what a horrible thing it was to do.
‘Ah,’ replied Korda, ‘I know it was, but 1 wouldn’t have done it to
anyone else.’
‘Why not?’ asked Todd, taken aback.
‘Because,’ he said, taking her gently by the arm, ‘you and I are such
good friends that I knew you would forgive me.’
Korda wouldn’t take The Archers’ ‘no’ for an answer and went out
of his way to accommodate them. He offered a single picture contract
so that they could test the water without committing themselves,
insisting that they could make any film they liked, with a substantial
budget and without interference. It was a bait Emeric and Michael
could hardly resist and in February 1947 they agreed to make the film
directly after The Red Shoes.
The trade papers announced that it would be ‘The Promotion of
the Admiral’, a swashbuckling sea adventure, based on a short story
by William Boyd Selous. But after consideration Emeric and Michael
set this subject aside, as something more suited to the kind of
ambitious, big-budget American co-productions they hoped to do in
the future. Instead they revived a project from the past: The Small
Back Room , an adaptation of Nigel Balchin’s novel. Set in dreary
wartime London, it was an intimate story of crippled love and morbid
self-pity, that cried out to be shot in black and white. It was hardly
what Korda had hoped for, but he made no objections, and stumped
up the £10,000 needed to buy back the rights from Independent
Producers.
Written in 19 43, The Small Back Room is a love story of sorts.
Sammy is an embittered bomb disposal expert, with a crippled foot
that ‘hurts like hell’. He works in an obscure government research
department and seeks solace in drink and self-pity. Susan lives with
300 EMERIC

Sammy, but he can barely accept her love and refuses to marry her.
The plot turns around his attempts to defuse a new type of deadly
German booby-trap bomb, as he struggles to come to terms with
himself and regain some semblance of self-esteem.
It was very much Michael’s project, the first Archers film which
hadn’t been first conceived or suggested by Emeric, who found it a
brittle, cold story. Nevertheless, as a piece of craftsmanship, the script
is one of Emeric’s finest: taut, verbally sparse and faithful to the novel
in tone. Only the ending differs significantly from the book. In the
novel, recklessly risking death, Sammy succeeds in defusing the
bomb, but afterwards his life seems as empty as before. In the film the
ending is redemptive; Sammy’s victory over the bomb is a victory
over his own self-destructive tendencies and allows him to accept
Susan’s love. Like A Canterbury Tale or Black Narcissus, The Small
Back Room is transformed into the story of a damaged psyche that is
healed by the journey of the script.
David Farrar, now under personal contract to The Archers, was
cast as Sammy and Kathleen Byron as Susan. ‘I was so pleased to do a
straightforward, sympathetic heroine for a change,’ she recalls. ‘After
Black Narcissus I didn’t work for about eighteen months because I
was typecast as a mad nun! The only director who did want a mad
woman, when I went down to see him, he said, “ but you seem very
sane!” ’ A brilliant supporting cast was comprised of Robert Morley
(adding a much needed dose of humour), Cyril Cusack, Michael
Gough and Jack Hawkins.
When Byron received the script she was horrified to find that
Emeric, bowing to censorship pressures, had Susan and Sammy living
apart, not together in the same apartment as in the novel. She thought
this ruined the essence of their relationship, and wrote a letter to
Emeric saying as much. ‘And when I had posted it I said to myself,
“ You are stupid, now they’ll just give the part away to someone else.”
But they didn’t. Emeric called me up and said, “ Well, if you don’t like
it, why don’t you think of something better?” So I suggested having
them living in the same block of flats, across the hall from each other
. . . and actually when the army chap brings her back to the flat at the
beginning you’re not quite sure who lives where. I pride myself on
that.’
The film started shooting in April 1948. Chris Challis, camera
operator on the last three Archers’ films, was promoted to lighting
cameraman. The film was shot in a noir/expressionist manner that
 P R O D U C T IO N VALUES 301

reflected the damaged psyche of its protagonist. Shooting began with

the long (17 minutes) defusing sequence, which Michael had the
brilliant idea of doing on the long stretch of shingle at Chesil Beach in
Dorset,''where every false movement dislodges a pebble. In terms of
tension, it is a cinematic tour de force. The interiors were shot at
Isleworth Studios. In the supporting cast, Cyril Cusack gave a par­
ticularly sensitive performance as the pathetic, stammering soldier,
desperately depressed because his wife is being unfaithful.
Predictably, The Small Back Room fared dismally at the box office.
Nobody wanted to be reminded of the dark days of the war, par­
ticularly in such a harrowing, unromantic manner. Critically, though,
the film was received as the finest thing The Archers had tackled since
the war - a return to realism, the Tight path’. Only one episode was
universally derided, what the News Chronicle labelled The big lapse
into Archery’. This was a ‘delirium sequence’, inspired by Dali’s
dream sequence in Spellbound, where Sammy, desperate for a drink,
hallucinates a giant bottle of whisky towering over him. It is the only
scene in the film which is identifiably the work of Hein Heckroth, and
although it seems to be a perfect extension of the expressionist
influence on the film’s lighting, the critics loathed it.

By early 1948, after barely two years of existence, the resurrected

London Films was already in financial trouble. Business conditions
were tough (and the American market still difficult to crack), but
Korda’s style of management was also to blame. He was profligate,
interfering and old-fashioned in his beliefs about what made a suc­
cessful ‘international film’. Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948) starring
David Niven and directed by Anthony Kimmins, was a perfect
example of everything that was wrong with the Korda method.
Written by committee, endlessly interfered with and compromised, it
was an expensive (£750,000), stately, Technicolor bore. There had
never been a finalized script, the actors were ill-cast, the director
ill-suited to the material. Emeric and Michael were asked, as a ‘per­
sonal favour’, to step in at the editing stage to try and salvage it. It is
difficult to say if they actually rewrote or reshot anything. More
likely, Korda just wanted to take advantage of Emeric’s well-known
incisiveness in structure and story in the editing room, but after a
fortnight’s work, Emeric gave up in disgust. It should have been a
lesson to him about what could happen if you became too much a
part of Korda’s ‘grand plan’.
302 EMERIC

When The Archers signed the contract for The Small Back Room in
1947, they looked on it as a temporary vacation from their true home
at Independent Producers. Their expectations, of course, were dashed
by the fiasco of The Red Shoes. Korda, who had believed in the ballet
film enough to offer Rank half a million pounds for it, beckoned them
further into the web of London Films with a sympathetic nod. On 22
January 1948 The Archers took the step which they had promised
themselves they would never take, and signed a multi-picture deal
with Korda for ‘five major cinematograph films’ .
In many respects it was a most advantageous contract. Emeric and
Michael were to be paid a total of £30,000 per film. For tax reasons
the method of payment was unusual. Shepperton Studios would pay
them £10,000 per film while London Films bought all 100 shares in
The Archers company for £100,000, to be paid in five instalments of
£20,000. Most gratifying, however, was that the deal provided for all
the major collaborators and technicians: Heckroth, Challis, Easdale,
Mills, Lawson and the rest. They, together with David Farrar, would
have retainers paid to them by London Films. Ironically, The Archers
as a group were solidified just at the moment when Emeric and
Michael accepted Korda’s thirty pieces of silver for the name of their
company, a name which had always represented independence and
integrity. Officially, The Archers were no more. In its place a new
company was incorporated in 1948: Michael Powell and Emeric
Pressburger Productions. They would keep the logo of the target, but
the name was gone forever.
By the end of 1948 all the other members of Independent Producers
had followed The Archers to London Films. Korda had turned the
tables on Rank. He now had Launder and Gilliat, David Lean and Ian
Dalrymple under contract. An enormous production schedule was
announced. But how would it be financed? Even with a £3 million
‘loan’ from the National Film Finance Corporation, London Films
was going broke.* One of Korda’s answers was to enter into co­
production agreements with the two major American independents:
Sam Goldwyn and David O. Selznick. Both were keen to work in
Europe, and enthusiastic above all to work with The Archers.

‘ Somehow Korda managed to get his hands on every penny of the £3 million fund founded
by the government to help the ailing independent film producers. When Harold Wilson,
President of the Board of Trade and responsible for the loan, expressed concern about
B o n n ie P r in c e C h a r l ie , the first production funded by the Corporation, a typically ebullient
Korda smiled and said: ‘ Ah, just wait until you see my next.’
 P R O D U C T I O N VALUES 303

Emeric and Michael did everything they could to encourage the

co-production deals. They were flattered by the attention, and con­
vinced that this was an opportunity to make ambitious, big-budget
European films that would conquer the American market. They saw
themselves as the first of a new breed of independent, truly inter­
national film-makers. But their idealistic optimism blinded them to
the harsh reality. They were in out of their depth. They had little idea
about film finance, nor the unscrupulous machinations of its pur­
veyors. Babes in arms, they would be ground to dust between Korda
and the Hollywood moguls.
First off the mark was Goldwyn. Professing a great admiration for
The Archers (he told the L.A. Times that Black Neurosis {sic) was his
favourite film of the year), he offered to finance half of their next
picture — using cash frozen by currency export restrictions — and
provide David Niven for the lead, in exchange for American distribu­
tion rights. Emeric and Michael wanted to make ‘The Promotion of
the Admiral’, but Korda had his own ideas. One of his biggest
pre-war hits had been The Scarlet Pimpernel, with Leslie Howard and
Merle Oberon. He still owned the rights and suggested a remake to
Goldwyn, who was delighted with the idea. It conformed to his idea
of a sophisticated European picture. A deal was announced on 28
May. Emeric and Michael were the last ones to hear.
Emeric was a big fan of the original Pimpernel. The story of the
English aristocrat who rescues fellow blue-bloods from the clutches
of Madame Guillotine during the French Revolution, appealed to his
romantic view of the English. But to Emeric, who had always striven
above all to do something original and fresh, the thought of a remake
was anathema. For the first time in a decade, he found himself forced
to work on a film which he didn’t want to do. Perhaps if he had still
been driven by personal conviction to write original stories, this
would never have happened. There was an element of passivity, even
lethargy, in his character and without the urgency of the war to prod
him he found it difficult to create. Emeric had lost direction in his
work and was easy prey for the expediencies of London Films.
Both Emeric and Michael awoke to the terrible realization of what
a contract meant. They went to France to find a suitable French
actress to play the Pimpernel’s wife. Only to be told by Korda that
they would have to use the stagey, passionless Margaret Leighton
because she was under contract. Michael tried to salvage the project
by half-heartedly suggesting a musical version of the Pimpernel story
304 EMERIC

using a libretto written by Dennis Arundel.* But Goldwyn wasn’t

interested. He wanted his Pimpernel straight, with all the frills in the
right places.
Emeric went ten rounds with Baroness Orczy’s Pimpernel books
trying to squeeze a decent script from them. ‘1 went to see Alex one
day and cursed both the Baroness and her books . . . I told him that 1
could not do it, 1 could not write a script from this. And Alex looked
at me very seriously, almost hurt and said, “ But my dear Imre, how
can you say that? She was a Hungarian.” ’
He struggled on and because he couldn’t take it seriously he began
to have some fun with the story. He called his script The Elusive
Pimpernel and filled it with playfulness and invention. The archness
of The Archers was becoming a dominant characteristic. There are
some wonderful ideas: the fireworks which burst on to the screen
every time Chauvelin, the arch enemy, sneezes; using the gloriously
picturesque Mont St-Michel for the final escape; the Turkish bath
sequence which seems as though it will burst into song at any
moment. The script was a concoction of pantomime, operetta and
swashbuckling adventure that refused to take itself seriously. A
printed foreword was to appear on the screen to let the audience
know exactly what they were in for:
Will any gentleman who, when he was a little boy, never wanted to
play Red Indians, and will any lady who, when she was a little girl,
never wanted to be a boy: please leave the theatre before we can say
. . . JACK ROBINSON!

After a short pause the voices of Chris Challis, Hein Heckroth, Reggie
Mills, Syd Streeter and Emeric and Michael are heard to shout in
unison: ‘Jack Robinson!’
The first exteriors were shot at the beginning of August in Bath and
Marlborough before the unit moved to the Loire valley to shoot in a
total of six chateaux, including Blois, Chaumont and Villandry.
Emeric flew himself and his new Bentley over to join them. Freddie
Francis, camera operator on the film, recalls that Emeric was obsessed
with the idea of getting dancers instead of ordinary extras for the
crowd sequences, because he said that they moved better and created
a more artistic effect. He spent much of his time trawling the local

*As late as June 19 4 9 Michael was planning to do P im p e r n e l , a stage musical with Bernard
Del font.
 P R O D U C T I O N VALUES 305

dance schools for volunteers. It was all a bit of a lark and he and
Michael began to enjoy themselves. It wasn’t so bad being highly paid
hired hands on someone else’s picture. They ate well and enjoyed the
French Slimmer.
There was some delay when David Niven failed to show up for his
first day. ‘Goldwyn had double-crossed Niven over some agreement,’
recalled the Archers’ publicist Vivienne Knight. ‘Niven arrived by boat
to start shooting here in England and because Goldwyn was making
God-knows-what demands, stayed on the boat and went straight back
to America, so we had to shoot virtually all the location stuff with
doubles.’
Location work on the continent finished on 21 October and in early
November the unit took up residence at the British National Studios at
Elstree, which Korda had acquired as part of British Lion. Freddie
Francis, again, remembers that about once a week all the important
members of the unit met up for a production meeting. ‘Michael would
generally hold forth and Emeric would just put his little barbs in every
now and again. Emeric would never raise points unless he was serious
and knew that he was right, and Micky would always know that he
was right.’
According to Michael (in an interview given years later) there were
still elements of the musical idea in the film when they started shooting.
One of these was a little musical number which was to be the
Pimpernel’s dream sequence, which was referred to as ‘the jingle’.
Because they were slightly behind schedule Freddie Francis was asked
to shoot it himself. A couple of days later Emeric and Michael decided
that they should cut the sequence all together, but nobody told Francis
to stop. At the next production meeting Emeric said, ‘Michael, as we
have decided we’re not going to use the jingle, shouldn’t we stop
shooting it?’ Michael replied: ‘Oh, let’s finish it, so we can have a look
at it.’ It was the kind of profligate behaviour that they would never
have dreamed of on a film they really believed in.
Hein Heckroth was again responsible for some interesting inno­
vations in set design. The approach was a minimalist one, drawing on
his theatrical background. The Archers dispensed with the clumsy,
overly ornate (and expensive) plasterwork sets normally found in
costume pictures, and concentrated instead on essential detail. Heck­
roth despised naturalism, which he claimed would not seem as real on
the screen as design that tried to capture the atmosphere, the essence of
a place. In The Elusive Pimpernel the Court Ballroom was created with
306 EMERIC

a few pillars, a raised balustrade, a staircase and an enormous back­

cloth on which painted chandeliers were highlighted by spotlights.
‘The simple settings’, Emeric explained to the journalists, ‘will be kept
alive by the movement of people, and of course the lighting is
absolutely crucial.’ Another example was the gaming-room, built from
three separate flats in sections about eight feet away from each other.
By filling in the intervening spaces with dark backings when it was
necessary to pan the camera from one side to the other, the ‘gap’ was
not noticed on the screen. It was a money- and time-saving device as
well as an aesthetic decision. With this sort of floating scenery the
camera could be moved through walls and new set-ups lit (there was no
need for overhead lights - it was all lit directionally) and made ready, in
half the time it normally took. Principle photography finished - after
nearly six months - at the beginning of February.
The first public signs of Korda’s lack of confidence in the film came in
dramatic form on 24 April:
M YSTER Y ATO M R A Y S D E S T R O Y F IL M

ran the headline of the Sunday Empire News,

K O R D A L O S E S 2 0 , 0 0 0 F E E T O F N IV E N

Valuable films have been mysteriously ruined in transit to studios

from film companies on location and elsewhere. Atomic energy
blamed.
It was one of Korda’s more audacious publicity exercises: if the film
was a flop he could always blame it on the ‘atom rays’. But two days
later Cinema revealed the true extent of the damage: a few feet of
sound stock had been mysteriously ‘ fogged in transit’, and they would
probably be able to use it anyway.
Korda’s worries were only confirmed when Emeric and Michael
personally screened the rough cut for Goldwyn in Hollywood. The
partners arrived five minutes late and found the film already running.
They crept to their seats in the dark, murmuring apologies but
receiving no acknowledgement from Goldwyn or his minions. The
atmosphere was icy. The film ended and without waiting for the lights
to go up Goldwyn walked straight out. There was a brutality in the way
Hollywood treated its film-makers that made an encounter with John
Davis at Rank seem like a Sunday school outing. Frances Goldwyn, the
producer’s wife, came up to them: ‘My husband says he is going to talk
 P R O D U C T I O N VALUES 307

to Alex. The transport office will contact you tomorrow to arrange you
flight back to London. I hope you have a safe journey. Good night.’
And that was that.
Or, rather, that was only the beginning. Back in London Korda
received a long telegram from Goldwyn in which he detailed his
objections to the film. It was not, he claimed, the picture he had signed
up for, and without substantial changes he would not pay his share of
the production budget to London Films. Writs were soon flying back
and forth across the Atlantic, the two tycoons suing each other for
breach of contract.
The British press, ever eager for a disaster story, hounded Emeric
for details, but he wasn’t giving much away. ‘Mr Goldwyn wants
some minor changes, including the title,’ he told one paper
‘apparently the Americans think The Elusive Pimpernel is a terrible
new skin disease.’ In reality Goldwyn’s criticisms were levelled at the
story. He detested the way the film-makers seemed to be making fun
of the plot. He wanted an up-to-date remake of Korda’s original, not
a hodge-podge of music, dance and colour. He was equally disgusted
that so much of the dialogue wasn’t in English. ‘He seemed somewhat
taken aback by the fact that people in France spoke French,’ quipped
Emeric.
Korda considered releasing the film as it stood in the European
territories. To that end it was entered for, withdrawn from, and
finally re-entered in the 1949 Venice Film Festival. It was a good
opportunity to test the water. But the temperature was pretty chilly.
The audience at the Palazzo del Cinema hissed and booed in true
continental style. Among them was David O. Selznick, who had his
own reason to be concerned. He wrote to The Archers:
I hate to say this, but I am afraid that you and a lot of other
people are in for a rough time on Pimpernel because of your
obvious and very curious belief that there is some virtue in
obscurity, and some artistry in confusion . . . It really broke my
heart to see such magnificent physical picture-making and such
superb cinematic technique, all go for nothing, as demonstrated
when the audience whistled at and loathed the picture, even
those who understood English perfectly.
Selznick was worried - his own co-production deal with The Archers
had already reached the point of no return.
Selznick had signed his deal with Korda on 14 May 1948. London
308 EMERIC

Films was to produce four films in Britain for which Selznick would
have the ‘western hemisphere’ distribution rights. In return British
Lion (Korda’s distribution arm) would receive the European rights to
four Selznick pictures. The London Film projects were: Tess o f the
D ’ Urbervilles with Carol Reed directing and producing and
Selznick’s lover, Jennifer Jones, as Tess; The Third Man, again to be
directed and produced by Reed, from the Graham Greene story; A
Tale o f Two Cities, to be made by Powell and Pressburger, starring
Gregory Peck; and T h e Doctor’s Story’, to be written, produced and
directed by Launder and Gilliat. Korda was to be responsible for
financing but Selznick would supply any of his contract stars gratis.
Only one of these projected films actually made it to the screen:
The Third Man. Selznick was to blame. He could only muster two
films for his side of the deal, The Paradine Case and Portrait o f Jenny,
both poor, commercially disastrous pictures. The truth about
Selznick, at this stage of his career, is that he was no longer the king of
the independents, but tired, broke and past it. He came to do business
in Europe because he still had a reputation there — not to mention
frozen dollars which he needed just to support his extravagant life­
style.
Although The Archers didn’t make A Tale o f Two Cities for
Selznick - they couldn’t very well make two films in a row set during
the French Revolution - they did make another costume picture:
Gone to Earth.
It seems to have been Michael who first proposed Mary Webb’s
fervid, sub-Hardyesque novel.* Korda assented because he already
owned the rights (Lajos Biro had written a script in 1940 and Marc
Allegret had been slated to direct it) and Selznick agreed because it
was close enough to Tess to appeal to his somewhat dubious sex­
uality and provide a seductive central role for Jennifer Jones. Emeric
liked the novel well enough, and agreed to go along with everybody
else.
It is a melodramatic tale. Hazel Woodus, a girl who exudes naivety
and sensuality in equal measure, is nature’s child - as much a simple
creature of the wilds as the fox cub she adores. She is bandied

* Michael had long admired Webb. In December 19 3 8 , while shooting T h e S p y in B l a c k , he

told F ilm W e e k ly that if given the opportunity the film he would most like to make was
M ary W ebb’s P r e c io u s B a n e , because ‘she has an immense grasp of the country, Shropshire,
in which the story is laid and the psychology of the characters with which she deals. The
book vibrates with life.’
 P R O D U C T I O N VALUES 309

between two men, the pallid Baptist minister and the dastardly but
handsome local squire. She marries the minister but is lured away by
the squire to live for a time in sin (and off-the-shoulder gowns). To the
horror 6i his mother and his flock, the pious minister takes her back.
But Hazel cannot escape her fate. At the beginning she murmurs, ‘If
you’re lost, I’m lost,’ to her fox and it is only a matter of time before girl
and fox are hounded down together by the hunt. Hazel falls down an
old mine-shaft to the huntsman’s traditional cry when the fox has
returned to its lair: ‘Gone to earth!’
In itself, the plot has little to recommend it. Mary Webb’s strength
was her gushing prose, overwrought with symbolism, bursting with
the fecundity of the English countryside and a kind of romantic
morbidity. It was not something which could be transferred easily to
the screen.
Emeric started work on the script in January 1949. It was hard work
adapting such an undisciplined novel. Occasionally excerpts were sent
to Selznick for approval. Comments came back - verbose comments,
but they were amicable enough. Selznick and Jennifer Jones had seen
The Red Shoes in Los Angeles in January and were deeply impressed by
it. For a time The Archers could do no wrong. Not until May did the
partners meet the mogul for a script conference in Zurich. Emeric was
delighted by the choice of cities. Zurich contained his favourite restaur­
ant and his favourite hotel. The Kronenhalle, run by the indomitable
Frau Zumsteg, was the kind of place where the discerning (and
wealthy) diner was served with the simplest and best in old-fashioned
Swiss cooking: huge lumps of boiled beef with grated horseradish,
fried pork fillets and venison. During their whole time there, Emeric
and Michael ate no lunch and savoured those Kronenhalle dinners.
The hotel was the Bauer au Lac, an enormous, old-fashioned place,
with just a hint of the sanatorium about its high-ceilinged, simply
furnished rooms, but with what Emeric claimed was the most attentive
service you could receive anywhere in the world.
In his autobiography Michael writes about their first working
encounter with Selznick:
It was a beautiful sunny morning when we foregathered on the
terrace. David had rolled up a copy of the script in a side pocket of
his jacket, took it out and threw it on the table. Jennifer said:
‘Hello, boys!’
David said: ‘I don’t know how you boys generally work together,
3 io EMERIC

but when I start a script conference, I like to go through to the

end and finish it. It is the only way you keep a clear line on the
story and get some idea of your length. Okay?’
We said: ‘Okay.’
He searched in his other jacket pocket. It seemed to be full of
pills, bottles and boxes of little pills . . . aspirin, amphetamine,
Benzedrine . . . you name it. He selected two of them and swal­
lowed them with a glass of orange juice, then said:
‘Emeric, you’re the boss. Let’s get the ball rolling.’
Jennifer opened a copy of Time magazine. Emeric produced a
small piece of paper and started to unfold it. Three hours later
we got about half way through the script without any serious
disagreement, and David O. was looking rather faint. Jennifer
had vanished saying:
‘Guess I’ll have our driver show me the town, David.’
We were relaxed. We had dined well the night before, had had
an English breakfast that morning, and were looking forward to
our dinner that night at the Kronenhalle. Another half hour
passed. A weak voice addressed us:
‘Don’t you two guys ever eat lunch?’ Emeric said:
‘Not usually when we’re working. Are you hungry, David?
Do you want to stop?’
He shook his head and took a sniff of Benzedrine. At half-past
three a yawning, blinking David O. Selznick grumbled:
‘Guess I’ll take a rest. Done enough for today. What do you
say, fellas?’
We fellas said: ‘O K.’
The film was due to start shooting at the end of July. David Farrar
was cast as Jack Reddin, the virile squire, Esmond Knight as Hazel’s
father, the coffin-maker and Cyril Cusack as the Baptist minister,
Edward Marston.
Recently married on a Mediterranean yacht, Selznick and Jones
ensconced themselves at the Savoy in mid-July. While Jones was fitted
for costumes and tutored in the Shropshire accent, Selznick set him­
self to writing that endless flow of megalomaniac, interfering, some­
times offensive, memos for which he was notorious. As his
Hollywood career collapsed, he hung on grimly to whatever control
he could still possess, invading every area of production, especially
when Jennifer Jones was involved.
 P R O D U C T I O N VALUES 3II

Selznick declared how lucky it was that he had got his hands on
the script in time and Emeric was engaged in long Benzedrine-driven
conversations over scene changes. He also complained about the
castings He' thought the deferential, dreamy Cusack totally unsuit­
able for the romantic lead opposite his own dear wife. He told the
actor to his face that he was too old, too short, and ‘about as far
removed from being a possible proper mate for the girl as it is
conceivable to imagine’. Cusack just sighed and agreed that, no he
wasn’t exactly right. Selznick, unable to separate his personal from
his professional life, was blind to the fact that the melodramatic
scheme of the story required the minister to be weak and ineffectual.
To everyone’s relief, once the film went on location to the village
of Much Wenlock in Shropshire, Selznick caught the flu and
retreated first to his suite at the Savoy and then back to America.
His absence only increased the flow of memos. Sometimes they
came twice a day, and were up to ten pages long. ‘Emeric would
never read them,’ remembered Christopher Challis, ‘but dropped
them casually into the bin and fired off a stock reply: “ Thank you
for your most useful comments, we shall take the utmost account of
them.” ’
Once out of the suffocating clutches of her husband, Jennifer
Jones relaxed and became a popular member of the unit. She liked
to go on long barefoot walks through the countryside, or disappear
on cycling trips when she had a day off. She had a disconcerting
habit of suddenly standing on her head while you were talking to
her; apparently she had poor circulation.
Selznick returned to Britain at the end of August demanding to see
an assembly and was far from pleased with what he saw. He com­
plained about the dialect and objected to Sybil Thorndike (playing
Edward Marston’s mother) and asked that she be removed from the
picture. He was also unhappy with Jennifer Jones’s costumes: ‘In
these scenes the length of the costume, plus the shape of the shoes,
makes her look bow-ankled and bow-legged. Apparently the shoes
are turned out in such a fashion as to cause this startling result. I do
hope it is corrected.’ The intent had been to make the wild Hazel
seem awkward and constricted in proper clothes.
On 5 October he was back again. This time his wrath was direc­
ted against the script. He said that it had been altered from what he
agreed. There was already a whiff of lawsuits in the air. He respon­
ded to the most recent assembly with zz pages of notes, some
3ii EMERIC

helpful, many petty and offensive. That same night he had a

brainstorm. He stayed up all night dictating his ideas to a poor
secretary:
1 gave myself this beating because of some convictions at which I
arrived, which I believe as firmly as 1 ever have believed anything
in my long career concerning a script.
I take no bows for the content of these things. Practically
every line is called out of the book. I have attempted merely to
keep them within your present continuity, with the exception of
one additional scene. I will therefore say without fear of seeming
to pat myself on the back, that I consider them two of the
greatest and most heart-breaking scenes ever written for motion
pictures — and I emphasise that they were written by Mary
Webb, not by me; and I call to your attention the fact that the
whole basis of our arrangement was your enthusiasm and my
enthusiasm and Jennifer’s enthusiasm for the book.
The Archers continued to ignore Selznick’s distracted entreaties.
Three quarters of the film was shot on location and by the end of
September they were ready to return to Shepperton for the interiors.
In the studio, Heckroth continued the experiments with set design
that he had started on The Elusive Pimpernel. ‘ Really it’s a sculptural
approach to film design,’ he told a journalist from Cinema Studio, ‘to
think in three dimensions. First we draw the set out in the old-
fashioned way with everything in it that we imagine. Then we study
the bare necessities in the script and start to tear down our original
drawing leaving only what we really need for the camera. Then the
most important thing about the props and set dressing that we do
need is reality. If we want a beam then we use a real beam and so
on.. . ’
Again, the reasons for these innovations were as much economic as
aesthetic. The budget on Gone to Earth was a comparatively modest
£285,000 - less than they had spent on The Small Back Room (and a
third of what was spent on Bonnie Prince Charlie). The aim was to
demonstrate that a Technicolor film could be made as cheaply as a
black and white one. A higher than average number of set-ups was
achieved every day thanks to the ‘floating’ scenery. The film took
about thirteen weeks to shoot, with final retakes completed on 3
November.
As a film Gone to Earth has its qualities. Christopher Challis’s
 P R O D U C T I O N VALUES 313

photography is extraordinarily vivid, and the countryside of the

Welsh Marches is brought to the screen in a series of startling images.
Jennifer Jones’s performance is intuitive and sincere. At times the film
is emotionally powerful, a genuine vision of a remote rural world
where magic and destiny are at work. But it is a film of moments. The
melodramatic plot doesn’t always hold the audience’s attention, the
rural characters are occasionally risible. The direction often seems
peculiarly static and sketchy, lacking variety.
Unfortunately, David O. Selznick let the bad points outweigh the
good ones in his mind. He was displeased with the script and wanted
more close-ups for Jones. He demanded retakes and rewrites. ‘ The
Elusive Pimpernel was just a joke,’ said Emeric. ‘We just had fun and
didn’t really care about the consequences. But Gone To Earth, that
was different. That was sad. We liked the film - I liked the film. We
didn’t want it to be messed around with.’
Emeric and Michael refused to alter a frame. Korda, who had
received one too many hectoring memos from Selznick, sided with
them. Just before Christmas 1949 the inevitable occurred and
Selznick began a lawsuit against Korda in both America and Britain.
Korda reciprocated. The Archers were now in litigation with Holly­
wood’s two biggest independents over their last two films. So much
for independence.
Selznick’s suit was complex, involving more films than just Gone to
Earth. Korda was refusing to accept The Paradine Case as part of his
deal with Selznick because it was so bad no distributor would touch
it. He would not hand over The Third Many a film of definite box­
office potential, in exchange for it. Simultaneously, Selznick was
suing to have an injunction put on Gone to Earth, on the grounds
that the film deviated from the agreed script on several points.
Selznick testified that if released, the film would harm Jennifer
Jones’s reputation. On 29 April 1950 the case appeared before Justice
Lloyd Jacob at the high court. The hearing involved scores of tech­
nical terms, witnesses who only testified by affidavit, and a judge who
never watched films. Predictably enough, in his final ruling Judge
Jacob let things stand. He could not see why London Films should be
penalized for making a film of a script which Selznick had agreed was
final, although he admitted that in several points the film differed
substantially from the novel. Apparently, however, Korda had signed
a deal with Selznick behind The Archers’ back which allowed
Selznick full control over the western hemisphere version of the film.
3M EMERIC

The judge therefore ruled that if Selznick wished to release a different

version of the film in the western hemisphere, with his own additional
material, then he was entitled to do so. Emeric and Michael were
distraught at the thought of their film being mangled by Selznick, but
there was nothing they could do.

The difficulties in Emeric’s professional life were only exacerbated by

personal worries. While on holiday in Monaco in the early summer
Wendy had fallen slightly ill, with chills and fevers. She thought
nothing of it. Midway through the holiday she was to go to Paris to
meet Emeric for a weekend. She took the sleeper arriving in the Gare
St-Lazare early the following morning. Emeric was waiting for her.
She waved at him as the train pulled in, opened the door and col­
lapsed on the platform in front of her husband. A doctor was called
and diagnosed polio. ‘For some reason Emeric didn’t trust French
doctors,’ recalled Michel Kelber, ‘and he had to pay a huge amount of
money to get her into the American hospital. For three or four days
Wendy was very unwell and 1 waited with him outside her room. He
didn’t sleep at all. He was worried to death and he kept saying,
“ Michel, what will I do if she dies?” He really loved her so much.’
When the doctors said it was safe to move her, Emeric had her flown
back to England, insisting that she be kept at home with 2.4-hour
nursing.
In the midst of all the battles with Selznick and Goldwyn he would
sit up most of the night with her. The disease, when not fatal, was
frequently crippling. Angela was sent to Folkestone with her nanny,
Ganna, to be out of the way. But while there she ate a peach Melba
which had somehow got rat poison in it. She was violently sick and
rushed back to London in an ambulance. For a time there were two
separate sets of nurses on 24-hour call at Redington Road. Angela
was feverish and cried out for her mother, but was not allowed to see
her because of the risk of infection. Emeric, of course, sued the hotel.

Relations between Korda and Selznick were soon patched up. The
Hungarian was too generous a soul to keep a personal vendetta going
for long. The original Powell—Pressburger version of Gone to Earth
played at the Venice Film Festival. By accident Korda and Selznick
were placed next to each other in the theatre. They greeted each other
stiffly, but as the film began Korda turned to his fellow mogul and
said, ‘Do we have to sit through this again?’ Selznick smiled and the
 P R O D U C T I O N VALUES 315

two men left the cinema together and spent the evening in the casino.
In October Selznick reluctantly agreed to pay for alterations on
‘his’ version, the one that would be shown in America. Not surpris­
ingly the partners refused to go to California for the reshoots.
Selznick invited all the great Hollywood directors - Wyler, Vidor,
Cukor, Siodmak - to see the film and say what was wrong with it and
how it could be fixed. None of them would touch it. Finally, it was
Rouben Mamoulian, a director with a visual style not too dissimilar
from Michael’s, who eventually agreed to do the work, but even he
refused to shoot the film if Selznick interfered on the set. Chris
Challis, as lighting director, recalls whispered conversations with
Selznick behind the flats:
‘Could you make sure that Mr Mamoulian plays the scene like
this?’
‘How can I do that?’
‘Tell him that’s the best way to light it. Tell him something tech­
nical —just get him to do a close-up of Jennifer.’
Selznick’s version was eventually released in America by RKO as
The Wild Heart in 19 52.
The ‘European version’ premiered on 22 September 19 50 at the
Rialto, London Films’ West End showcase cinema. It was more than
eighteen months since The Archers had had a film in front of the
public. The critics praised the colour and the evocative photography
of the Shropshire countryside, but generally thought the film was
melodramatic and unintentionally funny. ‘One must admit that the
piece has a highly distinctive flavour,’ wrote Punch, ‘and it tries very
hard to be a powerful work of art; but it is intrinsically artificial and
pretentious.’
After the astonishing worldwide success of The Red Shoes, the
tradepapers were cautious in their estimation. ‘A film for the con­
noisseur rather than the hoi polloi, it nevertheless deserves, nay
demands, wide playing time,’ wrote Kine Weekly. Ultimately, the film
performed disappointingly at the box office, though in France and
Italy it was popular. With its relatively modest final budget it seems
likely that the film just about made its money back.

Meanwhile, in February, the counter lawsuits for non-fulfilment of

contract over The Elusive Pimpernel were settled out of court. Emeric
and Michael agreed to do retakes.
The retakes did little to produce a film more acceptable to
3 i6 EMERIC

Goldwyn, but they did squeeze out much of the wit and invention
from the original version. Hours were spent in projection rooms
arguing over how to improve the material. That The Archers should
come to this. It was worse than Bonnie Prince Charlie. Michael
oscillated between optimism and anger while Emeric remained realis­
tically depressed. Chris Challis recalls an incident from those days of
endless recuts and indecisions: ‘After rushes one day we had watched
a really rather unsuccessful previous day’s shooting and it was a
pretty glum atmosphere as the lights came up. Suddenly Michael
jumped up and said, “ There is no problem whatsoever! What we’ll do
is this and this and this and we’ll do a couple of close-ups tomorrow
afternoon and it will go bang! bang! bang!” There was a silence and
Emeric turned round, “ Michael,” he said, “ I think if we do that it
might go booom, booom, booom.” ’
The reworking of the film proved a costly exercise. At a press
conference a journalist asked Korda: ‘Well, Sir Alexander,
apparently your film has gone over budget. How far over budget?’
and Korda looked up at the ceiling and said, ‘Oh, about 6 per cent’
so immediately the journalist insisted, ‘And what was the original
budget?’
‘ io o per cent,’ replied Korda evasively.
In fact, The Elusive Pimpernel had cost about £450,000 and the
retakes added at least another £27,000.
On 3 November, six weeks after Gone to Earth, The Elusive
Pimpernel was premiered. The public responded lethargically, while
the press took no prisoners. ‘David Niven tries manfully’, wrote the
Sunday Express, ‘to make it seem like a new part, producers Powell
and Pressburger try with a lot of arty-craftiness to make it seem like a
new subject. Neither succeeds.’ The Sunday Times called it ‘an under­
graduate charade’, and C.A. Lejeune in The Observer was equally
damning: ‘ I must say without beating about the bush that it is a sad
let-down for the firm that produced the original Pimpernel with Leslie
Howard, and considering the talents engaged in it, and the natural
appeal of the subject, about as bad as it can be.’ *
Suddenly, the film-makers who could do no wrong could do
nothing but. What had happened? Certainly the times were changing,
the black and white, cinematically straightforward Ealing comedies,

* Goldwyn finally released the film in America in 19 5 5 as T h e F ig h t in g P im p e r n e l , shorn of

a further twenty minutes and in black and white.
 PR O D U C T IO N VALUES 317

with their quasi-socialist vindication of the ‘little man’, were at the

height of their popularity. The quality of The Archers* films, if it had
not actually gone down, had changed. As they drew further away from
the war, the centre of gravity, the films became more diaphanous, less
attached to the real world. An unusually incisive analysis, written by
Stephen Watts, appeared in Picturegoer on 4 November, which
accused The Archers of ‘tremendous erraticness and a haunting,
almost eerie sense of emptiness’ :
There used to be a familiar publisher’s slogan which claimed that
it was impossible not to be thrilled by Edgar Wallace. In a
different sense, it is for me impossible not to be thrilled by
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. I mean the men them­
selves in this case; not their work.
I have known them, and their work as long as they have been
together, which is twelve years. I have never had a dull conversa­
tion with them. And on leaving them I have never felt entirely
happy. Stimulated but uneasy, would be a fair description of my
feelings.
. . . It is easy enough to put a finger on what one likes about
bald, blue-eyed, soft-voiced Powell, and short, shrewd Press­
burger, with his thoughtful remarks in Hungarian accented
English.
They are, to their backbones and fingertips, men of the cinema.
They are enthusiasts about and devotees of the medium in which
they work. They are restless, bold, imaginative experimenters,
prodigious workers, and they have total confidence in themselves.
And yet - and y e t. . . The erraticness is the most extraordinary
characterstic of Powell and Pressburger. Like the celebrated
child, when they’re good they’re very good and when they’re bad
they’re a w fu l. . .
. . . Have Powell and Pressburger any convictions? On the
evidence I would say only the conviction that their mission is to
make bigger, better and ‘different’ pictures. Of their sincere belief
that the sky’s the limit and nothing is barred in exploiting the
potentialities of the film medium, I have no doubt.
What then is the lack? This may offend them, but in my opinion
it is the lack of knowledge of and interest in human beings.
In the last twelve years of their partnership, when have they got
to grips with real, ordinary people?
3i8 EMERIC

I argued with them the desirability of making The Elusive

Pimpernel. They were convinced they could do something new
and different with it — and they may have succeeded. But the
withdrawal from contact with normal, contemporary life is
significant.
. . . Even in The Small Back Room , if you remember, the love
affair was a curious, unconvincing sideline - the bomb, with the
opportunities it provided for cinematic treatment was the ulti­
mate hero.
. . . Now don’t misunderstand me. Over all, British films have
been the better for Powell and Pressburger. I would rather have
them than many a timid, pedestrian, unimaginative writer, pro­
ducer or director about whose work I would not bother to be so
analytical.
1 look forward to their future films - if only because one never
knows what they’ll be up to next. But I think they have need of
discipline, of closer contact with life, of greater concern with the
broad and total effects of what they put on the screen while they
are up to their clever tricks and flights of fancy.
I said they stimulate me. Now I hope that this or some such
frank probing of their weaknesses may stimulate them to pic­
tures one can wholeheartedly admire and which do not any
more inspire a curious and nagging uneasiness.
It is true that the films were no longer personal or passionately felt in
the same way as they once had been. As they were no longer making
original stories, Emeric’s role as a writer was increasingly to provide a
scenario with as many opportunities for cinematic virtuosity as pos­
sible. Moreover, Emeric’s production role had grown increasingly
burdensome since the split with Rank. He found himself attending to
financial and political problems, and generally taking on the pro­
ducer’s responsibility.
It is revealing to hear the impressions of two actors who worked
with The Archers at this time. Both Cyril Cusack and Michael Gough
had a much greater personal sympathy with Emeric than with
Michael. They felt able to discuss the details of their parts with him,
where Michael would just stare at them uncomprehendingly. Cusack
saw Emeric as ‘the grey eminence, somehow very distant, but the
guiding hand behind it all’. Similarly Michael Gough felt that ‘Emeric
was a nanny - Micky the strict disciplinarian. And that’s not strictly
 P R O D U C T IO N VALUES 319

accurate, because Micky was the perennial schoolboy and he revered

Emeric as the senior monitor and continually referred back to him.’
Perhaps it would not be unfair to see Emeric’s role as that of the wife
- events midwife to the birth of The Archers’ films. After all, Michael
used to say, ‘A partnership is a marriage without sex.’

So far the return to Korda had been disastrous. The Archers felt that
their talent had been dissipated, their time wasted and their reputa­
tion prostituted and they started to look for a way out. They were
contractually bound to make three more films for Korda, but con­
tracts could always be bought out. More problematical was the
question of where they could go. In 1950 the only possible sources of
finance for big budget films in Britain were Rank and Korda, and of
course they had burnt their bridges with Rank. They started scouting
around for possibilities, persisting in the belief that the way forward
was to finance themselves independently from a variety of sources,
some within the film world, some not.
Since 49th Parallel both partners had been well aware of the latent
possibilities in Canada. Over the years they had kept in touch with
senior government officials and their old ally, Vincent Massey, was
soon to become Governor-General. Now they looked to the domin­
ion as a possible source of funding. In December 1949 Michael flew
to Toronto for talks. The idea was to make three pictures financed
jointly by the Canadian government and local businessmen, which
would stimulate a domestic film industry. The plan included the
construction of a film studio on a 474-acre site outside Toronto.
Emeric stayed behind to deal with their Hollywood partners and cut
Gone to Earth. He gave an interview to Kine-Weekly headlined:
‘Why I’m Getting Out’. There was no indictment of Korda and Rank,
but a general complaint that British finance was drying up due to
spiralling costs and the fact that the City had burnt its fingers once
too often in the film industry.
Though talks continued sporadically until 1954, nothing came of
the grandiose Canadian scheme, and for the time being The Archers
were stuck with London Films. Korda, perhaps tinged by guilt, didn’t
try to foist any more uncomfortable co-productions on them. Several
projects were half-heartedly suggested, including an adaptation of
The Tempest with Sir John Gielgud and Jennifer Jones and a version
of A Midsummer Night’s Dream starring Danny Kaye. Michael again
brought up ‘The Promotion of the Admiral’.
3 20 EMERIC

But Emeric was not content. He had had no great personal passion
for any of The Archers’ last three films. He felt suffocated by produc­
tion duties and the responsibility of holding The Archers together. He
wrote to Michael: ‘Music is what people expect from us, not adven­
ture . . . Our reputation is in tatters and nothing will restore it faster
than a musical film along the lines of The Red Shoes.'
It is easy to forget that music was Emeric’s first love - even before
films. He was, in a very un-British way, enormously susceptible to its
power. It was a language, after all, which hadn’t changed over all
those years. ‘He was usually so balanced, so reserved,’ said his
daughter, Angela, ‘but when he listened to music he could become
very emotional. He would actually tremble with excitement at the
most moving passages. And I remember once, during a concert, I was
about ten years old, I turned around to look at him and there were
tears rolling down his face.’
Valerie Hobson spent many evenings during the war at Emeric’s
house in Hendon, listening to his records and having him explain
them to her, ‘He was extremely knowledgeable technically and very
excited by somebody who obviously didn’t know anything about it,
but was very anxious to learn. Unlike Micky, Emeric never became
very animated, maybe if he was talking about a script, but true
animation came when he was listening to music and describing it.’
Since the war both Emeric and Michael had harboured a desire to
make musical films, where the music was master and everything else —
the plot, the actors, the sets — subordinate. But the partners had
desired the same end for different reasons. Emeric because music was
his great passion; Michael because he saw in the ‘composed film’ an
opportunity to escape into pure cinematic virtuosity and expression,
of a kind unseen since the silent days. Now, in 1950, Emeric sug­
gested that The Archers make a film version of a popular opera using
the same techniques they had employed in The Red Shoes ballet.
Michael was unsure. He was keen to experiment technically with the
composed film, but he was less knowledgeable about music than
Emeric, and suspicious of anything too modern or difficult. Not
surprising then that he rejected out of hand Emeric’s first offer:
Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier.
Then Emeric remembered that when he had mentioned the idea of
a filmed opera to Sir Thomas Beecham, during the recordings for The
Red Shoes, the conductor had unhesitatingly recommended Jacques
Offenbach’s The Tales o f Hoffmann - the opera on which he himself
 P R O D U C T I O N VALUES 3 21

had first made his name. Emeric knew the music well, he had even
played it in an orchestra once as a student in Prague, and now he played
it to Michael, explaining the background and plot as he went.
For -an opera, it has a strong, cinematic story, spiced with bizarre
characters, illusions and tricks: reflections that disappear, statues that
sing and candle wax that turns into jewels before your eyes. Michael,
the cinematic magician, was hooked. In a sense that’s how it always
was: Michael was gripped by the possibilities for visual pyrotechnics,
by the pictures he saw; Emeric by the beauty and meaning of the piece
and the sheer opportunity for novelty, to do something completely new.
The Tales o f Hoffmann was Offenbach’s final work, left incomplete
at his death, and his only serious opera. It is loosely based on three tales
by the romantic, gothic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, and the character of
the writer himself both narrates the stories and is their protagonist. The
guiding theme is Hoffmann’s search for ‘ Love - his eternal com­
panion’. In the prologue he falls in love with the lovely prima donna
Stella. Leaving the theatre during the interval of her performance,
Hoffmann goes to a local tavern where the students ask him to tell
them a story. He tells them of his three great loves: Olympia, who
turned out to be a mechanical doll; Giuletta, the Venetian courtesan
who tried to steal his soul; and Antonia, the consumptive singer who
died by singing a passionate song when she shouldn’t. Each story ends
with Hoffmann’s rival -probably an evil emanation of his own psyche
- stealing or destroying his love. At the end of the last story Hoffmann
collapses dead drunk just as Stella enters the tavern; and she is led away
again by the eternal rival. But then the muse of poetry ‘appears in a halo
of light’ and, in a moment of epiphany, bids Hoffmann to a life of
literature:
. . . I, thy faithful friend. My hand has wiped the tears away from
thine eyes. Thy sorrow I have changed to lovely dreams of delight.
Trust my guiding hand, and the passionate tempest that rises in
thy soul I will quell! To poetry thou shouldst devote thy life! I love
thee, Hoffmann, I love thee!
Hoffmann, in ecstasy and won over by the muse, sings:
Heaven! What passjon wild my beating heart enfolds! The music
of thy voice has filled my soul with joy. A tender burning fire - my
heart in rapture holds. Thy glances mild and sweet. My pain and
grief destroy . . .
3 22 EMERIC

Korda, for all his veneer of culture, was a populist and disliked the
very idea of a filmed opera. But Emeric had an ace up his sleeve, in the
shape of Moira Shearer. Ever since The Red Shoes the public had
been crying for more, but she had returned full-time to the ballet,
vowing never to work in films again, turning down a sheaf of lucra­
tive contracts.
Emeric, however, had his cunning Hungarian ways. He charmed
and wooed her for months before offering her a part in The Tales o f
Hoffmann. They had decided that it would be as much a ballet as an
opera, with a cast led by Helpmann and Massine again. Shearer was
suspicious. Then Emeric told her that Frederick Ashton, Shearer’s
mentor and choreographer of the Royal Ballet, had agreed to appear
and choreograph all the dance. He promised Shearer that her parts -
as Stella and Olympia - would be pure dance, with far fewer of the
short takes she had found so irritating in The Red Shoes. He also
promised her that if her roles were not completed within five weeks
she could walk off the set. Shearer claims that her main reason for
accepting was something else: ‘I just felt there would be a minimum
of difficulty with Michael Powell. Frederick Ashton would have all
the control over the dance - it was really a purely dancing part - and
Michael Powell would have to direct it, but he’d have to fall in with
what was possible.’
Hoffmann was announced as their next project as early as October
1949. In December Hein Heckroth was already at work on sketches
and on 2.4 February 1950 Emeric, Michael, Brian Easdale, Chris
Challis, Hein Heckroth and Sydney Streeter met with Beecham for a
run-through of the opera. The conductor played the entire piece,
singing (poorly) all the parts. They decided which bits should be cut.
By the end of the day the three-hour opera had been cut down to
exactly two hours and fifteen minutes. The Archers were to have their
own special recording of this curtailed version conducted by Bee­
cham, using the London Philharmonic Orchestra and singers of his
own choosing.
Most of the changes to the original libretto were relatively minor
and for obvious cinematic reasons: Cochinille (Frederick Ashton), in
the first act, becomes a puppet master conducting a chorus of puppets
instead of a manservant. Antonia (Ann Ayars), in the third act, sings
to a statue of her mother instead of a painting. A significant alteration
was made to the prologue. Stella the prima donna singing an excerpt
from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, becomes Stella the prima ballerina
 P R O D U C T I O N VALUES 3Z3

dancing the dragonfly ballet. This was to be a completely new work

choreographed by Ashton to music woven together by Beecham from
various parts of the opera, in which the female dragonfly kills the
male after copulation - an inaccurate piece of entomology, but a fine
metaphor for the romantic pessimism that preoccupies the rest of the
work.*
As preparations advanced, Korda was shocked when Michael let it
slip that he had never actually seen Hoffmann performed. He turned
to Emeric, ‘Have you ever seen it?’
‘Yes, Alex, in Prague. I was playing second fiddle in the orchestra,
but you don’t see much from there.’
Korda blanched.
A few days later Emeric received a call from David Cunynghame,
Korda’s personal assistant, with the news that a production of
Hoffmann was in that season’s programme at the Vienna Opera
House and that tickets and travel arrangements had already been
made on his and Michael’s behalf.
When the appointed day arrived the partners drove to the airport
and caught the plane to Vienna. Unfortunately, there was a snow
storm over the city and the plane landed almost an hour late - and in
the Russian zone. It took another hour to get emergency passes from
the Russian zone into the British zone. They arrived at the opera
house and an anxious doorman hurried them in, ushering them up
steps and along corridors. ‘Finally,’ Michael remembered, ‘a door
was flung open and we panted into the imperial box, just as Antonia
reached a high C-flat, gave one piercing shriek on the stage and fell
dead. The audience, which had been somewhat startled by our
jack-in-the-box appearance, burst into loud applause and the curtain
came down.’
That was the only time they ever saw Hoffmann on the stage.
There was no script as such for Emeric to write. The new libretto
was written by Dennis Arundel, familiar to The Archers as the
band-leader in the café in Blimp. Apart from the odd whimsical title
card, Emeric was restricted to working in terms of broad structure,

*When Emeric asked Beecham what the critics would think of this liberty with the original
the conductor responded: ‘ You leave the critics to me, M r Pressburger.’ In fact, T h e T a le s o f
H o f f m a n n was a work frequently ‘customized’ . Offenbach intended the Giuletta (Venetian
courtesan) Act to come last. In the first performance, in 1 8 8 1 , it was cut altogether, except
for the famous Barcarole, which was placed as a prologue to the Antonia Act. It is only
since then that the established order has become Olympia, Giuletta and Antonia.
3*4 EMERIC

pantomime and dance. He thought up the transitions (the springs

that leap out of Olympia’s head and fade into the ripples of a
Venetian canal for the Giuletta sequence), and technical ideas (such
as the trick of running the duel scene in slow motion to give it a
haunting, surreal quality).
A simplified screenplay was produced, opening with a warning:
‘In order to get a complete picture of the production it is also
necessary to hear the new recording by Sir Thomas Beecham, to
consult Hein’s designs, and to see Ashton’s choreography.’ The
twenty pages which followed gave little clue to the final film:
PICTURE MUSIC

Coppelius and Spalanzini wrangle. Coppelius pp. 88, 89

has no intention of parting with the eyes of
the doll until he gets his money.
Spalanzini gives him a cheque in full
settlement.

Hoffmann and Nicklaus watch from afar. Top of p. 92

Coppelius, satisfied, fits Olympia with her

eyes. He raises her up, the eyes open, he lets
her down, they shut. She is now complete.
He goes off chuckling. Middle of p. 93

Spalanzini raises Olympia himself and Pause needed in

presses a spring. She speaks: 'Yes! Yes!' music after the
sixth bar on p. 93

Hoffmann approaches. Spalanzini grimaces at p. 93

him.

Strangely, Emeric found many of his own themes and preoccupa­

tions in Offenbach’s opera. As in a number of his own screenplays,
the story is told in flashback. In common with characters in The Red
Shoes, Blimp and / Know Where Tm Going, Hoffmann only sees
what he wants to see, his imagination creates the world he lives in.
Hoffmann, like Colonel Blimp, has three loves, all of which are in
some sense unfulfilled. And, like The Red Shoes, it is an examination
of the relation between life and art. In the final act, Antonia faces a
dilemma like that of Vicky Page. She can live and not sing or sing
 PR O D U C T IO N VALUES 32 5

and die. She chooses the latter. But the end of the opera, with the
appearance of the muse, is a resolution between life and art. A
painful life, it seems, can be transformed into beautiful art. Emeric
must have found it a resonant theme.
Initially, plans were laid to shoot the film on location throughout
Europe. Emeric and Michael went location hunting in Venice and
Munich, before realizing that it would be preferable and cheaper to
make the film entirely in the studio. Again, Hein Heckroth’s contri­
bution was enormous. He knew the opera inside out, and had
designed at least eight productions of it in Weimar Germany as a
young man. Each of the four sets which he created was designed in a
different style: gothic, surrealist, expressionist and classical. All are
ruled by Heckroth’s chromatic rules. The first act (Olympia) is
yellow, representing frivolity, changing to a purple of destruction,
when the doll is smashed. (‘On the screen’, said Heckroth, ‘it says
that the action of Act One takes place in Paris. This is not true - it
takes place in yellow with, of course, some other colours to play
against.’) The second act is red, black and gold to represent the
sinister, occult occurrences. The third is grey and green, the classical
colours which express maturity.
Because the entire film was to be shot to playback and there was
no need for soundproofing, The Archers opted to shoot Hoffmann
on Shepperton’s huge old silent stage (the biggest in Europe) which
had been specially built for the special effects sequences in Things
To Come (1936). ‘The studio was a long way from all the other
buildings at Shepperton,’ recalls Chris Challis, ‘and so we were like
our own little kingdom, separate from everything else. And it was so
far away from the main canteen that they decided to feed everyone
down there and we did our own catering, as though we were on
location. We set up a couple of marquees. And these lunches
together developed into wonderful periods of discussion of what we
were doing and what we were trying to do.’ The illusory sense of
independence went some way towards fomenting the old creative
fire.
Monk Gibbon, a young author who had written a book on The
Red Shoes ballet sequence which Emeric and Michael had appreci­
ated, was asked to write a similar book on the making of The Tales
o f Hoffmann. Gibbon spent a month observing on the set. He was
fascinated by the relationship between the two partners whom he
considered to be ‘almost the complete antithesis of one another’ :
326 EMERIC

Together these two men have assembled their unit and have
established the tradition in which it so obviously flourishes.
Both the members of the partnership have the passion of the
creative artist. . .
To see the unit at work is to watch a completely democratic
spirit of endeavour being put easily and naturally into practice.
But though the mood of the unit is friendly, its discipline is as
absolute as that of any public school . . . Powell is an autocrat
in his own fashion, an autocrat who can be utterly crushing in
a single phrase; but a happy autocrat who will next moment
break into laughter and relax the tension completely . . .
If Powell can be what the French call formidable, Press­
burger although silent and reserved, is just as awe inspiring in
his own way. There is a touch almost of ‘Grey Eminence’
about the air of tense concentration with which he enters the
studio, takes up his position at the side of the set, and stands
there, hands in pockets. He is a romantic, he loves literature as
much as his partner loves it. Books are the breath of life to him
and he probably prefers them to his fellow creatures, about
whom he may feel — as has been said of the poet Hardy — a
perpetual noli me tangere. Nevertheless, behind this reserved
individual’s defence barrier is a fund of genuine kindness and
sympathy and an ability to show tactful understanding. Both
partners have a fundamental respect for those to whom they
have given their confidence. 1 have known Pressburger say,
when 1 criticised some minor feature of the film which affected
Hein’s department and begged him to ask Hein to change it,
‘You may be right; it is foreign to my own taste; but if I
employ a designer I must give him my confidence. I would not
feel justified in asking him to change in this particular
instance.’
. . . Pressburger’s kindness and generosity transpire instantly
when an occasion arises to call them forth. He likes to hear the
work of members of the unit praised. When the dynamic per­
sonality of Micky is removed, the unit seems to find it easy to
discuss points of interest in the film with him in the way they
could not do if they were dealing with the more mercurial
temperament of his partner.’

Shooting started on io July and continued for eleven and a half

 PR O D U C T IO N VALUES 32-7

weeks, until 26 September. The film was relatively cheap, coming in

at under £300,000. The price was kept down by Heckroth’s
ingenuity. One of the crucial stylistic decisions was to do all the
cinematic tricks in the camera without resorting to post-production
opticals like fades and dissolves.
‘Hein, who came from the theatre, wanted to experiment with
theatrical ways of doing effects on film,’ Chris Challis remembers.
‘And of course optical effects were not very good in colour then. It
was a decision by everybody that we were going to try and do it all in
the camera, we wouldn’t have any effects; a lot of it was gauzes —you
know, if you front and backlight them they become transparent or
they become solid; or the painted staircase down which Olympia
appears to run - it was just painted on linoleum - pure theatre.’
Other simple tricks included filming with the camera upside down;
running part of the film backwards (the dolls jumping out of their
box); jump cuts (to make the jewels turn into wax and vice-versa in
the Giuletta sequence) and flash cuts (when a few frames of white are
inserted, as when Helpmann appears to pass through the mirror).*
The Tales o f Hoffmann was shot like a silent film. This meant that
Michael was able to give direction right the way through the perform­
ances. More significantly, it liberated the camera. Shorn of its cum­
bersome noise-reduction blimp, the Technicolor camera could roam
as fluidly and freely as anything in the silent period. Thus actors,
dancers and camera all appeared to be choreographed to the music
which binds the whole together. The Tales o f Hoffmann is as close to
pure expression, or pure emotion, as cinema can get.
In an appreciation of The Archers’ films the director Martin Scor­
sese wrote:
Ultimately, Powell/Pressburger’s major and most successful
cinematic experiment was the ‘composed film’, best represented
by The Tales o f Hoffmann. Scenes were staged, designed and
constructed in pursuit of an organic whole inspired by music.
Colour was given a narrative function, creating moving
paintings.

*It was the elegant simplicity of H o f f m a n n 's special effects, combined with the sinister
gothic elements of the story, which first made the horror film director George Romero ( T h e
E v i l D e a d etc.) want to be a film-maker: ‘The effects were very advanced and magical, but
somehow you could see how they were done. It made me think movies were an earthbound
science after all, not done by elves and persons born to royalty. It was something I could
actually do.’
3z8 EMERIC

This is why, for me, Powell/Pressburger films perform like

symphonies. 1 can frequently play them and yet discover new
things, enjoy their rich texture, their subtle nuances, their hys­
teria and grace. As a viewer they make me feel I’m continuously
rediscovering cinema.
The Tales o f Hoffmann premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House
in New York* on i April 19 5 1. It was the first time a film had been
shown there, and the event (which raised $40,000 for the Red Cross)
was one of the highlights of the social season. Emeric and Michael
were interviewed for television and the film was given a thunderous
reception. It looked as though The Archers had done for opera what
they had previously done for ballet.
On 18 April the film premiered in London, in front of Queen Mary,
Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Harold Wilson and others at the
Carlton cinema. It received an unprecedented amount of press
coverage. The Daily Telegraph headlined its review: t a l e s o f
H O FF M AN N, A LANDMARK:

The Tales o f Hoffmann film is all that New York reports had led
us to expect, and more. Compared with this tremendous experi­
ment M r Disney’s Fantasia was banal and childish . . . But
whatever its fate at the box office the Powell-Pressburger pro­
duction will be remembered for its originality and daring. It will
be a landmark in the history of the screen.
The Times concurred:
It is not opera or ballet as it is performed in the theatre; it is as a
film that it must be judged, and, as a film, it is quite magnificent,
an achievement of which not only the British cinema but the
cinema as a whole has every reason to be proud. Those
indefatigable archers, Messrs Pressburger and Powell, have been
off target lately, but here they shoot arrows of coloured
loveliness into the heart of the gold.

*It was the first British film since Korda’s T h e P r iv a t e L i f e o f H e n r y V I I I to première in

America. London Films had recently signed a distribution deal with Lopert Films, a new
company founded by the investor Robert Dowling and Ilya Lopert. The Tales of Hoffmann
première was given to them as a sign of good faith.
 PR O D U C T IO N VALUES 329

The most gratifying response came a full year later:

Mr Michael Powell
Mr Emeric Pressburger
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Productions Ltd
146 Piccadilly Square
London w i, England
Dear Messrs Powell and Pressburger,
Recently I had the belated pleasure of seeing your picture
‘Tales of Hoffman’ [sic]. Perhaps you will not mind my writing
you a fan letter about it.
From my earliest theatre going days 1 have been a lover of
Grand Opera. The physical drawbacks of the average operatic
presentation have often bothered me - in fact it is hard for me to
remember a production which did not make heavy demands on
the imagination. The only satisfactory frame of mind to bring to
the theatre was to say to oneself, ‘Well — you can’t have
everything.’
Your production of ‘Tales of Hoffman’ has proven that you
can have everything. For the first time in my life 1 was treated to
Grand Opera where the beauty, power and scope of the music
was equally matched by the visual presentation.
1 thank you for your outstanding courage and artistry in
bringing to us Grand Opera as it existed until now, only in the
minds of those who created it.
Sincerely,
Cecil B. de Mille

The Tales o f Hoffmann, made on The Archers’ own terms, was a

succès d'estime. It was shown at relatively few prestige cinemas and
there it did good business, breaking individual box office records.
Nevertheless the film did little more than break even.
But the success was not to go unsullied. The Tales o f Hoffmann has
been associated with bad luck ever since a fire killed 400 people
during its second Viennese performance. The Archers’ bad luck began
the day Korda saw the first rough cut. He had never much liked the
idea in the first place, and he thought the third act was particularly
slow and dull and asked that it be shortened. In many respects he was
correct: Heckroth’s classical sets lack the imaginative vigour of the
330 EMERIC

earlier acts and Ann Ayars, playing Antonia, is uncharismatic. But

Emeric and Michael refused to alter it and the audiences at the
Metropolitan Opera House and the Carlton cinema saw it uncut.
After the New York première, an exasperated Korda flew back to
London convinced that the film was too long. Vivienne Knight, who
had been organizing publicity in New York, arrived back the follow­
ing day. She was astonished when Korda phoned her personally early
the next morning. ‘He asked me to come to his office as soon as
possible. When I arrived he ran the last act of The Tales o f Hoffmann
and when it was over he said to me, “ You must explain to Emeric and
Michael that that must be cut!” Korda was right, it was slow and
dull. I tried to speak to Micky and Emeric but they were adamant, of
course. There was a huge row with Korda. I felt there was an awful
lot of stubbornness on the part of The Archers —because they had had
their own way in film-making, both of them, for so long.’
Noreen Ackland, assistant editor on the film, witnessed the full
force of the disagreement. She was asked to run the film for Emeric,
Michael and Korda. Korda repeated his demand for the film to be cut.
An argument ensued. Michael lost his temper with Korda. According
to Ackland — the only other person present - Korda shouted at
Michael: ‘You’ll never work in this industry again!’
Korda was even prepared to make a public show of his disapproval
of the film’s length when it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival
on 20 April. Moira Shearer, who happened to be in the south of
France at the time with her husband, Ludovic Kennedy, was present at
the screening:
‘The film began and I was sitting between Alex and Ludovic in the
front row o f the circle. Alex insisted on puffing on his cigar - which
you weren't allowed to in the cinema, but there he was - clouds went
up from him and he patted me from time to time reassuringly. Then I
saw him begin to fidget a bit and he looked up at the clock and puffed
a bit more and then came the Giuletta sequence, after the inter­
mission. Anywayy he started to mumble and he shifted from buttock
to buttock and so on and then he saidy “ Excuse me, darling, I think I
go out for a little. " He came back in and it was still the Giuletta
sequence going on, so he sat himself down and got out another cigar
and then there was a short intermission and then it started again and
he was o ff pretty quickly. It was quite a long time and we hadn't even
got to the epilogue, and suddenly / could hear Alex come in again at
 P R O D U C T IO N VALUES 331

the back, coming down the stairs and his voice - out loud so everyone
could hear —he said: “My God, is it still going on? ” ’

The film woo two prizes at Cannes, one from the technical commis­
sion ancfa special prize for ‘exceptional originality of transposition’.
In his autobiography, Michael remembers Cannes differently. He
says that he was ‘pushed up against a wall’ by Korda and Emeric
trying to persuade him to completely cut the last act of the film so that
they would win the Grand Prix. When he refused Korda walked off
and Emeric said, ‘I’m sorry Michael,’ and went with him. He believed
that Emeric was plotting behind his back with Korda.
Like other stories in Michael’s book it is, as Chris Challis says,
‘more as he would like it to have been than as it was’ ; it is written like
a scene from a gangster movie, a dramatization of how he felt, and of
what he thought was going on, rather than a record of a factual event.
The thought of Emeric pushing someone up against a wall is absurd.
It seems even less likely that Emeric, having fought to get the film
made, and defending it for all this time from Korda (who had been
demanding cuts for five months) would suddenly side with the mogul
rather than his partner. In any case, from a purely logistical point of
view, events cannot have taken place as he recalls. The London
première, attended by Emeric, Michael and Korda was on 18 April,
the Cannes screening was just two days later. Emeric’s diary reveals
that he did not arrive in Cannes until the morning of the screening.
Whatever the truth of the incident, it was clearly lodged in
Michael’s brain as the beginning of the end of his relationship with
Emeric. The beginning of the end of trust.
 CHAPTER 16

Divorce
Demonic frenzy, moping melancholy,
And moonstruck madness.
m il t o n , Paradise Lost, Book XI

In the early Fifties Arsenal Football Club entered a long slow period
of decline. For seventeen years they didn’t win a single cup, and the
stultifying boredom of their games became a by-word. They played a
dogged, dull, defensive football that echoed the state of the nation.
Only die-hard fans like Emeric remained loyal to the team, passively
accepting that with devotion comes misery, sooner or later. He would
sit wrapped in a beige camel-hair coat, his Arsenal scarf tied neatly
round his neck, shaking his head in sorrow at yet another missed
opportunity, entering into detailed evaluations of players with his
dour neighbours, responding with a smile to the occasional victories
which - perhaps? - signalled some light at the end of the tunnel. On
several occasions he initiated correspondence with the Club’s
management, offering earnest advice on matters as diverse as the new
design for the home strip, or the talented youngster he had spotted in
Nottingham Forest’s reserves. And there was an evangelistic streak to
his obsession. To supplement his Bentley, he purchased a bright
yellow, second-hand Land-Rover especially to transport his friends to
away games, driving them as far afield as Manchester or Birmingham
to grow numb and sodden on some inhospitable terrace.

Emeric was tenacious, or perhaps just averse to change. He would not

abandon Arsenal, and even after the ferocity of the arguments over
Hoffmann, he believed The Archers could continue working with
London Films. He succeeded in deluding himself, Michael and Korda
right up until the end of August 19 5 1. Plans for the fourth ‘major
cinematographic film’ in their five-picture contract advanced. Emeric
still favoured another opera, Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier but, going to
the other extreme, also optioned a true-life adventure story - a sort of
Second World War Pimpernel - called III Met By Moonlight written
 DIVORCE 333

by Stanley Moss. An adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen

Eighty-four was also discussed.
Korda, driven (characteristically) by the exigencies of an expen­
sive contract with the ballerina Margot Fonteyn, wanted them to
film a version of Sleeping Beauty. The partners refused. Irritations
and arguments proliferated, particularly between Michael and
Korda. As usual Emeric was cast in the role of pacifier and dip­
lomat, but it was now transparently obvious to both sides that there
was no way they could work together again. It was a mutual
decision to dissolve the contract and neither party incurred a finan­
cial penalty, though Emeric and Michael had to return the fourth
instalment of £20,000 that had already been advanced to them for
The Archers’ shares.
Korda had finally become bored by The Archers, and Michael
himself seemed to be bored with films. He wanted to do more work
in the theatre and had already - in June - confirmed plans for a
West End venture with Raymond Massey. He was also keen to
spend more time looking after the hotel on the Riviera — La Voile
d’Or — which he had inherited from his father. Emeric already felt
himself disproportionately lumbered with responsibility for the com­
pany — it was he, for example, who had to negotiate alternative
work for the Archers’ staff when Korda stopped paying their
retainers in December 1950. Michael’s unreliability, which had
always bothered his fastidious partner, became worse. Sydney
Streeter remembered that when Michael inherited the hotel ‘he
declared it as his home. So we all had to imagine that he no longer
lived in Melbury Road, London, but in the Voile d’Or which meant
endless costly journeys to Nice. Michael would often just disappear
. . . without a word to anyone. Now this really choked Emeric
because they were partners and if someone asked, “ Where is he?”
Emeric would have to say, “ I don’t know!” That’s what ended the
partnership. It was stupid for Michael to try to make us swallow the
idea that one could commute between Nice and London . . . as if we
wouldn’t notice. Going away like that and leaving Emeric on his
own was unfair.’
The Archers were to make only another three films, all were to be
initiated and mothered into existence by Emeric. Not that Michael
didn’t have plenty of projects of his own - he had them coming out
of his ears. Ambitious, artistic, innovative ideas. But that’s what
they remained: ideas. His capriciousness and haughty irritability saw
334 EMERIC

to that. He became like the architect Boulee who is remembered

now for all his fantastic, ambitious plans but never built a building.

In January 19 5 1 the Pressburger family went on holiday to the

Austrian ski resort of Kitzbühel. While Wendy and Angela took to
the slopes, Emeric stayed behind at the hotel with his old Ufa men­
tor Reinhold Schünzel, helping the latter with his ‘comeback’ script.
One afternoon Emeric and Schünzel were invited to a screening of
Günther Stapenhorst’s latest production, Das Doppelte Lottchen, a
children’s film based on a book by Erich Kästner, with whom
Emeric had first come to Kitzbühel twenty years before to write
Em il and the Detectives. Perhaps it was this coincidence, and the
nostalgic company in which he saw it, that made Emeric enjoy the
film as much as he did. He noted in his diary the following day that
this undeniably sentimental film had made him ‘cry several times’
and ‘laugh out loud’ .
It was a sentimental story, only partially redeemed by Kästner’s
innocent, punning wit. Two identical girl twins are separated when
their parents divorce. They aren’t even aware of one another’s exist­
ence until they meet coincidentally on holiday in Kitzbühel. For the
sheer mischief of it, they swap places and go home with the wrong
parent. The happy result of the mix-up is that the parents - a ballet
dancer and a conductor - are reunited.
The idea of an English language remake didn’t immediately enter
Emeric’s head. He mentioned the film in passing to Korda during a
general discussion on children’s cinema (there had been some talk of
Emeric scripting an adaptation of Kalman Mikszath’s Hungarian
children’s classic, St Peter's Umbrella), and Korda himself made the
suggestion. But the mogul was not just thinking of the lucrative
possibilities of the underexploited youth market. The Archers were
no longer under contract and Michael was engaged on his theatre
project. Korda sensed an opportunity to divide the partners once
and for all, to separate the dependable Pressburger from the irascible
Powell. He offered Emeric the opportunity to remake Das Doppelte
Lottchen on his own: to write, produce —and direct.
Unlike so many screenwriters, Emeric never had a burning desire to
direct. Working with Michael, ‘who understands what I want before I
say it’, he did not have the traditional impetus of the uppity writer.
But now, encouraged by Korda, in need of money as always, and
confronted by such a seemingly simple, undemanding subject for
 DIVORCE 335

which there was already a blueprint, he could hardly say no. It was, as
Sydney Streeter suggests, more a case of ‘needs must, necessity, than
any great passion to be a director’. Emeric consulted with Michael,
who hatLno objections. They saw it as only a temporary hiatus in the
partnership, and agreed to resurrect The Archers in the spring with a
script Emeric was already hatching on the life of Richard Strauss.
Das Doppelte Lottchen translates literally into English as ‘Twice
Times Lotte’, but Wendy came up with a whimsical alternative:
Twice Upon a Time. The two little girls were no longer from Berlin
and Munich, but Glasgow and London, though they still met on
holiday in Kitzbiihel, not Blackpool or Scarborough. At £102,000 the
budget was far smaller than anything Emeric had attempted since
Contraband. The film would be produced through his own produc­
tion company: Empress.
Apart from Hein Heckroth - engaged, albeit unhappily, on Sidney
Gilliat’s The Story o f Gilbert and Sullivan - Emeric used the regular
Archers crew: Sydney Streeter, George Busby, Chris Challis and
Freddie Francis. The down-to-earth Arthur Lawson, normally the art
director, was given the opportunity to design the film. The cast also
contained a number of old acquaintances: Michael Gough, Jack
Hawkins and Hugh Williams. The pale and English Elizabeth Allen
was given the female lead, and unashamedly doubled in the ballet
sequences.
Casting the twins was not so simple. Newspaper advertisements
were placed, and suitable applicants invited to a lavish tea party at
Korda’s Piccadilly offices. Angela remembers being ‘the only child
there without a twin - devastating for a ten year old’. Emeric wan­
dered among the aspirants handing out presents, while Chris Challis
unobtrusively filmed them with a 16mm camera. After a further
round of interviews two twelve year olds, Yolande and Charmaine
Larthe, were selected.
The film was scheduled as a twelve-week shoot, starting on loca­
tion on the 26 January in Kitzbiihel and moving to Elstree Studios a
month later. Emeric approached his task with little relish. Faced with
the awkward mechanics of film-making his visual imagination, so
apparent on the page, deserted him. ‘He had no direct experience of
directing and had little idea where to place the camera,’ says Chris
Challis. ‘The way in which we shot things was virtually up to us. We
would suggest it to him and he’d agree. Some things he would not
like, but more or less he went along with our suggestions.’
33^ EMERIC

If Emeric didn’t have Michael’s infectious energy on the set - what

Sydney Streeter called ‘the Powell drive’ - the shoot was a relaxed and
enjoyable one because of it: ‘Emeric was kind, gentle, understanding
. . . never sarcastic’. Actors enjoyed working with him. Michael Gough
appreciated the fact that Emeric was ‘very wide open to suggestions
from all of us’ .
At Korda’s instigation, Emeric hired Reginald Beck, an editor with a
strong dramatic sense, who had been invaluable to another novice
director, Laurence Olivier, on Henry V. As Beck pieced the material
together it became obvious that the twins were poor actors who looked
very little alike on the screen, that the film was visually flat, and there
was not even enough coverage to tell the story. Reshoots were called
for. Emeric was tired of the whole messy business and already immer­
sed in his Strauss script. Another young director, Guy Hamilton, Carol
Reed’s old assistant, was hired to shoot the additional material with
Jack Hildyard as cameraman. Hamilton remembers:
T was summoned to the Shepperton Studios one Saturday morning.
Present were one editor, one cameraman, one assistant and one
production manager. You did not have to be the brains o f Britain to
guess that retakes were the order o f the day. The three Korda brothers
came in and sat down silently in the front row. A rough cut o f Twice
Upon a Time unspooled. The lights came up at the end and Alex Korda
lit a cigar then turned to face us and came out with the deathless liney
“ Boys, I could eat a tin o f trims and shit a better picture. ” Sadly, he
wasn’t far wrong. ’
In Hamilton’s estimation the film was ‘overly saccharine and senti­
mental’, but a more basic mistake was ‘the miscasting of two young,
charmless, gawky and far too old English girls whose sole claim to
fame was that they were identical twins’/ The retakes took about a
week and mainly involved clarifying the story. Hamilton never met the
twins nor Emeric.
London Films’ general lack of confidence in Twice Upon a Time is
evident in the fact that it was not released until July 19 5 3 ,3 full year
after completion. It was not given a West End première and sank
without trace in the suburbs. The critics barely bothered to be vitupera­
tive. Today no print of Twice Upon a Time is available for viewing.*

* In Disney’s 1 961 remake of the story - T h e P a r e n t T r a p - the casting problem was overcome
by having Hayley Mills play both twins.
 DIVORCE 33 7

Emeric himself never mentioned the film, and its folly became closely
associated in his mind with certain personal problems he was going
through at the time.
✓

The Archers sustained themselves on a delusion of independence. It

was their raison d’être. In the 1942 ‘manifesto’ sent to Wendy Hiller
they had declared: ‘Every single foot in our films is our responsibility
and nobody else’s. We refuse to be guided or coerced by any influence
but our own judgment.’ For a time, under Rank’s generous umbrella,
they were fortunate enough to experience the freedom they sought. But
when the somewhat artificial conditions of the war, and immediate
post-war years, came to an end that sort of freedom evaporated. Their
belief that they could negotiate a similar position with Korda and his
co-fraternity of film magnates, just because their films were successful,
was shown to be ridiculously naive.
Now, in 19 52, for the first time they were to taste real freedom —
freedom to flatter their own backers, negotiate co-productions, find
completion guarantors and inhabit the twilight zone of wheeler-
dealers - and it didn’t taste good. Emeric, at least, would emerge from
this period of ‘development hell’, with a more realistic attitude, with
the knowledge that in the film business there is no such thing as
independence, only mutual compromise.
In March 19 52 Michael embarked on a round the world trip that
was part holiday and part fund-raising mission. In America the full
extent of The Red Shoes' success had only recently become obvious,
and The Archers were hot property. He wrote to Emeric telling him
there was no need to take out his pension yet. Several lucrative
Hollywood contracts were offered to them, but they turned them down
- that would have meant the end of independence. In New York
Michael met with Robert Dowling, the millionaire investor with a
penchant for European movies, who agreed to put up 50 per cent of the
finance for the Strauss project, subject to the script. In Hollywood he
talked to Doré Schary, Louis B. Mayer and Gregory Peck, who was keen
to be cast in a Powell-Pressburger film. The most successful encounter
was with Harry Cohn, president of Columbia Pictures, who offered
100 per cent of the finance on Strauss, again subject to script, and was
also interested in giving The Archers a crack at Lawrence o f Arabia **

*The L a w r e n c e project remained on The Archers’ roster for over a year bur Cohn was put off
by their radical ideas for the story.
33» EMERIC

Michael cabled the good news to Emeric, who immediately set to

work once more on his Strauss script, ‘The Golden Years’.
It was his most visually imaginative and daring work for some
time. As in Abschied, Blimp and The Red Shoes, it was the opportu­
nity for formal experimentation that inspired him. The central device
in ‘The Golden Years’ - which is subtitled ‘An Autobiography’ - was
to make Strauss the camera itself. We, the audience, see everything
that he sees, but we never see him, except for the occasional glimpse
in a mirror or reflection in a window. Using different lenses and
lighting, the camera itself sees the same things - people, childhood
rooms - differently as time passes. Emeric thought that Strauss’ life
was so inextricably bound up in his work, that the composer was his
music, and if we hear the music there is no need to see him. Only at
the end do we see Strauss —the real Strauss —in a piece of home movie
footage, taken on the composer’s 85th birthday in 1949, which was
given to the partners when they visited the Strauss family villa at
Garmisch-Partenkirchen outside Munich.
The script is full of inventive cinematic tricks, and is yet another
exploration of the relationship between music and images: out of the
shadow of the old Strauss runs the shadow of the little boy Strauss; as
a couple converse, their movements grow larger than life, the lighting
and setting changes and they are taking part in an opera; a man draws
the opera set and the opera itself floods out of the paper. Using a
pre-recorded score, ‘The Dance of the Seven Veils’ in Salome was to
be seen for the first time as Strauss imagined it, with a dancer who
also sings.
The combination of opera sequences with narrative is, of course,
reminiscent of The Red Shoes, and Emeric goes out of his way to
draw another ironic parallel: Massine was to appear as himself, forty
years before, with Diaghilev. But it is Der Rosenkavalier, Emeric’s
favourite opera, which forms the centrepiece of the film. In an 18-
minute sequence interweaving narrative and music we see and hear
the inception, birth, première and 300th performance of the great
opera.
The script also contains a good deal of humour and verve. In one
scene a line of critics are forced quite literally to eat their hats (with
chocolate sauce), a characteristic ‘literalism’. One of the most amus­
ing scenes satirizes (with a BlimpAike concentration on form and
etiquette) the pretensions of a tiny provincial court (‘A small Court
cannot help being, in some sort, a parody of the great world; or like
 DIVORCE 339

Henry V performed by distinguished amateurs’).

Strauss — or at least the Strauss of Emeric’s imagination - shares
with Blimp and Hoffmann a fixation on a romantic ideal that endures
throughout his life. In the composer’s case she is called Eta. He only
met her briefly twice but ‘she was a vision . . . an inspiration’ .
Suitably, she appears as the prima donna in all the excerpts from his
operas that we see.
Although it does not take up much space in the script —only about
20 pages - Strauss’ relationship with the writer Hoffmanstahl, the
librettist of several of his finest operas, might seem like a nod towards
Emeric’s own relationship with Michael. The composer and his col­
laborator have a similarly profound respect - even love - for each
other. They agree that in an opera neither the words nor the music are
more important. And echoing Michael’s opinion that he was ‘the
teller of the tale not the creator of the story’, Strauss admits to
Hoffmanstahl that Der Rosenkavalier is ‘only your words put into
music’.
A vital component of any bio-pic is a device to indicate the passing
of time. In ‘The Golden Years’ the composer pays visits to the same
barber shop throughout his life. The first such sequence illustrates
Emeric’s sense of caricature and whimsy, and the script’s narrative
style:
70. SIGN OF HUBER'S BARBER SHOP.
Ri c h a r d s v o i c e : Old Huber's barber shop! Of course this was the old

Old Huber then, not the young Old Huber who grew old with
me.
71. BLOND CURLS falling to the floor.
Ri c h a r d s v o i c e : How I hated to be taken by my mother to have my hair
cut.
o l d h u b e r : (Off) Lean back, Master Richard.

The barber's chair is tilted back. The c a m e r a skims the basin, the
mirror (was that the reflection of a blond serious little boy?) and
comes to rest on the ceiling.
The fine old head of h u b e r appears as he bends over r i c h a r d , scissors
in hand.
o l d h u b e r : It's a pity to lop your curls, Master Richard. They're finer

than a girl's.
Ri c h a r d s v o i c e : (Low voice) Cut them as short as you can, Herr Huber.
o l d h u b e r : Your mother said: half length. Your sister, Johanna, never
340 EMERIC

had curls like that. I used to cut hers half length.

Ri c h a r d ' s v o i c e : I don't want my hair cut like Johanna's.

o l d h u b e r : Why not?

Ri c h a r d ' s v o i c e : Because I'm a man.

o l d h u b e r : With all respect, Master Richard, you're a boy.

Ri c h a r d s v o i c e : Please, Herr Huber, how long is a man a boy?

o l d h u b e r : Until he's 16, Master Richard. After that, only men who

feel like boys remain boys . . . (A pause) Me, for instance.

Ri c h a r d ' s v o i c e : You, Herr Huber? But you're an old man!
OLD HUBER: AM I?
Ri c h a r d ' s v o i c e : Didn't you know?
o l d h u b e r : No, Master Richard. I thought I was - at most - an old

b oy. . .
72. The pile of b l o n d c u r l s on the floor.
Dissolves to:
73. S T R A I G H T E R , D A R K E R H A IR , which
Dissolves to:
74. A dear floor.
Again the c a m e r a tilts back over the basin, over the mirror (was that
the reflection of a serious young man?) and comes to rest on the
ceiling where the face of y o u n g h u b e r , who has been talking appears.
y o u n g h u b e r : Lean back Herr Strauss. I'm young Huber. My father

has gone to the law courts. He's serving on a jury. (The chair is
swinging back as he speaks.) He told me: 'Alfred. You're cutting
Master Richard's hair in the morning.' I hope you don't mind my
cutting your hair, sir. How do you like it?
His face hovers over the camera.
Ri c h a r d ' s v o i c e : How do I like it? Nobody had ever asked me that
before. How did I like it? I mumbled something about always
having it half-length. Alfred's face soon showed me my mistake.
He said:
y o u n g h u b e r : (Disgusted) Half length, Mr Strauss?

Ri c h a r d ' s v o i c e : I asked him what was wrong.

y o u n g h u b e r : Oh, nothing, Herr Strauss. I only thought. . . if I may

venture an opinion . . . a gentleman of your type . . . I would say,

full length in the front, short in the back, parting in the centre,
combing right back.
Ri c h a r d s v o i c e : A gentleman of my type . . . I had arrived! I was 16
and a Man! I said, Good!
y o u n g h u b e r : Thank you, Herr Strauss. And what does Herr Strauss
 DIVORCE 341

use on his hair? Carnation? Black Magic? Barbarossa? King

William?. . .
Ri c h a r d ' s v o i c e : I didn't dare tell him I used w ater. ..
y o u n g H08ER: I can recommend Winter Violet.

RICHARD'S VOICE: Good!

The first draft of ‘The Golden Years’ was dispatched to both Dow­
ling and Cohn in August. Dowling responded first; he made no
bones of the fact that he didn’t understand it and couldn’t see how it
would work as a film. At Columbia, Cohn was less decisive, but
after two months likewise knocked it back.
Perhaps it was too sophisticated a script for Hollywood. They
cannot have been encouraged by the use of ‘subjective camera’ :
Robert Montgomery had already used the technique unsucessfully in
his 1946 version of Chandler’s Lady in the Lake.
But Strauss’s reputation was also to blame. He was considered a
politically dubious figure, thanks to his associations with high Nazi
officials. From the script it is apparent that Emeric was aware of the
possibility of this objection from the start. He tried his utmost to
present the composer as a man who lived a life devoted to art and
art alone, into which the real world — and real politics — barely
impinged. It was a strange turn around for the radical, politicized
screenwriter of 49th Parallel and The Life and Death o f Colonel
Blimp. Strauss was guilty, if nothing else, of a terrible, callous
selfishness (in a post-war interview Strauss commented that Governor
Frank of Poland - the Nazi directly responsible for Auschwitz - was
a ‘good fellow’ because he liked his music. Hitler on the other hand
he detested: ‘Wagner, Wagner and Wagner again - hardly ever did
he go to hear one of my operas!’). Was this merely an extension of
Emeric’s humanism, his unwillingness to dismiss a whole race, a
whole culture, for the crimes of the few? Or did he believe in and
approve of Strauss’s aestheticism? Had Emeric grown so politically
nihilistic since the war that he was able to write a glowing, affec­
tionate tribute to a man who had been complicit with the Nazi
party?

With the rejection of ‘The Golden Years’, The Archers entered a

two-year period of disappointment and frustration. They planned,
prepared and touted half a dozen projects, had their spirits lifted,
only to have them dashed. Every possible avenue of funding was
342- EMERIC

explored, including a return to Rank or Korda. But for two years The
Archers remained pariahs.
Apart from T h e Golden Years’ some of the more serious projects
were ‘111 Met By Moonlight’, a film of the operetta Die Fledermaus,
‘The Waiting Game’, an original murder mystery story of Emeric’s
meant for Gregory Peck and ‘The Cauldron’, Michael’s story about
neo-Nazis. During the latter half of 19 52 Emeric kept a diary which
chronicles some of the efforts and disappointments:
28 September
Yesterday, Saturday, Mick and Hein came to work, we went
through the music of ‘Fledermaus,’ we had masses of ideas, all
three very enthusiastic. We cracked a bottle of champagne.
2 October
Met Mick and Chris [Mann - their agent] talked of our waning
prestige and discussed the future. We sent letter to Cecil B. de
Mille on ‘Fledermaus’. Clarke [Robert Clarke of ABC] appoint­
ment on Wednesday. Columbia will give answer [on ‘Golden
Years]’ on Monday. Mick going to Nice on his father’s business,
on way back will contact Gregory Peck or family in Paris. I’m
working on ‘111 M et’.
8 October
It looks that Clarke is interested in ‘111 Met’. News from Colum­
bia: ‘Golden Years not dead yet.’
18 October
Michael came at 10 .30 am. We discussed ‘The Cauldron’. I’m
now working again on the ‘Missionary Story’. Columbia have
turned down ‘The Golden Years’. These are difficult times.
20 October
Letter from Cecil B. de Mille. Very nice, he’ll recommend the
head of Paramount to get in touch with us . . . Dinner with
Balcon [Michael Balcon was head of Production at Ealing
Studios - nominally autonomous but controlled by the Rank
Organisation. He had expressed an interest in helping The
Archers make III Met there] was very nice, he wants to be and (I
think) will be helpful. Mick brought me home. We talked until
midnight.
 DIVORCE 343

23 October
Sent telegram to Michel [Kelber] and Gombos [?] arranging my
arrival Sunday Paris. . . . Worked a bit on ‘Missionary Story’,
Michael didn’t phone until 3 pm. He was 24 hours late as
usual. We went to see Holman from Paramount at the Dor­
chester, he seems to be interested in both ‘Golden Years’ and
‘Fledermaus’. But they don’t want to do films in Europe.
Michael and I walked to Piccadilly, I went to see ‘Limelight’, a
little disappointing. Claire Bloom lovely and very good.
27 October
Have been with Michel all morning. At 1 pm Mick and I met
Peck and we went out to lunch at their house. 1 think Mick too
optimistic and Peck doesn’t much care with whom he’ll make
his picture. During lunch, which ended at 5 pm, he told us that
he would like to see a treatment and he couldn’t make a pic­
ture with us before next fall. 1 dined with Michel at ‘Louis’.
Hotel lousy.
1 1 November
I arrived home and phoned Chris. Balcon phoned him. It’s as I
feared, he had meeting yesterday with Rank group no success.
They don’t want a war story [/// Met] and I don’t think they
want us.
19 November
Mick came bringing the news that he talked to Mills of Ambas­
sadors and Frankovich and an Egyptian called M. Pierre. They
want us to do a film in Cairo (Tutankhamun’s treasure). M.
says quite serious. Went to Chris, he will phone Frankovich —
in pouring rain in M .’s open car we went to his flat. I took
sausages and foie gras and we ate with Frankie. Then to
Vienna Philharmonic concert with Michael. Wonderful Beet­
hoven 7th and Leonara III [sic]. I introduced M. to Clemens
Krauss . . . [Emeric wanted Krauss to conduct the music for
Fledermaus]
7 December
Chris phoned, through Grogan [?] he had some encouraging
news from Paramount on ‘Fledermaus’. If we can accelerate by
completion-guarantee here, we shall.
344 EMERIC

The difficulties in Emeric’s professional life were both mirrored and

magnified by personal problems. His marriage to Wendy was draw­
ing to a messy conclusion. She was unhappy, and had been for some
time. She still blamed Emeric for the death of their second daughter,
Sally-Sue, and complained to friends that she felt suffocated by her
husband, that he controlled her life as though she were a marionette
or a character in a script. He bought many of her clothes, decided
where she should go on holiday, ordered the food that they would
eat, chose where Angela should go to school. He refused to let her be
herself. Wendy began to say that she had felt pressurized into marry­
ing Emeric in the first place by his persistence and devotion.
There had always been plenty of opportunities for Wendy to have
affairs. She was still stunningly beautiful, with a remarkable talent for
attracting men. Her daughter remembers one particularly ardent
admirer, an Egyptian millionaire who bought her jewels on one of
their long languid summer vacations at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte
Carlo. But up to now, Wendy had always resisted.
Preparing to shoot Twice Upon a Time, Emeric spent the Christ­
mas of 19 5 1 in Kitzbühel en famille. Many old Ufa friends were also
there: Schünzel, Stapenhorst, Erich Kastner and Robert Siodmak with
his wife. It was he, the man who started Emeric’s career in films, who
unwittingly helped put an end to his marriage. The Siodmaks,
arriving late in the season, couldn’t get a room at the Grand Hotel
with the others, and were forced to stay in a second-rate establish­
ment in the centre of town. Emeric, who made it his business to
befriend the concierges in Europe’s finest hotels, was happy to use his
influence to obtain a room at the Grand for the Siodmaks as soon as
one came up. Once installed in their new quarters the Siodmaks
invited Emeric and Wendy to dinner. They also invited another man
whom they had met at their first hotel - Harold Newman, author of
Newm an’s European Travel Guide, a handbook for rich Americans
with wanderlust but no desire to rough it.
Over the next fortnight, while Emeric scouted for locations, Wendy
and Newman became acquainted. Newman was a cultured, wealthy
divorcé from an old Jewish New Orleans family. In both age and
physical appearance he resembled Emeric, but he had a veneer of
easy-going, American humour that was quite alien to the screen­
writer.
According to Freddie Francis, Emeric seemed preoccupied with his
personal problems throughout the shooting of Twice Upon a Time.
 DIVORCE 345

But the true extent of Wendy’s affair was only revealed to Emeric in
July when, quite suddenly, she moved out of the house with Angela
and announced that she wanted a divorce. A month later, clearly very
upset, he wrote to Michel Kelber in Paris:
Unfortunately, the whole thing has knocked me pretty well cold.
I couldn’t properly finish my work [Twice Upon a Time] or start
anything new. In a daze I wrote a script [‘The Golden Years’]
and Michael and I are looking for finance to do it. Halfheartedly
I’m trying to get used to this . . .
He started going out to the theatre, to the cinema or concerts every
night to forget. Unexpectedly, he developed a fatalistic fascination
with astrology,
. . . Michael sent me from Paris the last number of ‘Horoscope’ . I
live now by the stars and I’m waiting desperately for one day
when things will happen as predicted in ‘Horoscope’. Still,
please send me the January number at once! I’m an addict now!
For some time, while Newman was away in Europe and America
working on the latest edition of his travel guide, Emeric continued to
see Wendy. He tried shamelessly to win her back. He took his wife on
dates; holding her hand, pursuing a kiss at the end of the evening. His
over-riding sensation was of disappointment. Wendy had not lived up
to his expectations, to the image he had foisted upon her:
i i October
I feel awful today. It’s not disappointed love or jealousy. It’s a
terrible let down from W. She had so much chance to talk to me
lately but she prefers to deal with me through lawyers. Went
with Nancy and Charles to Arsenal-Sheffield (2-2), terrible
game. Charles called for Angela. We had dinner and saw news­
reels on TV. Then Angela went to bed (in her own room).
Wendy didn’t write, neither did I. I’m sure she won’t get in
touch with me about Monday’s première of Kon Tiki (she
knows I have tickets for it) or the Chaplin première on Thurs­
day. I hope I’ll be strong enough not to call her. If she wants to
be treated by me as a stranger-cum-boyfriend she should keep
appointments. How much she reminds me of character in Danish
book Der Reiter: ‘Kleinkragen! Kleinkragen! Weil das ist die
a r t /’ [‘Kleinkragen! Kleinkragen! Because that is the w a y !’]
346 EMERIC

Wendy soon abandoned this game and in November provided Emeric

with the ‘evidence’ he needed to proceed with the divorce. He had
resigned himself to this, but not to her plans to take Angela away to
America to be educated, and initiated a custody battle. Under normal
circumstances the mother was almost always given the child, but
several points weighed heavily against Wendy: her adultery (still
considered a deplorable crime in those days), the fact that Newman
was a foreigner, and the fact that if the child was in America, the
father, who was the innocent party, would be unable to gain frequent
access to her.
The case came up in February 19 53. Wendy marshalled an attack
which aimed to demonstrate that Emeric was an unsuitable, neg­
lectful father, while she, in spite of her adultery, was a loving, caring
mother. Emeric, who considered himself to be an unimpeachable
parent, was hurt by the brutality of the accusations. He felt par­
ticularly betrayed when Wendy called Valerie Hobson, Angela’s god­
mother and one of Emeric’s oldest friends, to testify against him.
It was Valerie Hobson who introduced Wendy to a sharp young
showbusiness lawyer called Hans Marcus who had made his name
representing the wily Sam Spiegel. After the first day’s hearing, coun­
sel advised Marcus that he didn’t stand a chance. The lawyer just
shrugged. Using his extensive Central European connections he set to
work examining Emeric’s background for any misdemeanour that
could possibly be used against him. He came up with a remarkable
technicality. He argued that when Emeric had married and divorced
his first wife Agi, stating that his true country of domicile was
Hungary, he had been lying. Marcus noted that with the Trianon
Treaty of 1920, Emeric had become a Romanian citizen. This meant,
Marcus said, that Emeric’s divorce from Agi was invalid and that his
marriage to Wendy had been, technically speaking, a bigamous one.
On the strength of this, Wendy petitioned, not for a divorce but an
annulment of her marriage - declaring, in effect, that they had never
been legally married at all. If that were the case, the child would go
automatically to the mother. The newspapers were full of it. Emeric,
who hated personal publicity at the best of times, was made des­
perately unhappy.
Emeric appealed, but before his appeal could be heard Angela was
illegally smuggled out of the country to Belgium and thence to Paris,
where a State department contact of Harold’s arranged an American
visa. In November 19 53 Wendy initiated divorce proceedings in
 DIVORCE 347

Reno, Nevada, on the grounds of cruelty. Emeric tried to have her

summoned back to Britain for ‘taking possession of furniture not
rightly hers’. This failed. The appeal judge then dismissed Wendy’s
petitioru for'nullity, saying that she could not apply for nullity in
Britain while seeking a divorce in America. Still, on z December
Wendy was granted an uncontested divorce in Reno and married
Newman on the same day. This highly irregular state of affairs was
only clarified in 19 7 1, when Wendy, who wanted to move back to
London, finally sought and obtained a legal British divorce.
After Wendy and Harold Newman moved back to London in the
early Seventies my brother and 1 were occasionally summoned to
their smart apartment at Cadogan Gardens. We were usually on
our way to visit Emeric, but we soon learned that we weren’t even
to mention his name in her presence.
They weren’t really cut out for grandparenthood and always
seemed a bit panic-stricken to have children about the place. In
part this was probably because of Harold’s enormous collection of
veilleuses - decorative porcelain containers for keeping tea and
coffee warm by the bedside —which were lined up in cabinets and
on every available space. Apparently he had the largest collection
of veilleuses in the world.
Even in her seventies, Wendy was tall, thin and elegant. She
had a fine nose, rose-buddish lips and thick black hair. How much
nature had been aided in keeping her remarkable looks, it was
difficult to judge. She seemed rather precious and delicate like a
porcelain figurine, and was never exposed to extremes that might
upset her. She rarely left the house and spent her time making
dresses in her sewing room —they often complained about how
expensive everything was - or sitting in a little study eating
chocolates and perusing the Radio Times.
Harold was a cross between a peevish gnome and a little boy,
who in his mid-eighties ate Dayvilles ice-cream for lunch every day
and had pancakes with maple syrup for dinner. His time was spent
at the Victoria and Albert Museum or hunched over boxes of index
cards (he had long ago given up travel guides and now wrote
illustrated encyclopedias on the decorative arts).
Wendy was definitely not as much fun to visit as Emeric. She
didn’t give you £50 every time you visited (just £5 on your
birthday). She didn’t tell you stories or let you try peculiar aperitifs
348 EMERIC

from the drinks cupboard. She didn’t cook delicious meals that you
couldn’t finish, but had an Italian cook who heated boxes of
lasagne and evil-tasting coq au vin, to be eaten formally with a
napkin and polite conversation.
Emeric never fully recovered from the divorce proceedings. The
loss of Wendy who, as Michel Kelber said, ‘meant England, home, a
family to him’, was bad enough. The malice and unpleasantness
which had accompanied it made the experience all the more har­
rowing, and resulted in a severe loss of faith in mankind. But worst of
all was the loss of Angela. He would see her no more than two or
three times again before she was a grown woman.

A project from this period which very nearly reached the screen was
‘Bouquet’. A ‘portmanteau’ film composed of a representative story
from each of the four countries of the Union — Scotland, England,
Ireland and Wales — ‘Bouquet’ was planned to coincide with the
celebrations for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. Each story was named
after the national plant of the country involved: the rose for England,
the shamrock for Ireland, the thistle for Scotland and the leek for
Wales. Emeric’s favourite was ‘The Thistle’, Burns’s ‘Tam O’
Shanter’, which he saw as an expressionist ballet, a composed film
built, not around music, but a recording of the poem spoken by John
Laurie. The draft script provides an insight into The Archers’ still
fecund collaboration. At the bottom of each page, Hein Heckroth,
Brian Easdale, Emeric and Michael have affixed their separate notes.
For the sixth sequence they read:
e a s d a l e : ‘Whenever the poem is spoken freely, in narrative

manner, the music becomes completely unassertive. But there

will be times, to be mutually decided, when music and poem are
co-equal, play each other off, and combine in a definite rhythmic
pattern.
h e i n h e c k r o t h : And the design must be free and all the

elements must be there from the start, as in the paintings of

Chagall. I believe that even the music and the musicians can
form part of the design. It is important that Brian realises this.
He should not write for a symphony orchestra but for fiddles,
pipes and penny-whistles, which, with their players, can form
part of the design.
 DIVORCE 349

P O W E L L A N D p r e s s b u r g e r : But the poem, with its own

rhythm and drama, recited as it was meant to be recited, in a
way to satisfy the Author and to thrill the audience, must always
be Master. It was intended to be heard and to be spoken; and so
it will be. The written word cannot give a true idea of its tempo.
In the final composition of both music and picture, a recorded
voice-track of the poem spoken by John Laurie will influence the
Score; and the Voice of John Laurie will certainly have its effect
upon the design.
But the coronation came and went and ‘Bouquet’ sadly wilted.
An adaptation of Chaim Weizmann’s autobiography, Trial and
Error, was another project added to the roster in early 19 53. Weiz-
mann, the Zionist chemist who spent most of his life at Manchester
University and gave the British government a new technique for the
production of acetone during the First World War in exchange for the
promise of a free Jewish state, died in 1944 shortly before the founda­
tion of Israel but was honoured as the country’s first president.
Michael, the gentile, read the posthumous autobiography first, seeing
it as the romantic story of a man who ‘created a country out of a test
tube’ . Emeric, the Jew, was more cautious and inclined to stress the
political and human significance of the story (most of the few sur­
vivors from his own extended family now lived in Israel), thus his
title: ‘The Salt of the Earth’.
Arthur Krim of United Artists tentatively offered to finance half the
picture and on 13 January 19 53 Meyer Weisgal, the brash, fast­
talking New Yorker who was the Zionists’ main fund-raiser, and
Weizmann’s literary executor, hinted that he might come up with the
other half. Michael was in Zurich visiting Stapenhorst when Emeric
phoned him with the good news. Michael was now afraid of the
Weizmann story because he thought it would ruin other negotiations
with some mysterious Egyptians over a possible ‘Tutankhamun’s
Treasure’ film. But later the same day he sent a telegram saying he had
reconsidered and they should ‘drop everything for it’ .
Things proceeded rapidly. Weisgal took them to meet Simon
Marks and Israel Sieff, enthusiastic Zionists and the co-founders of
Marks and Spencer, who agreed to finance a reconnaissance trip to
Israel to the tune of £10,000. For that sum Emeric was also to write a
script that would be delivered to Weisgal and Arthur Krim not later
than 15 August 19 53.
350 EMERIC

On 1 6 M ay Emeric, Michael, Hein Heckroth and Sydney Streeter

flew into Tel Aviv. Immigrants were still pouring into the country
from war-ravaged Europe. The film-makers were given a VIP tour of
the country, meeting academics, revolutionaries, farmers and the
Prime Minister himself, David Ben-Gurion. It was like 49th Parallel
over again. Michael revelled in the ‘wonderful business of
generalship’ which lay before him, while Emeric bought every book
on Israel that he could lay his hands on and asked lots and lots of
questions. He planned to use the same technique of a ‘subjective
camera’ for ‘The Salt of the Earth’ as he had in the unproduced
‘Golden Years’ .
Emeric returned to London on 27 May, ten days before the others.
He had been invited to the Garden Party at Buckingham Palace, and
he would never turn down a royal invitation. Michael and Hein
Heckroth returned directly to the south of France where they were to
rendezvous with Weisgal and Weizmann’s widow, to gain general
approval of their scheme. Emeric was ill and unable to attend the
meeting, so Michael wrote to him:
Wednesday July 1
La Voile d’Or
Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
Dear Emeric - I telephoned Rome 9 a.m. Monday morning to
find Meyer had already left. In the evening Colonel Arnon
phoned from La Croix. They were all there: Meyer, Shirley
[Weisgal’s wife], the Colonel, Mrs Weizmann, Dr and Mrs
Blumenfeld. Accordingly, Hein and I drove over yesterday to
lunch. The Blumenfelds were very nice and in no time we were
back in a Jewish climate: it is astonishing how it is created and
how warm it is. Dr B. is thin, frail, brown and quiet, with a
distinguished face and hands and a sense of humour. Mrs B. is
the sister of Mrs W[eizmann] and speaks French mostly. Meyer
goes to Vichy today, Mrs Weizmann goes to London, both for
three weeks. She told several jokes and asked tenderly after you.
I told her (at lunch) that we had no more difficulties over casting
her husband: our main difficulty was casting Vera Chatzman.
After lunch the ladies went to St Tropez (with the Colonel in
attendance) to get their hair done and I settled down to tell
Meyer (and Dr B. who sat listening with his eyes closed) our new
line of approach. He was a bit scared at first but I threw in
 DIVORCE 351

everything I had (including Hein) and tried to make him imagine

the emotions of a public who came to see the film, not knowing
what they are going to see and hear, only attracted by the actors
and the title and exploitation. I told hijn in as much detail as 1
could (you haven’t given me much, but quite enough) what we
had in mind and finally he became most enthusiastic and gave us
his blessing. He made one stipulation: sometimes the tall figure of
the man should be seen (if the scene calls for it), he should not be
too disembodied. Hein supported this saying that the idea is
wonderful of an unseen chief actor but that there must be no sense
of strain in the handling. Once the public feel that you are
straining not to show W. just because that was the plan —then it
gets annoyed. The same in all arts! I said we had already discussed
this and we had no objection per se to showing an incarnation of
W.: our intention was to retain the utmost control, ourselves,
over what was shown and said, and that we couldn’t do it if we set
ourselves down to worship before Paul Muni or José Ferrer or
Ralph Richardson as if they were W. reincarnated. He then
agreed with enthusiasm and finished up with a handsome tribute
to our joint genius, ingenuity and sincerity. I accepted it.
This therefore constituted formal approval by July 1 of our
general line, so Chris should be notified. The next moves are
yours, old genius. Why not in this direction?
My love, Michael
Our love . . .
But Michael’s enthusiasm had not been as infectious as his letter
suggests. The prospective backers seem to have lost all interest in the
project by the time Emeric had slogged his way through his third
complete and unproduced shooting script in a row.
In troubled times old enemies can appear in a better light. Even after
the slap in the face over III Met by Moonlight, The Archers were not
above making renewed overtures to the Rank Organisation. J. Arthur
Rank himself held out the olive branch to them. Emeric met with both
Rank and Earl St John, the head of production at Pinewood, in
February 19 53. Both ‘Bouquet’ and ‘The Salt of the Earth’, were
discussed but the continuing lack of trust between the parties pre­
vented an agreement being reached.
There were definite offers of work, but these were directed exclu­
sively at Emeric. Twice Upon a Time had done nothing to sully his
352 EMERIC

relationship with Korda. And at the beginning of 19 53 Korda offered

him an open contract to return to London Films as a writer or
writer-producer. The only condition was that Michael be excluded.
Stapenhorst made a similar offer. Although hard up and desperate to
make films again, Emeric refused both propositions, intimating that
he wouldn’t work without Michael again.
On 16 January he was invited to dinner by Korda at his penthouse
in Claridges. The offer was reiterated. He wanted Emeric to team up
with David Lean: ‘He talked of two Indian films. One a sort of Iron
Mask story (a Maharaja has two sons: the bad one rules; the other is
hidden by peasants). The other, ‘Taj M ahal’. First Korda wouldn’t
have anything to do with Michael, then agreed to him.’
Michael responded off-handedly: ‘I have no objection to making
one film for Alex at any time and in India, but it can only be prepared
this summer and spring for shooting next autumn.’ So, at the end of
August, Emeric set aside the completed Weizmann script and set to
work on ‘Taj M ahal’, an adaptation of John Masters’ novel. He had
negotiated a good deal with Korda. He and Michael were paid £6000
each on delivery of the script in December. But by that time London
Films was entering a deep — and terminal — financial crisis. The
government was on the verge of calling in the receivers to recoup its
£3 million loan to the company, and it was no time to be going into
production with an extravagant oriental epic. ‘Taj M ahal’ was never
made.

In the space of a year The Archers had globe-trotted the world, with
scripts set in Austria, India and Israel. But they would have to go even
further afield to find a project that would actually get made. In early
1954 Señores Powell y Pressburger received personal invitations from
President Perón of Argentina to attend a festival of European cinema
in Buenos Aires. The makers of Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes
were still big names on the pampas. Consumed as they were by
present worries the partners were reluctant to hark back to past
glories. Emeric said that they shouldn’t go unless they had a positive
reason for going, unless there was a film in it. It must say something
about his state of mind —writers’ block? desperation? —that Emeric
did not attempt his own original story or even look to other people’s
imaginative fiction as a source, but went to the history books. The
subject he came up with was not strictly an Argentinian one, but
Uruguayan. The Battle of the River Plate was one of the great naval
 DIVORCE 353

encounters of the war, when the German pocket battleship Admiral

G ra f Spee (‘the tiger of the sea’) was hunted down, crippled and
driven to self-destruction by three smaller, slower Allied vessels
making use of superior tactics. Pared to essentials, it was a very
British story of bravery, honour and victory against the odds.
So Peron’s invitation was accepted, and in March they took the
29-hour plane journey to Buenos Aires via west Africa and Brazil.
They were accompanied by a whole plane-load of European stars,
including Jean-Paul Belmondo, Walter Pidgeon and Trevor Howard.
Mai Zetterling was there representing Sweden, and Emeric seems to
have had an affair with her, the first since the break-up of his
marriage.
Everything in Buenos Aires was on an enormous scale: the hotels,
the crowds who gathered to cheer the celebrities, and the appetites.
Emeric was particularly taken with a barbecue restaurant called La
Cabana where roast meat of a hundred different varieties was the
only thing on the menu. (Like the Magyars, the Argentinians have an
innate respect for meat and are deeply suspicious of vegetables.) He
also visited his cousin Klara, who had studied at the Conservatoire in
Vienna and come to Argentina to escape Nazi persecution. She was
now a cabaret singer and her husband a big-band leader. When
Emeric said they were considering using Latin American music in the
film, they presented him with armfuls of tango and paso doble
records to carry home to Hampstead.
What with the receptions and fiestas there wasn’t much time for
real research, but the partners liked what they saw and decided to
return again in June for a more serious recce. On their way home they
stopped off in New York and Spyros Skouras of Twentieth
Century-Fox, apparently on the assurance that they would get Jack
Hawkins to star, gave them £5000 to develop the script.
The movement of ships at sea is not intrinsically interesting. In an
effort to breathe life into the story Emeric interviewed the surviving
naval officers, one of whom gave him a memoir by a certain Captain
Patrick Dove, entitled ‘I was a Prisoner on the Graf Spee’. Dove’s
cargo ship, the m s Africa Shell, was torpedoed by the G raf Spee and
during the time he was held prisoner on the battleship he came to
know, and even admire, its commanding officer, Captain Langsdorff.
Dove’s narrative gave Emeric a human story, and a point of view
from which to approach the larger actions of the battle. It also
allowed him to draw the portrait of an honourable, rather
354 EMERIC

old-fashioned German officer (‘1 don’t like sending ships to the bot­
tom - what sailor does?’), the latest in a long line of ‘good Germans’,
this time inspired quite explicitly by Stapenhorst, who had been
flagship commander during the First World War.
The Archers’ new offices in St Mary Abbot’s Place, off Kensington
High Street, were suddenly animated. Apart from The Battle o f the
River Plate, two other projects were looking good. One was ‘Ondine’,
to star Audrey Hepburn and her soon-to-be-husband, Mel Ferrer.
Emeric and Michael had seen them in Jean Giraudoux’s play (based
on the legend about the prince and the water nymph) on Broadway.
Paramount were to finance the film, but the stars opted out at the last
minute, frightened off by Emeric’s radical ideas for an updated ver­
sion in which the prince was a wet-suited scuba-diver. By the time the
deal fell through, however, Ferrer was already attached to the second
Archers project: the much-mooted version of Die Fledermaus.
In many respects Oh . . . Rosalinda!! (as the film became titled)
represents the pinnacle of Emeric’s continental influence on the
British film industry. Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, the most famous of all
operettas, was written in 1879 as the Viennese answer to Offenbach.
Now, in 1954, Emeric believed that Strauss’s light, sentimental,
hedonistic work would be the European answer to the Hollywood
musical. The plot itself is hardly important, a typical concoction of
cuckolded husbands, singing on balconies, masked balls (where hus­
band and wife, both incognito, fall in love with one another) and
light-hearted revenge.
Operettas had always celebrated a mythical, idealized world -
waltzing Hussars, tender flirtations and scores of Ruritanian princes —
and the central conceit in Oh . . . Rosalinda!! was to superimpose this
rose-tinted Belle-Epoque Vienna on to the grim and dreary reality of
the modern post-war city. Like Berlin, Vienna was divided into four
sectors, each controlled by one of the four allies. Emeric recalled the
bureaucracy and linguistic palaver he and Michael had encountered
when they tried to get from one side of the city to the other in a vain
attempt to see a performance of The Tales o f Hoffmann. There were
definite comic possibilities. Instead of dukes and countesses, he would
use officers from the four powers’ armies and black-marketeers —thus
the ironic transformation of Prince Orlofsky, the wealthy Russian
playboy, into General Orlofsky, the morose (at least until after his
second bottle of vodka) Red Army general. Oh . . . Rosalinda!! asks
its audience not to take the modern world so seriously. It is a theme
 DIVORCE 355

neatly encapsulated in a title card at the beginning: t h e sit u a t io n

IS H O P E L E S S B U T N O T S E R I O U S .
Oh . . . Rosalinda!! had almost been produced a number of times
since Enteric first thought of the idea back in 19 5 1. Initially (after
Cecil B. de Mille’s intervention), Paramount had considered financing
the whole picture. When their interest waned, Arthur Krim at United
Artists stepped in. Emeric had tried to attract big musical stars to the
project. He wanted Bing Crosby and Maurice Chevalier, but neither
of them was convinced.
Michael was growing impatient. It had been three years since he
had directed. He wrote to Emeric in July 19 53: ‘Krim will do picture
without Crosby and so will A BPC [Associated British Picture Cor­
poration]. None of them really believed we would get Crosby. They
dreamed, as we did . . . I don’t want an actor, however eminent, to
decide whether we do Fledermaus in January or not.’ In the end the
cast was an uneasy cocktail of domestic celebrities and minor league
international stars. Mel Ferrer (in the part that was intended for
Crosby), Anton Walbrook, Anthony Quayle (as Orlofsky, a part
intended for Orson Welles), Ludmilla Tcherina, Michael Redgrave (a
substitute for Maurice Chevalier) and the opera singer Anneliese
Rothenberger, who, apart from Redgrave, was the only one to sing
her own part as well as act.
The film did not start shooting in January 1954 as Michael had
hoped, but exactly a year later. Emeric worked hard to piece together
the necessary budget from a whole rag-bag of sources, but even when
the film went on the floor the finance was not all in place. During the
first month of production the situation was precarious: of a total
budget of £276,328, FIDES distribution put up £40,000 up front, for
certain European and Far Eastern rights; Carlton, Stapenhorst’s com­
pany, put up £50,000; A BPC gave a guarantee against distribution of
£93,000 and the National Film Finance Corporation made a loan to
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Productions of £123,000 .
Some of the stars, including Anton Walbrook and Mel Ferrer, defer­
red a portion of their salary, Ferrer, for instance, was paid £6000 up
front on a £12,0 0 0 fee. In theory Michael and Emeric were paid
£7500 each, though they never saw much of it. Charles Orme, pro­
duction manager on the film, remembers that on several occasions
there was not enough money in the bank to pay the technicians’
wages and Emeric and Michael used their own money to tide things
over.
35^ EMERIC

Oh . . . Rosalinda!! brims over with selfconscious continental

charm, style and wit. There are some good jokes (the Russian soldier
who sits painting parts of the globe red, his hand hanging longingly
over America) and some interesting cinematic ideas (the sepia-tinted
‘Eisensteinian’ newsreel; the ‘intimate introduction’ by black­
marketeer, Anton Walbrook, directly addressing the audience). But
the film is spoiled at times by Heckroth’s overloaded decor - ‘Teu­
tonic House and Garden contemporary’ as Sight and Sound put it —
and by an interminable ending where the champagne definitely loses
its fizz.
Oh . . . Rosalinda!! sank like a stone at its première on 22 Novem­
ber. Emeric, who had expected a lot from it, who thought the audi­
ence would fall in love with it, was bitterly disappointed. (Ian
Christie, the film historian who organized a 1978 retrospective of The
Archers’ films, recalls that nothing would persuade either of them to
take another look at Oh . . . Rosalinda!!) But its failure was very
much a mark of the times. Critics and public were united in a
witch-hunt against the merest lapse from realism. The British did not
know what to make of a film like this, one that had a title with not
one but two exclamation marks in it!! The suspicion that a puri­
tanical streak was at work in the British response is reinforced by the
more positive review from Variety, the American trade paper: ‘It is a
lavish production, highly diverting and spectacular. This should make
for offbeat, light entertainment anywhere.’ Unfortunately the film
was never given a proper release in America after negotiations to use
it as a ‘television spectacular’ fell through.

In 1954 Emeric sold the big family house on Redington Road and
took a long lease on the penthouse apartment at 54 Eaton Square,
s w i. The flat below belonged to the Oliviers and Emeric kept up a
cordial, but never close friendship with them. In later years visitors
frequently heard the sounds of noisy domestic arguments drifting up
from below, or met a tearful Vivien Leigh in the lift.
The apartment had high-ceilinged, beautifully proportioned rooms
and was decorated to reflect Emeric’s personal taste far more than
Redington Road. In the living room he had an entire glass wall, facing
on to the tree-tops of the square, each of the remaining walls was
painted a different colour with the ceiling a dark tomato red. There
were two bathrooms, one completely black, the other covered with
tiles which Hein Heckroth had painted for Emeric’s 52nd birthday
 DIVORCE 357

showing scenes and characters from The Red Shoes, Hoffmann and
Oh . . . Rosalinda!! The furnishing was a combination of the Thirties
modernist stuff that Wendy had loathed, with a collection of ethnic
rugs and lamps, and plants and cushions. There was one big, black
velvet chaise longue, where Emeric used to lie and read. It was a more
comfortable, homely place than Redington Road, but with a definite
air of style.

The Battle o f the River Plate, the film with its origins in an Argentinian
meat-eating holiday, lurched into gear in the summer of 1955. A first
draft script was sent to Spyros Skouras at Fox, but while he pre­
varicated, Emeric also took a copy round the corner to Rank. Fox
looked as though they had dropped out in mid-June, when the
Admiralty suddenly gave permission for a small unit to film naval
exercises in the Mediterranean. It was an opportunity too good to miss
(these spectacular shots proved to be the highlight of the film). Michael
flew to Cyprus with a crew, while Emeric scrambled around finding
two cameras (one for the aerial shots) and sending telegrams to
Michael with instructions for exactly what they needed. Michael’s
absence eased considerably the tensions of negotiating with John Davis
and Earl St John, the head of production at Pinewood. Michael wrote
to his partner from Crete: ‘I think you did a good job with Earl and
John and all the credit for it is yours. You’re a demon when you get
going. I only hope that we don’t make as big a mistake returning to
Rank as we did leaving him. We shall have to tread warily. But time
will show. Don’t give too much away.’
A budget of £274 ,0 71 was agreed. Emeric and Michael were to
receive £7500 each for their services, the same as they had received in
1945. The film started shooting at Pinewood on 17 October. On 6
December the partners took their third trip to South America to film
the ‘M anolo’s bar’ sequences and the spectacular crowd scenes in
Montevideo harbour.
Michael enjoyed making the film far more than Emeric. The location
shooting appealed to what Chris Challis called ‘the boy scout in him’.
So enthralled was he that after the film was completed he retired to his
hotel to write a naval history of the same events.
The film itself is leaden. The script is a pale, cosmeticized reflection
of the Archers’ wartime work, with none of the novelty of form,
character and theme that distinguishes Emeric’s best work. The struc­
ture is sound, classical and in three acts. The dialogue is circumscribed
358 EMERIC

by the necessity of having to divulge too many dull naval details, the
characterization is competent but cliched (as opposed to the
humanized, ironic archetypes of earlier work). The direction is static
(with endless stagey tableaux on the foredecks of the British ships)
and flat (partly the result, again, of Arthur Lawson’s designs - Hein
Heckroth had returned to Germany). Everything is done in wide shots
- fine if your actors are at ease, but these are stiff as plywood. The
only tangible energy comes in the documentary-style shots of the
ships’ manoeuvres.
For all its obvious deficiencies, The Battle o f the River Plate was
much closer to the public taste of the time than anything The Archers
had produced for years. Playing the politics of the film industry, John
Davis managed to get it elected as the 1956 Royal Command Per­
formance. Commercial, if not critical, success followed, and the film
went on to break box office records. Michael and Emeric were always
proud of the film, which illustrates the strange standards by which
they judged their own and other people’s movies. Finding popular
appeal was of the utmost importance. They were not interested in
being avant garde or experimental film-makers without an audience.
By today’s standards they were an uneasy combination of the show­
man and the artist.

After seventeen years of bucking the system The Archers finally

appeared to be conforming. They were not in a position to make the
kinds of films they really desired to make, but did that matter?
Welcomed back into the emasculated and increasingly parochial fold
of Fifties British cinema, they had plenty of offers. British Lion
wanted to do Emeric’s old chestnut, ‘The Miracle in St Anthony’s
Lane’, with Diane Cilento and Stanley Baker; there was talk of a film
called ‘Cassia’, to star Stewart Granger, based on a novel by Manfred
Conte about a cosmopolitan art and currency forger in chaotic post­
war Europe, and John Davis proferred a seven-picture contract at the
Rank.
Emeric was the first to realize that a contract kills. The one with
Korda, for all their care, had left them limp and crippled. To accept a
contract from the parsimonious, philistine hands of John Davis was
surely artistic suicide. In later life Emeric once told an interviewer: ‘ I
always had the feeling that we were amateurs in a world of profes­
sionals. Amateurs stand so much closer to what they are doing, and
they are driven by enthusiasm, which is so much more forceful than
 DIVORCE 359

what professionals are driven by. There are so many ways in which
the best amateur can do better than the best professional .. .* To
accept John Davis’s contract would be to change their status, place
them unquestionably in the professional strip.
But while Michael pulled the cloak of irascible, wayward genius
tighter round himself, and fretted about The Archers’ artistic inte­
grity, Emeric said they should compromise and urged that they accept
the contract. He saw that there was no other option. They had tried
to be independents, and failed. The Archers had to adapt to survive. It
was, he claimed, an unpleasantness that had to be endured if they
were ever to be in the position to do what they wanted again.
For the moment neither side won the argument. Instead they pro­
crastinated and agreed to make another one-off for John Davis,
another conservative British war story .../ / / Met by Moonlight. The
budget was small: £ 2 12 ,0 9 1, and their own fee reduced to £6500
each, in line with the Rank Organisation’s cost-cutting programme.
Emeric had come across a review of Stanley Moss’s III Met by
Moonlight in Time magazine (which together with The Times and
Life made up his weekly current affairs intake), back in 1950 and
optioned it almost immediately. A true-life adventure story of
derring-do, it is the account of a party of public school-educated,
Homer-quoting soldiers, led by Patrick Leigh-Fermor and Xan Field­
ing, who kidnapped the German General Krupp on Crete in 1944. It
was right up Michael’s street and he embarked immediately on an
exploratory expedition of the island. Back in England Emeric met
Leigh-Fermor and Fielding and they became thick friends, feasting
regularly together at L’Etoile restaurant to discuss the slow develop­
ment of the film over the years. ‘We used to talk a lot about Hungary
and Budapest,’ says Leigh-Fermor, ‘and I think he was touched that I
was fond of them . . . What a wise man he was! His face had a puckish
kind of alertness, and he had a slightly sad look when he wasn’t
smiling.’
Enthusiasm for story and characters soon evaporated under the
fractious and irritable atmosphere that dominated the production
itself. Michael, seemingly gripped by a self-destructive impulse,
feuded constantly with Davis, taking every opportunity to mock his
philistinism. Then there were arguments when The Archers said they
wanted to use Orson Welles or Yul Brynner in the part of the
kidnapped General Krupp, and James Mason and Stewart Granger to
play Fielding and Leigh-Fermor. This seemed to be the remains of
360 EMERIC

their once vaulting ambition - a desire for big stars. Davis insisted
that they draw the cast from Rank’s contract actors, the only one of
whom they really wanted was Dirk Bogarde.
Emeric finished off the script which he had had four years to think
about. It was flat and cliche-ridden. For the first time the partners
themselves seemed to have different ideas about what the film
should be like. The old intuitive understanding had vanished. Emeric
saw the film as a reconstruction of actual events, Michael wanted it
to be a conceptionally conservative romantic adventure. He asked
Emeric to provide love interest, although the original story had
none. Emeric declined and grew increasingly intransigent on the
script in general. Judith Buckland, Michael’s secretary on the film,
recalled: ‘Even on the very first draft of III Met Micky dictated his
comments to Emeric and back came the revised script and 1 read it
through and said, “ Here, look, you suggested so and so and it’s still
there.” And back went the draft to Emeric . . . ’
But the real problems began on location. They had always plan­
ned to shoot the film in Crete, but in 1956 the political situation was
unstable on the island and the unit was advised not to go. Feeling an
increasing lassitude about the film, Michael opted to shoot it in the
Alpes Maritimes near his hotel in the south of France. It was a
decision taken, according to Sydney Streeter, because of Michael’s
personal problems: ‘we made it in the South of France as a matter of
convenience to Michael . . . not as a contribution to the film.’
Chris Challis recalls that Michael kept very aloof from the crew
during shooting, never eating with them, and staying at a different
hotel. According to Charles Orme, III Met was ‘hell to film’ because
Michael would suddenly disappear on his own in the car with his
girlfriend of the time. He would return a couple of hours later,
having left the crew sitting idle, to enthuse about a ‘great location’
they had found. ‘It would always be miles away in the most awk­
ward and difficult place,’ recalls Orme, ‘and it was terrible hauling
all those big cameras up the hillsides. And of course, everyone knew
that we were only there because the girlfriend had said, “ Oh, that’s
a nice spot.” ’
Emeric was on location throughout the shoot, but witnesses say
he and Michael hardly spoke. ‘The experience was not’, says Dirk
Bogarde, ‘an altogether happy one for Emeric. I don’t know what
had occasioned the disagreement, but it was certainly a severe one
. . . and was felt particularly on the set by most of the players.’
 DIVORCE 361

Bogarde tells one particularly virulent story, which illustrates the

state of the partners’ relationship:
7 often ^at with him [Emeric] in the solitude up in the mountains in
France, he was witty, gentle, wise . . . perhaps above all he was wise. I
remember once Powell's son, Columba, then about seven or eight,
tearing about on a dangerous ledge with a terrible fall on one side.
Emeric called him away, and held him between his open knees (he
was sitting on a rock) and warned him not to play in such a danger­
ous place. Columba, to our astonishment, spat hard at Emeric in the
face and ran off. Emeric didn't flinch. He slowly took a large red
handkerchief from his pocket and said, “Ah, Columba! You are the
spitting image o f your father! " '

The studio shooting was over by November, and the editing process
began. For the first time on a Powell-Pressburger film a large quantity
of dialogue was altered and post-synched. In the editing theatre the
animosity between the partners was fierce, as Judith Buckland
remembers: ‘It was a very sad thing to see. I used to sit in the viewing
theatre during the editing sessions of III Met by Moonlight and - I
don’t think it’s too strong a description - the bitterness of the diver­
gence of views was terrible. I’m amazed it didn’t ruin their friendship
. . . I cannot imagine two people disagreeing with each other so
virulently and it not affecting their personal relationships. It wasn’t
bad language or anything like that, it was a real fierce clash of
understanding of the film. They no longer saw things in the same way.
It was no longer a creative clash. It was destructive.’ The Archers had
fired their last arrow.
By the end of June, well before III Met was finished, Emeric and
Michael had already agreed to dissolve their partnership. Michael
took the initiative, but according to Cyril Cusack it was Frankie,
Michael’s wife, who pushed him into the decision: ‘In her opinion
Michael was doing all the work. She thought that Emeric was a mere
appendage and rather looked for a break between them.’
In later life Emeric recalled: ‘When we parted, Michael sent me a
letter in which he said, “ there were many times in our partnership
when I did things that you suggested even though I didn’t understand
what you meant by them, I just did them blindly, and they were right
most of the time. But now that response is gone and I don’t feel I can
trust what you tell me to do any more.” ’
Emeric oversaw III M et's post-production. When John Davis saw it
362 EMERIC

he demanded changes. But nobody cared any more. The film flopped,
and they all knew it deserved to.

Theirs was not a bitchy, bitter, temper-driven divorce. They did not
stop speaking to each other, or begin, after so many years, to com­
plain about each other to friends. By December the process of divid­
ing properties had been equitably and calmly carried out by their
agent, Chris Mann, without recourse to lawyers. Emeric got all the
original stories and complete scripts, except for T h e Waiting Game’,
which he let his partner have because he was so keen on it (it became
the basis for Michael’s only novel, published in 1975). The rights to
‘Cassia’, the only non-original material they owned, were divided
between them / They continued to share offices at St M ary Abbot’s
Place, though socially they saw each other less often than before.*

* Emeric had never liked ‘Cassia’ and it was Michael who continued to actively promote it.
On 3 1 March 19 5 9 he contracted Leo Marks to write a script of it for him. He hoped to get
Curt Jurgens for the lead. When Jurgens proved unavailable Marks wrote another script for
Michael, which became P e e p in g T o m .
 P A R T IV

Richard Imrie
 CHAPTER 17

Second Childhood
✓
A married man lives like a dog and dies like a king; an unmarried man
lives like a king and dies like a dog.
H U N G A R IA N P R O V E R B

After his two divorces, one personal, the other professional, the very
existence of Emeric Pressburger came into doubt. The man who called
himself by that name had been defined by the very things which were
now denied him. He went through a crisis of identity and his behaviour
began to change: ‘Something happened to me that caused a sort of
imaginary tumour to grow in my mind. All of a sudden I developed an
aversion towards most things I had liked before: persons, functions,
books of certain authors, the ballet and also films. Now, it is highly
unsatisfactory if a lumberjack wakes up one morning and finds he can’t
touch a saw any more. Or a knife-grinder can’t suffer a sharp edge, a
shirt maker develops a resentment towards buttons. This is what
happened to me —I had developed an allergy toward films. I withdrew
into my London flat, avoided going out - even to eating places. I started
to cook for myself and for the few people who came to see me, and
stayed at home for weeks at a stretch.’
But, of course, old lives and old careers tend to trail off rather than
end neatly and all at once.
On 8 January 19 57 he signed a contract with the Rank Organisa­
tion to make Miracle in Soho, the subject of which was ‘The Miracle
of St Anthony’s Lane’, he had carried in a suitcase over from Paris in
19 35. As writer-producer he was paid a total of £ 11,0 0 0 and given
free reign to choose the director - out of a short-list of three young
television directors drawn up by John Davis. He selected the affable
and able Julian Amyes, who had made his name directing Dial M for
Murder for the BBC and had made one undistinguished feature.
Like Abschied, Miracle in Soho is an ensemble piece set entirely in
and around a single location, in this case a small London street, where
the main characters are road-workers and émigré shopkeepers.
Emeric’s decision to shoot the entire film in the studio suggests that he
366 RICHARD IMRIE

envisaged it as a slightly theatrical piece of poetic realism —Abschied

under the influence of Carné and Clair. The choice of designer was
crucial and Emeric plumped for Carmen Dillon, art director on
Laurence Olivier’s Henry V and Richard III. He hoped she would
bring some of the same imaginative theatricality to his film. Other
crew members were old Archers hands: Chris Challis, Syd Streeter
and Brian Easdale.
The plot is a piece of whimsy: Michael (an ill-cast John Gregson) is
a navvy on a road repair gang, a happy-go-lucky fellow who picks up
a new girl in every street he works in. On this particular occasion he
has an affair with a young Italian, Julia (Belinda Lee). She is in love
but knows that as soon as the road repairs are finished, he’ll move on
and forget her. So, as the last piece of tarmac is rolled flat she goes to
the church and prays. Suddenly there is an eruption in the street and
the freshly laid surface cracks and buckles. The repair gang will have
to stay on and she will keep a reformed Michael.
Emeric expressed his intentions explicitly through the unlikely
conduit of a Rank publicity hand-out:
. . . The more 1 saw of the district [Soho] the more extraordinary
it began to appear to me. But soon I noticed that, as with most
places in the world today, the unusual events and happenings of
life were taken for granted. Things like the daily supply of
electricity to the houses and shops; like the road crashes, bur­
glaries and the fires were all regarded as routine.
Then 1 began to see what lay behind these events; began to
realize that no matter how commonplace a thing might be there
are always one or two people closer to the events who see it in a
different light. For them these ordinary happenings are small
daily miracles.
In its blend of mysticism and realism, its idealization of working folk
and insistence on ‘everyday’ epiphanies, Miracle resembles A Canter­
bury Tale. In that film, Colpepper is the ambiguous heavenly instru­
ment, while in Miracle the postman (Cyril Cusack), a bringer of
celestial tidings as well as letters, serves a similar function.
Amyes shot the film in a mere eight weeks, wrapping on 1 5 March,
and a final cut was ready for John Davis to view on 26 July.
Miracle in Soho is a film with few redeeming features. Emeric had
lugged the story around for so long that he seems to have forgotten
exactly what it was about. But the muddled plot and sledge-hammer
 SECOND CHILDHOOD 3^7

characterization are not the only flaws. Carmen Dillon let him down
badly. The sets are small, stolid and cramped, and about as lacking in
flair as they could be. As for the direction, it is utterly aimless. Ian
Bannen, "Who had a small role as Julia’s brother, blamed ‘a weak
script and the miscasting of Belinda Lee as an Italian waif - she
resembled more a beautiful athlete from Sweden.’
Miracle was premiered at the Odeon, Leicester Square on 1 1 July
19 57 and showed thereafter across the country. The public stayed as
far away as possible.

If Emeric harboured delusions of a career as a solo producer, Miracle

knocked them out of him. He was no longer a bankable prospect for
the Rank Organisation. Nevertheless, he immediately set to work on
a new script, set during the 1948 Berlin airlift, called ‘A Face Like
England’ : Terry is an ex-RA F pilot whose face was badly damaged
when he was mistreated in a German prisoner of war camp and then
reconstructed using primitive plastic surgery after the war. He now
looks like the patchwork of fields and hedges that is England from an
aeroplane. It is a powerful metaphor for a ravaged Europe and a
scarred mind. The script is peopled by characters suffering from
post-war malaise, and is an exploration of guilt, forgiveness and
identity, and the necessity of reconstruction. In its humane,
ambivalent portrait of a Nazi war criminal it takes the moral
ambiguity of Emeric’s war films to an extreme.
In July 1958 he offered a complete spec, script to the Rank Organ­
isation and, more surprisingly, asked Michael Powell to direct it. Both
turned him down (Michael bowed out, saying that it needed a direc­
tor with a personal knowledge of Berlin). The dark, obsessive themes
of ‘A Face like England’ never found their way on to the screen and
would only be fully explored in Emeric’s novels.
No longer recognized as a producer, Emeric was for a short while
sought after as a hired-hand scriptwriter. Several run-of-the-mill
assignments were turned down before he accepted an intriguing and
ambitious offer from David Lean.
In 1958, fresh from the rigours of his first epic, The Bridge on the
River Kwai, Lean planned a film of the life of Mahatma Gandhi.
Emeric was a natural choice as screenwriter. Lean had admired his
work since the days of 49th Parallel and knew that they shared a
fascination with India (in fact, the director’s first visit to the country
had been at the behest of Alexander Korda in 1954 to recce for
368 RICHARD IMRIE

Emeric’s script‘Taj Mahal').

Emeric was excited by the prospect and, as usual, immersed himself
in research before both he and Lean departed on a two-month tour of
the sub-continent in the director’s purple Rolls-Royce. They visited
Agra, Bombay, Calcutta, Kashmir and Benares and dined with Prime
Minister Nehru (and his daughter Indira), who recounted his own
memories of Gandhi and granted them official permission to proceed
with the project.
In common with his friend and fellow Hungarian, Arthur Koestler,
Emeric was a rationalist drawn to occult phenomena, a cynic who
could not help being fascinated by hocus-pocus. Back in London he
had apparently circulated a questionnaire among his friends, asking
them to list paranormal occurrences which they had personally
experienced. Now, in Delhi, he was intrigued by reports of a fortune­
teller, a man called a brigu who, it was claimed, was never wrong.
Apparently, there are seven brigu scattered throughout India. Each
has in his possession a copy of a ‘book’ that contains the history of
every man who ever has lived and ever shall live.
On his visit to the brigu he was accompanied by Leila Devi, David
Lean’s Indian girlfriend, who was to translate. The bent little old man
who squatted in front of them in a darkened room took out a piece of
parchment and started chanting in Sanskrit. Leila translated. Start­
lingly, ninety per cent of what he said about the past was correct.
Either this old man had access to an excellent newspaper clipping
service or something genuinely out of the ordinary was happening.
Emeric particularly liked the man’s description of his occupation:
‘You are a writer, but you have something to do with machinery.’ He
put an exclamation mark next to the line: ‘You earn a lot, but you
never accumulate.’
Although his visit to the brigu became a favourite anecdote, the
experience had a profound impact on him, lending support to his
increasing sense of fatalism /
Weaving a route through the countless villages of rural India in
their gigantic purple Rolls-Royce, the two film-makers made an odd
couple. Emeric was melancholy and pedantic, and not an easy man to*

*With hindsight, however, few of the predictions for the future proved correct. He was
supposed to remain prosperous until the end of his life; he was supposed to become a Hindu
yogi, and retreat from the world into isolation; his daughter, Angela, was to marry a soldier
and have three children, two hoys and a girl (she only had two boys, and 1 think my father
even evaded national service).
 SECOND CH ILDHO OD 369

spend a lot of time with. But then neither was Lean. He was not a
sociable person and he actively disliked literary types and intel­
lectuals, both of which groups Emeric, if rather awkwardly, bestrode.
Their superficial London friendship - the occasional dinner, a concert
once every couple of months - showed signs of wear. Emeric was
particularly irked when a garage attendant mistook him for Lean’s
father. Lean thought that Emeric was insensitive to Indian ways. At
the end of the first month they quarrelled badly and Emeric
announced that he was returning home, but the following day they
patched it up and he agreed to stay. On 5 December Emeric was 56.
He didn’t tell Lean, or anyone else, that it was his birthday and spent
the day on his own, feeling slightly unwell in his room at the Hotel
Cecil in Delhi. During the last week they worked together on the
synopsis. Lean was pleased with Emeric’s ideas. They discussed
casting: Alec Guinness as the Mahatma and William Holden and Yul
Brynner (Emeric’s choice) for other parts.
Back in London, while Lean negotiated a deal with Warner
Brothers, and side-stepped Sam Spiegel, who wanted to produce the
picture, Emeric wrote a long novelistic treatment, entitled ‘Written in
the Stars’, and subtitled ‘An Experiment’. He prefaced it:
Gandhi has often said that his life was an experiment in Truth. I
think it was richer than that. I would call it an experiment in
human values. Our film should be the same.
In spite of their personal differences, Lean still had great hopes for the
project. He recalled that ‘when we talked [after the trip] it was really
a marvellous discussion. He had great ideas for the script.’ But when
he saw Emeric’s finished treatment he was thoroughly disappointed,
‘1 don’t know what happened in the meantime, because the script was
just awful.’ Emeric was fired without further ado.
Had it reached the screen, how would the Lean-Pressburger film
have compared with the 1983 Richard Attenborough version? The
outline for ‘Written in the Stars’ suggests a more thoughtful
approach, with a clearer understanding of the crucial issues of
Gandhi’s revolution: religion, caste and hygiene. Characteristically,
Emeric found his way into the story through a series of intimate
portraits (a family of Untouchables, an American doctor and an
English policeman who marries a Moslem woman), each with a
different point of view. As his epigraph made clear, Emeric, ever the
moralist, was interested in the question of human values. The
370 RICHARD IMRIE

Lean-Pressburger film would have occupied a smaller canvas and

provided a less hagiographic, less romantic picture of the great
pacifist.
Immediately after completing ‘Written in the Stars’, Emeric was
hired by Lean’s old Cineguild partner, Ronald Neame, to work on a
more conventional subject: an adaptation of Ernest Raymond’s
courtroom drama We The Accused. For research purposes the two
men spent a month observing the infamous Podola murder trial at the
Old Bailey. By the time the script was written Neame had found
another project. As for Emeric, his aversion to film and film people
was growing apace and it was to be his last script for five years.

Arguably the greatest love affair in Emeric’s life was not with Wendy
but with Magda Kabos, his first sweetheart from Timi§oara. Except
for a brief hiatus during the war, they corresponded regularly for over
sixty years, from 1920 when Emeric boarded the train to Prague,
until his death in the 1980s. After 1926 they never saw each other
again. Wendy may have directly inspired his work, and she certainly
damaged it by deserting him, but his relationship with Magda was in
some ways more profound. A first love has a peculiar intensity, and
Magda stood as a constant reminder of a time when ‘the world was
whole’.
Magda had stayed behind in Timi§oara, unhappily married to an
alcoholic doctor, working as a beautician in the increasingly grim
Romanian city. Emeric’s letters provided a shaft of light in an other­
wise sterile life and she kept them all, hundreds of them, in a trunk
under her bed. If only she hadn’t burned them shortly before her
death, what secrets might they have told?
Only two of Emeric’s letters have survived, and several of hers.
Their tone is by turns wistful, nostalgic and humorous, with more
than a hint of regret. One of Emeric’s two surviving letters is from
India. What is apparent is just how strong the pull of the past was,
even in the face of the exciting new sights and sounds of the sub­
continent:
8 November 1958 Hotel Cecil, Delhi
My beloved Magduska, thank you for your letter, I have already
read it three times, it filled me with happiness and a little pain,
(this is one of the best cocktails in the world), and I write you
immediately, so as to get another one from you soon. Your letter
 SECOND CHILDHOOD 371

was forwarded on to me at Bombay after I had left and only just

reached me here . . .
. . . My Magduska sweetheart, write a lot about yourself, your
family'and your marriage, all, all 1 am interested in. It provoked
lots of sad smiles from me when 1 read your very characteristic
descriptions of me. Of course, 1 was a shy, boring naive lover.
This wouldn’t have been such a big problem, but you were a
grown-up girl with so many impressive suitors, who were
already standing on their own feet, while 1 was standing on
others - and even then not very securely. 1 was very much in
love.
I remember once I travelled down from Stuttgart, to the lake
of Boden and I knew you were in Austria on the other side of the
lake. Maybe the water, maybe the wind, carried those dreams
which are all lovers’ desire; that certain heart-breaking hope,
which is called ‘love’. Lots of water has flown down since then
not only in the Temes [the river that flows through Rudna and
after which Timi§oara —Temesvar —is named], but the Vlatava,
the Spree, the Neckar, the Seine, and the Thames and all the
other rivers, on whose banks 1 have lived, until I arrived here to
the Ganges. And nevertheless, how small is the difference
between the Temes and the Thames! If I reflect upon it I was so
childish at Timi§oara as I am sometimes nowadays.
1 have been in love since then several times, but never so
clearly and so much as at that time.
. . . Your description of your visit to Modos moved me very
much. I can hardly remember it. I know that it was about 9
kilometres from Rudna and it seemed to me a huge distance. I
remember it because of our last day there in the hotel and I
remember the train when we travelled through the station of
Rudna. I remember Rudna very clearly. I see in front of my eyes
your father, with whom 1 went by cart to the fields, and whom I
loved and who liked me too. I remember the village notary who
had an affair with the wife of the vet with whom I played cards
through many nights. I remember how much you were scolded
because you put on my trousers, which seemed to be a very
immoral thing to do. I remember Pali Goldschmidt, a friend of
mine, who lived with me at the chief constable of Timisoara’s
house. I heard of him once before the war, but since there has
been no sign of him. Of course, I remember my travels to
372 RICHARD IMRIE

Prague. How much excitment! The half-kilo packages, which

my late mother sent every week; there was a smoked goose thigh
in it, and a small bunch of flowers from the garden. The goose
thigh smelled of violet and the violet had a smoky smell.
Afterwards there was Stuttgart and Berlin, Paris and London.
I just thought about it in recent days that I have never lived
anywhere as long as in London - already 23 years! Oh God how
time passes! Oh God how little has remained from it! A few
memories that is all. That’s why it is so dear to read in your
letters about those. I only write in Hungarian very rarely and
that’s why it is slightly difficult for me. Although my best friend
in London is George Mikes, a Hungarian writer, he also writes
in English and we correspond in English too. But then you
understand me, everybody writes as they can.
My Magduska, sweetheart, I am very, very glad that we have
not forgotten each other. Write a lot, 1 will as well. I hug and
kiss you with warm love.
Imre.
As clearly as any other document, this letter expresses Emeric’s con­
tinued sense of being an ‘outsider’, an itinerant. The manner in which
he refers to London —‘I have never lived anywhere so long’ —suggests
that it is just another stop, not a home. Judging by comments in other
letters from Magda, Emeric regularly reiterated his comments about
growing old and the rapid passage of time.

One of the consequences of what Emeric called his ‘tumour’, was that
he developed an ‘aversion’ to people. Certainly, he dropped many of
his old friends, most of whom were associated with the film industry,
but at the same time he adopted a new circle - young, fashionable and
frequently empty-headed. This youthful coterie consisted of writers,
journalists, actresses, models and socialites. Among them were the
famed Indian beauty Charmini Teruchelvam, Liese Deniz, model and
later wife of Lord Valentine Thynne, Elena Ianotta, who lived with
her mother in the basement of 54 Eaton Square and later married the
Colombian artist Cardenas, Jeremy Campbell the journalist and his
wife Pandora, Katie Merrigan, Tom Greenwell, a journalist on the
Evening Standard, Brinsley Black, Cornel Lucas the photographer
and his beautiful wife, the model Suzy Baker, ZsuZsi Roboz a painter
and —until her death —Belinda Lee the actress.
 SECOND CH ILD HO OD 373

He seems to have been at his happiest surrounded by beautiful,

undemanding, frivolous young women. They in turn were charmed
by him, even when they knew he was no longer ‘somebody’ in films,
and they trusted him with the most intimate details of their life.
Perhaps they found him sexually unthreatening, though he seems to
have had amorous relations with several of them - particularly, and
for quite some length of time, with one tall, dark model who would
rather remain anonymous. More normally he was content to remain a
generous father figure.
One close relationship was with a young art student living in Eaton
Mews, the future Lady Freyburg. Emeric would take her out and
introduce her to his friends. On one occasion he drove her up to
Marlborough College to meet her brother and took the two of them
out for lunch. Another close attachment was formed with the actress
Anna Kashfi. She left for Hollywood in 1955 and wrote frequent,
often revealing, letters to Emeric. In 19 57 she wrote: ‘Emeric, I want
you to be the first to know that I am getting married around the 5th of
October to Marlon Brando.’ Thereafter Emeric served as a confidant
to the marriage and its subsequent acrimonious breakdown under the
strain of drink, instability and infidelity.
Most of these new friends saw only the rosy side of Emeric’s
character, the charming, witty, generous ladies’ man, but there was
another misanthropic, antisocial side to him. It had always existed,
but now it was magnified. He was a perfectionist which meant that
those who did not live up to his high expectations, or who disrupted
his plans, no matter how trivial, met with his displeasure. He could be
quite spiteful, though often indirectly. ‘He was very easily offended
by people’s thoughtlessness and could be very unforgiving,’ remem­
bers Tom Greenwell. i f , in his eyes, you had done something wrong
he would never get in touch with you again and unless you phoned
and apologized (often for something you didn’t really know you had
done) he would never, ever have got in touch with you again.’
According to Greenwell he could also be stubborn, ‘even prepared to
cut off his nose to spite his face’. Greenwell cites a bitter row with
Harrods department store after which he withdrew his custom, ‘and
even grovelling by the top management (I believe the chairman him­
self might have become involved) couldn’t woo him back’. In fact the
row was over a watch to be repaired. The assistant told him that they
only repaired watches bought in Harrods. Emeric was furious, he
bought all his household goods in the shop, surely they could repair
374 RICHARD IMRIE

his watch? The assistant said no and Emeric wrote to the manager
withdrawing his custom. It was, of course, one of Emeric’s traits that
he valued good service and loyalty above almost everything else.
Among the more interesting, if anomalous, new friends, and one
who frequently saw the darker side of Emeric’s personality was Bill
Hopkins, a writer on the fringes of the Angry Young Man set whose
novel, The Divine and the Decay, had caused a scandal when it was
published in 19 57. Emeric had read it and told the society hostess
Lady Geraldine Strabolgi that he wished to meet the author. The two
were duly introduced at her next soirée.
‘He wanted to meet me,* says Hopkins, ‘because he was trying to
effect that jump from film scripts to the more solitary form o f the
novel . . . He seemed to me very much in a stage o f transition. He
wanted to escape the whole world o f films. He hated most film­
makers and spoke about them quite splenetically. He had developed a
contempt for their vulgarity. He had a very patrician attitude. In his
opinion most people were disloyal and worthless. He was at times
very bitter and introspective —he wanted to write novels and some­
how sensed that I could help, that I could be a sort o f mechanic to
him.*
It is difficult to say how long Emeric had harboured the desire to write
novels. Most likely there had always been a side to him that yearned
for the literary respectability of the printed page, a yearning that was
exacerbated by his ‘tumour’ and the consequent antipathy towards
films and film people. In 19 6 1, when his first novel was published, he
told the Daily M ail:
‘Quite suddenly I felt I had to do something else . . . a film is a
communal thing — an idea from one person, a suggestion from
another, put together by one, two, three people or more. So I decided
to write a book to prove I could do something on my own. It is
necessary for every man to prove that to himself once in his life.*
Emeric’s desire to write novels is unsurprising, but Hopkins was a
peculiar choice of tutor. Right-wing, élitist and anti-Semitic, he was
disparaging about Emeric’s film work, uninterested in music, food or
travel. It was as though Emeric was deliberately seeking out his own
antithesis, or perhaps the ever-present, but by most people never-
seen, misanthropy that was a growing trait. The two usually met
alone and talked for hours, ‘about ideas’ according to Hopkins.
 SECOND CHILDHOOD 375

Occasionally they were joined by the thinker, writer and ‘Angry

Young M an’ Colin Wilson. They frequently discussed Judaism and
Hopkins gained the distinct impression that Emeric was passing
through Some form of religious, or moral crisis. Hopkins attests that
Emeric was reading widely in philosophy and ethics. His particular
hero, apparently, was Wittgenstein, whom he admired for the very
attributes which he felt were missing from his own character: intel­
lectual rigour, asceticism and moral integrity.
The difference between Hopkins and his new friend, was encap­
sulated in their attitude towards food. Emeric, of course, was a
sensualist where food was concerned; Hopkins was a culinary prag­
matist:
7 told Emeric that I could never enjoy food because I couldn't help
thinking that it was just faeces - that it would emerge from my
bowels before long as shit. Emeric was horrified . . . A few days
passed and I got a telephone call from him. He asked me to come over
the following morning quite early, at about nine or ten. I thought it
was peculiar but went just the same. There he was on the steps o f 54
Eaton Square with his white Bentley waiting outside. He was wearing
his driving gloves . . . We got in the car and drove to Lympne airport,
loaded the car on a plane and I said, “ Where are we going?” And he
said, “ You'll see, you'll see. ” —he was a great lover o f mysteries. We
put down at Le Mans and drove until we came to a little farmhouse
surrounded by Rolls-Royces and Porsches and this turned out to be
the second greatest chef o f France. We had a huge meal - five or six
courses but I don't remember any o f it, except the giant asparagus.
And when we had finished Emeric leaned back and said, “ N ow do
you understand how wonderful food is? ” '
Killing a Mouse on Sunday * Emeric’s first novel, was published on
30 October 19 6 1. Set during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War
on both sides of the French—Spanish border, it was inspired by the life
and times of the anti-fascist terrorist Zapater. Manuel Artiguez, the
once-notorious bandit, is now a tired old man living in exile in Pau,
no longer in any state to confront the Spanish Guardia Civil. The

*The title comes from a verse by the seventeenth-century satirist Richard Braithwaite:
. . . I saw a Puritane-one
Hanging of his cat on Monday,
For killing of a mouse on Sunday.
37^ RICHARD IMRIE

children in the street who once worshipped him now taunt him with
the nickname Mighty Mouse. He wonders to himself if he is a
coward, but when he hears that his aged mother is dying in a Pam­
plona hospital he resolves to cross the border one last time. Before he
sets off he learns that his old enemy Captain Vinolas of the Guardia
Civil has set an ambush for him, and that his mother has already died.
But he goes anyway, aware that he faces almost certain death.
Emeric was interested in point of view and the novel’s eight chap­
ters are narrated alternately - two each - by the four main characters:
Artiguez, the ageing bandit; Pablo, a little boy orphaned by Vinolas;
Father Francisco, a priest who feels morally bound to warn Artiguez
not to return to Spain; and Vinolas himself, the captain of the
Pamplona Guardia Civil. Thus each of the characters is humanized,
and all, even Vinolas, are given their reasons and feelings. As so often
in The Archers’ films Emeric opted for ambiguity where others would
have swiftly judged and executed.
After his usual extensive research in both the French and Spanish
Pyrenees, and help from his old friend Michel Kelber who had spent
the war years living in Madrid, he settled down to write the book
both at home in London and at Stapenhorst’s summer retreat in the
Austrian Tyrol. The style is delicate and considered, full of gentle
humour and word play. It represents the high-point of Emeric’s
mastery of the English language.
The book was completed in November i960 and dedicated ‘To My
Friend Stapi’ but Michael Powell was the novel’s most perceptive
critic. On 1 October 19 6 1 he wrote to Emeric:
I have just read the book at one sitting which is obviously how
you intended it . . . the scheme of changing narrator is a good
one and the story gains enormously from it: I don’t see how you
could get over your essentially humanistic point of view any
other way . . . how wonderfully you understand boys! I wish he
[Pablo] had the final chapter and not Vinolas. But how
wonderfully you get inside them a l l . . . your story has an excep­
tionally strong visual effect: you make things and places live: I
could see them, taste them and smell them . . . It’s jolly good
Imre! I feel as excited and proud as you must be!
The public greeted the book with equal enthusiasm and the critics
were pleasantly surprised that such a subtle novel should come from
the hands of a film-maker. The Times Literary Supplement called it ‘A
 SECOND CH ILD HO OD 377

warm, spacious tale . . . The narrative is true to its four main charac­
ters, showing places and people and events through the medium of
their perception . . . a handsome piece of story-telling.’ Before the end
of the year Killing a Mouse on Sunday had been translated into a
dozen languages and the film rights sold to Fred Zinnemann at
Columbia Pictures.
Zinnemann invited the author to adapt the book for the screen and
Emeric duly delivered a screenplay in November 1962. ‘I know it is a
ridiculous novel to turn into a film,’ he wrote to Stapenhorst. ‘Every­
thing important takes place inside the characters’ heads . . . But I, who
have done unspeakable things to other peoples’ books, who am I to
have scruples?’ (The standard of pay must have helped. Emeric was
paid approximately £30,000 in total for the rights to his novel and
the screenplay, by far the highest fee he ever earned.) He clearly had
fun writing what he perceived as a populist Hollywood movie. There
is an explosion and at least half a dozen deaths within the first six
pages - more than in all his other films put together.
But Zinnemann was unhappy with the screenplay and asked for
major rewrites. Emeric said he would rather not be involved unless
his screenplay was used as written. Another writer was hired and a
completely fresh adaptation done. He remained on amicable terms
with Zinnemann, but the closest he came to involvement in the
production thereafter was to lobby unsuccessfully for Michel Kelber
as cameraman. On release the film, retitled Behold a Pale Horse,
garnered respectable reviews but despite an impressive Hollywood
cast (Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn) failed to
attract an audience. Variety gave it the kiss of death: ‘Pale Horse,
aimed as a major exposure picture, is actually an art picture . . . ’ The
one honour bestowed upon both the picture and Emeric was a
lifetime ban from Franco’s Spain.
Ever superstitious about his writing, Emeric linked the success of
Mouse with the fact that he had written part of it in Austria, at
Stapenhorst’s holiday home in Thiersee, from where you could prac­
tically smell the air of Hungary. He decided to invest some of his fee
in a holiday home of his own a few hundred yards from that of his old
friend. The ground plan was based on the traditional timber-
constructed Tyrol chalet, with two bedrooms and a sizeable kitchen.
It should have been relatively simple to build, but Emeric, rather like
his hero Wittgenstein, was as precise and exacting about the designs
for his house as he was about most other things. He was obsessed
378 RICHARD IMRIE

with the smallest details: he wanted a sink in his bedroom exactly the
same as those they had in Claridges; having examined five different
types of door-catches he decided that none of them would do; his
General Electric cooker had to be specially imported from America at
unearthly expense. He had a huge green-tiled, wood-burning stove set
in the middle of the house, with benches round it, built by a firm in
Hamburg. He had it rebuilt three times until he thought it was right.
With hindsight Emeric’s correspondence with his architect (an old
film designer called Schtatz) makes amusing reading, though it must
have been infuriating for those involved. Ultimately, the house was an
expensive folly. By the time it was completed in January 1965 he had
spent most of his Mouse money and had to take out a mortgage to
pay for it.
Few first novels meet with the success of Killing a Mouse on Sunday
and Emeric must have felt justifiably pleased with himself. He had
changed his métier as few other film-makers had managed to. But the
acceptance and success also had a down side. It encouraged Emeric to
write something less reliant on adventure story conventions, some­
thing more personal. This was a mistake because the deeper he looked
inside himself the darker, the more painful and less readable the
results. The preoccupations which he had shied away from in his
post-war films took hold: Nazism, the Jewish experience and his own
failure to belong. The darker aspects of his imagination which had
only surfaced sporadically in the Archers’ films —in Lermontov in The
Red Shoes, in Colpepper in A Canterbury Tale — began to override
everything else.
The Glass Pearls is the story of the man who calls himself Karl
Braun. His real name is Dr Otto Reitmiiller and he is a Nazi war
criminal. It is 1965 and Braun is subsisting as a piano tuner in shabby
London waiting the last few months until the twenty-year statute of
limitations against war criminals comes into force. Everything about
the life he leads is a lie. He takes care never to do anything which
Reitmiiller would have done, and has ‘invented’ a whole past for
himself.
During the war Dr Otto Reitmiiller was engaged in experiments to
discover the physiological components of the human memory. He
conducted his experiments on concentration camp inmates, recording
their most vivid memories then operating on them, removing a tiny
portion of the brain, letting them recover and noting how their
memories had altered before operating again. At the end of the war he
 SECOND CH ILDHO OD 379

escaped with his experimental journals, and it is the memories in­

scribed therein, the memories of his Jewish victims, that he has
adopted for himself. Although not written in the first person, the
book is Very internalized and Braun is not handled unsympathetically.
It is a macabre idea, but what makes it truly menacing is that many
of the ‘stolen’ memories are Emeric’s own: the flight from Germany
aboard a night train; queuing at the préfecture in Paris; putting glass
pearls into the oysters at his parties. Many of Braun’s character traits
are also Emeric’s: his intellectual and physical enjoyment of music;
the fact that he played the violin in his youth; his ambivalent affairs
with younger women towards whom he feels intellectually superior.
Why had Emeric’s identity crisis led him to identify with a Nazi
war criminal? Could it be that as a survivor he somehow felt
implicated in the crimes, felt that he had not done all that he could to
stop them? If, as Bill Hopkins attests, he felt that ‘Jewish was a
pejorative term’, he obviously experienced a degree of self-loathing.
The other question is: how could he have written such a humane
portrait of a man who is the fictional counterpart of Joseph Mengele?
Admittedly, at the end of the book Braun is driven to suicide by his
own paranoia, by the very fact that he is shielding his identity, but
this seems hardly a punishment to fit the crime. Perhaps Emeric felt
that this was the only true retribution, one that came from within —to
be driven to death by the presence of so many ghosts in the head. In
some respects this macabre melding of Nazi and Jew is the ultimate
irony of the war; we cannot even think of one without the other.
The Glass Pearls took much longer than its predecessor and seemed
far harder to write. ‘But then, I seem to have had a lot of trouble also
with my first born until it grew out of the embryo age,’ he wrote to
Marga Stapenhorst. ‘It must be like having babies, and considering
that I am not only the father but also the mother (a hermaphrodite, in
fact) it’s no wonder that I feel strange and troubled.’ In part his
unease was caused by worry over how the book would be received.
He had an intense fear of rejection, particularly over such personal
work. ‘Because of his background he was dependent on the warmth
of acceptance,’ says Bill Hopkins. By extension, he found it difficult to
take advice or constructive criticism from friends. ‘He could never
stand criticism even if worded in the most careful way,’ recalled
Marga Stapenhorst. ‘On the other hand, it would have done the The
Glass Pearls quite a bit of good. He asked for one’s opinion, and
upon hearing it, returned into his oyster shell.’
380 RICHARD IMRIE

When the book was finally published in June 1966 Emeric seemed
quite prepared for poor notices. (‘Judging from the signs,’ he wrote to
Marga Stapenhorst, ‘it won’t be as successful as the first, although it
is a better book. 1 hope you will like it.’) Nevertheless, when the
negative reviews appeared he was deeply hurt. The Times Literary
Supplement (28 April) dispatched him with one swift blow. The
reviewer was blind to the book’s painful integrity and seemed deter­
mined to misunderstand its intentions:
Emeric Pressburger is perhaps better known as a film-maker
(remember The Red Shoes?) than as a novelist. For someone
who has made sixteen films he seems to have remarkably little
feeling for character, dialogue - or even keeping his audience
awake. The central figure of The Glass Pearls is Braun, an
innocent German refugee turned piano-tuner: or so we think for
all of six pages. By page seven, his secret is revealed: he is in fact
a wanted Nazi war criminal, the notorious Dr Otto Reitmuller,
brilliant brain surgeon and violinist. At this stage, one feels, the
book could profitably end. But no. The narrative lurches on for
another 200 pages, as Braun/Reitmiiller becomes tediously
involved with Helen. That she is boring and stupid would be of
little importance, had Mr Pressburger not chosen her to express
one of the books few anti-Nazi arguments.
Since the ill-starred and, one suspects, half-hearted efforts with David
Lean and Ronald Neame in the late 1950s Emeric had kept well clear
of film work. Initially, the offers kept coming (including one from
Michael in 19 6 1 to write a script of Gavin M axwell’s Ring o f Bright
Water), but he had haughtily declined them all. By the mid-Sixties,
however, his financial situation was precarious. He had earned a lot
from Mouse, to be sure, but he had also spent extravagantly, par­
ticularly on his Austrian ‘palazzo’ (as he always called it). The Glass
Pearls, the result of four years’ work, had only netted its original
advance of £500. Ironically, now that he was prepared to take any
film work that was offered to him, purely for financial reasons, there
seemed to be little about.
He was offered one job, as a ‘script-doctor’ on Operation Cross­
bow , a star-studded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production about British
espionage against the V2 rocket. It was one of those sixties’ inter­
national co-productions in which the weight of the stars was con­
sidered far more important than the substance of the script, and
 SECOND CHILDHOOD 381

Emeric’s half-forgotten name was dug out of the woodwork only a

fortnight before shooting began in June 1964. He frantically rewrote
the ill-conceived script, dictating new scenes and dialogue to the old
Archers’^stalwart Joan Page, who then dispatched them, literally
scene by scene, to the studio, sometimes only a few hours ahead of the
cameras. It was hard work, and a lousy story, but at £6,000 for four
weeks’ work who was complaining?
For the first time Emeric made use of the pseudonym Richard
Imrie. It’s unlikely that he used it for Operation Crossbow to protect
‘the integrity of his name’ : quite the reverse - it was a chance to
launch himself afresh. In 1964, the era of Darling, Billy Liar and
James Bond, the name Emeric Pressburger was more of an albatross
than an advantage. In a short diary entry he fantasized about the
‘strange possibilities of Emeric Pressburger and Richard Imrie . . .
while one retires at the age of 65, tired and forgotten, the other is an
unknown, but talented youngster just starting a glittering career.’
A year later Richard Imrie made a second appearance in a very
different film: They’re a Weird M ob, directed by Michael Powell.
Michael’s solo career had not flourished. First came an un­
remittingly banal, and visually pedestrian Spanish dance picture
called Honeymoon. ‘Nothing that has happened before or since’, he
wrote in his autobiography, ‘has so convinced me that I am not a
writer. I am a film director, and one of my missions in life is to
convince my fellow film directors that collaboration is an art, and
that the movies is the greatest of collaborative arts.’ Next, having
failed to finance ‘Cassia’, came Peeping Tom.
Few films have been so universally reviled by the contemporary
press. Peeping Tom, the story of a psychologically damaged young
man who murders women and films them in their death throws,
caused a scandal. Comparisons were drawn with the more outré
elements of The Red Shoes and A Canterbury Tale. Michael denied
that there was any connection, particularly with the latter film,
stating in The Times (the only paper to review Peeping Tom
positively): ‘That was really Emeric Pressburger’s film. I’m a director,
I hate writing . . . it was a continental idea that did not fit into an
English film.’
Although judging from his Archers’ oeuvre it seems highly
improbable that Emeric could have written Peeping Tom, the
sympathetic characterization of the murderer and macabre psycho­
logical premise of that script (that the murderer was used as a
38z RICHARD IMRIE

guinea-pig for experiments by his psychiatrist father) bears a passing

resemblance to The Glass Pearls, and to Emeric’s earlier ‘mass-
murderer pot-boiler’, Wanted for Murder. Ironically, today film­
makers and critics revere the picture, a movie which makes making
movies a dangerous affair, a study of the violence and voyeurism
latent in the film-making process. Michael found it difficult to
understand why he - merely the ‘teller of the tale’ - should attract
first all the scorn and latterly all the praise: ‘I don’t know why it’s
such a favourite,’ he said in 19 7 1. ‘It was made very quickly from
the idea of Leo Marks . . . All the complexity of the script that you
admire is all Leo M arks’s. It’s a meticulous script - almost too
meticulous — but I admired it so much that I departed very little
from it.’
Michael made only one more British film, The Queen s Guards
which, in his own words, was a total failure. That made three abys­
mal financial losers in a row. By 1962 Michael was unbankable.
He was, of course, still brimming over with ideas, but found it
impossible to realize them. He directed a few television episodes
before the same pioneering, adventurous spirit which had taken him
to Canada in 19 4 1 led him to Australia and the opportunity to
make a low-budget comedy. They're a Weird Mob was a bestselling
book, a sort of Australian How to be an Alien, an affectionate look
at the national eccentricities through the eyes of a newly arrived
Italian immigrant, Nino Culotta.
Two unsuccessful screenplays were penned before Michael turned,
like a recalcitrant lover, to his old partner, not only an expert on the
émigré experience, but still a pretty good hand with a script:
At my request he read the two scripts, and also the book. He
rang me up. I said, ‘Well, Imre? What do you think of Nino?’
‘Veil, Michael, I like him.’
I breathed a sigh of relief. I waited; dead silence.
‘Are you still there, Imre?’
‘Yes, Michael, 1 am here in Thiersee.’
‘We can pay £3,000 in cash, and two and a half per cent of
the producer’s profit.’
‘Do you think that there will be any profit, Michael?’
‘Who knows?’
‘That is true.’
‘Will you take it on, Imre? I bought the rights, and Walter
 SECOND CHILDHOOD 383

Chiari will be splendid in the part, but I’m not happy about the
script.’
A chuckle. Then: ‘There is no story, Michael.’
‘Isfi’t there?’
‘Oh, Michael, M ichael. . . how many times have I told you that
a film is not words . . . it is thoughts, and feelings, surprises,
suspense, accident.’
1 was humbled.
The resulting film was a rough and ready, none-too-subtle comedy of
Australian manners that went down a treat with the local audience.
How many of them realized that it was written by a Hungarian émigré
resident in England who had never come within 10,000 miles of
Australia? But perhaps being an immigrant in one country is much the
same as being an immigrant in another. It was an apt and ironic final
feature film credit for the eternal émigré.

They’re a Weird Mob had a strange effect on Emeric. It whetted his

appetite for movie-making. The ‘tumour’, which had been growing for
over a decade ‘started to improve’.
'First, I thought, perhaps I had only got used to it and was reluctant to
touch it for fear it might still be there. But first sporadic evidence
became more frequent, I got interested in reading film reviews and
when my daughter and her husband, on a visit from Scotland, one
evening, after dinner, said for a lark: “ We’re going to see a certain
Italian film [it was Fellini’s 8 lA] and you’re coming with us, ” I agreed.
We joined the queue in front o f the box office, watched it shorten in
front o f us, but when we stood right by the glass doors, the commis­
sioner came out to announce: “ That’s the lot, Ladies and Gentlemen. ”
The following week, one early afternoon, I went alone and I liked it.
When the main feature was over I went straight to another cinema and
enjoyed that, too. Now, a different kind o f predicament struck me. I
began yearning to make films again. But how? I was forgotten, written
off. Michael - who was once my partner and who (if anyone did) knew
what I was capable o f - encouraged me, mainly out o f charity, I
suppose, and mentioned my name in film circles, but without much
success. The little goodwill he could generate in people nowadays, he
needs for his own activities. Still, it might have gone through his mind
that together we two had once been a successful combination, and
might create some confidence . . . previously I had never responded to
3«4 RICHARD IMRIE

his suggestions with more than half-hearted approval and his projects
have never come to much but now I grew enthusiastic .. .’
Suddenly there was a myriad projects, treatments or full screenplays
to prepare: ‘The Strike at Asbestos’, a story of Canadian Labour
relations; ‘Habeus Corpus’, an international comedy for Walter
Chiari and Orson Welles; an adaptation of Carel Capeck’s political
fantasy, War o f The Newts; a bio-pic of Maria Callas and ‘The Night
Before’, a ‘prequel’ to Maupassant’s Boule de S u if to star Deborah
Kerr. There were plays for television as well: ‘Black Ties’, set during
the troubles leading up to an African state’s bid for independence; ‘A
Night on Bald Mountain’, about Czechoslovakian dissidents and a
quirky detective series called ‘Two Nuns and an Admiral’, written for
Stapenhorst (it was the first thing he had written in German for thirty
years).
Apart from the T V plays, most of Emeric’s new projects were in
association with Michael, but he was also working on an adaptation
of the Australian novel Careful, He Might Hear You for the
Hollywood producer Joshua Logan. Such was Emeric’s enthusiasm,
and desire to prove himself, that he wrote the script on spec., against
Christopher Mann’s advice. Logan let him get on with it and talked
about bringing him out to Hollywood. Emeric became excited - it
was as though that talent scout who should have spotted him in 19 35
had finally called. In the end, however, the relationship broke down
acrimoniously. Logan paid a measly S5000 for six months’ work and
turned on him quite without provocation: ‘I have never worked with
anyone who reacted to a director’s comments in the way you have . . .
Evidently you feel it is carved in some kind of special Pressburger
stone.’ Emeric, as usual, took the insults personally, not realizing that
they were the standard fare of the modern Hollywood.
Two projects with Michael particularly fired his imagination: a
revised version of ‘Bouquet’ and ‘The Russian Interpreter’ . He wrote
to Michael about his favourite ‘Thistle’ sequence in ‘Bouquet’ :
. . . I expect most from the Scottish story. I suggest we devise for
the title background something that already holds a sort of
foreboding of the style to expect: a strange, ballet-like art-form
filled with wonder and humour. Imagine the Camera being
inside a structure of a kind, shooting through an open door out
into the open. We are on top of a hill. From several directions
people are hurrying up, singly, in pairs. Or more of them
 SECOND CH ILDHO OD 385

bunched together, not quite running, not quite dancing (per­

haps: runcing), not crowds, just a few. They’ve heard the news,
something extraordinary has happened. When they are close
enough and can spy inside, their mouths open in astonishment
and disbelief. They can see it, we can’t, while the star credits are
appearing. Then only do we go inside, too. There’s Maggie,
Tam ’s poor nag, with her tailless rump. A Shepherd is there,
nodding in sympathy. He signals to the gasping onlookers to
come closer . . .
The 1968 ‘Bouquet’ script was the first for ten years to bear the
legend: ‘A Film to be Written, Produced and Directed by Michael
Powell and Emeric Pressburger’ . Their casting ideas were suitably
ambitious: Sean Connery, Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, Stanley
Baker and Harry Andrews.
Once again, nothing came of ‘Bouquet’, but Emeric had similar
enthusiasm for Michael Frayn’s The Russian Interpreter, a black
comedy about espionage and idealism set in cold-war Moscow.
Michael optioned it in late 1966, and tried to interest Peter Sellers in
the leading role. Emeric was full of suggestions: ‘The more I think
about it the more I like it,’ wrote Emeric. ‘Have you thought of
Audrey Hepburn as the girl and someone like a blond Peter O’Toole
as Manning? If you don’t get Sellers, couldn’t Alec Guinness play
Proctor-Gould?’
In M ay 1967 Michael Powell accompanied Michael Frayn on a trip
to Austria to meet Emeric. It was, recalls Frayn, ‘as if Crosse were
introducing one to Blackwell’. Frayn was a young and impressionable
author, unsure of himself in the world of films, which he took to be a
‘huge confidence trick’ . Emeric appeared to him ‘large and slow and
unwell and cautious and melancholy - an old bloodhound around
whom Powell bounced like a playful Jack Russell. We drank quarters
of Veltliner outside a local weinstube in idyllic early spring greenery.
Powell went off to fish the tumbling local river with an immensely fat
doctor we’d met, who raced from one cast to the next in a Volks­
wagen Beetle, with only a few centimetres left to fit Powell beside
him.’
Despite being ‘over-awed simply by being in the joint presence of
Huntley and Palmer’, Frayn was scared off by Emeric’s radical ideas
for the screen adaptation. Since it was assumed that they would not
be allowed to film in the Soviet Union itself, Emeric proposed to have
386 RICHARD IMRIE

London stand in place of Moscow. Moreover, he opened the script

with a talking tube train which tells the audience that this may look
like London but it is really the Soviet capital. Frayn felt ‘pretty deep
anguish’ at this ‘whimsical introduction’ and at the thought of his
characters traipsing around Piccadilly Circus instead of Red Square.
Emeric replied:
I’m still convinced that you can establish almost any convention
in any medium provided you find a way to do it. In Our Town a
stage manager tells you what you are supposed to see. In Black
Comedy the lights are switched on to enable you to see what
people do in complete darkness. If darkness can be presented as
light for the purposes of a play, why can’t the city of London
represent the city of Moscow, for the purposes of the film? The
‘talking train’ might be the wrong way to do it, but there are
other ways and among them one should be able to find the right
one.
Frayn, by this stage aware that it was highly unlikely that the pair
would manage to raise the finance, conceded the point, and added
that the characters no longer seemed to belong to him: ‘I think they’re
for you and Michael to feed and clothe now.’
Nobody in the emasculated Wardour Street of 1968 wanted the
visual panache, wit and whimsy of the reborn Archers, and despite
extending their option by a further three months - at Michael’s
personal expense - they were unable to find backers.
Of course, there was more behind Emeric’s renewed interest in
films than sheer enthusiasm for the medium. Necessity breeds inven­
tion and Emeric had plenty of necessity. For a couple of years after his
Austrian house was completed he divided his time between it and his
London flat, but in October 1966 the lease on Eaton square expired.
Financially, he was in no position to renew it. Over the years Emeric
had earned large amounts of money but he had also spent extrava­
gantly and failed to accumulate any capital. Now his income was
derived from his pension policies, purchased in the mid-Forties, the
residues from the Archers’ films (at this stage almost non-existent)
and whatever else he could earn as a writer. ‘Isn’t it unjust,’ he wrote
to Michel Kelber, ‘that just when we ought to be swimming in
happiness (and money!) our swimming pools are barren, nothing but
cracked concrete . . . ’ He decided to move permanently to Austria,
calculating that he could live cheaper there away from friends and
 SECOND CHILDHOOD 387

temptations, with more time to work. He reckoned that he needed

only £2000 a year to live in Thiersee (of which £600 was his
mortgage payment). His pension policies netted £120 0 . That left a
shortfall o f £800.
Apart from Stapenhorst, now into his late eighties and still working
for most of the week in Munich, he had few friends in the vicinity, nor
did he want them, though, as usual he was worried about what
people would think of him. ‘What worries me more than anything is
how not to offend people and still live apart from village life,’ he
wrote to Marga Stapenhorst. He received frequent letters from his
London friends, and weekly, detailed and generally dire match
reports of his beloved Arsenal from Bill Paton, Michael’s personal
assistant.
A letter to Marga Stapenhorst gives the full flavour of his Austrian
life:
16 October 1966
My Dear Marga,
I’ve been here since the 5th October, working on a very
difficult but enjoyable film script [‘Careful, He Might Hear
You’], for an American —it is my bread-and-butter work (more
bread than butter). As soon as I finish it, I’ll start on my new
novel, mapped out already and (as you can imagine) I’m raring
to go.
I hope the baster 1 sent you with your father was the right
thing. I had tried to get you one with a metal base (I know they
had them about a year ago), but although 1 tried in many shops,
1 couldn’t find any. It would have lasted much longer. Still
plastic ones have the advantage that they don't and you can ask
your very best friend to send you a new one: m e .
. . . I saw your father twice, since I came. I don’t know
whether I imagine it, but he has changed. He has changed even
since I saw him in London. Not in appearance, but in his
relationship with me. He is more distant with me; as if he
regarded me being in London and he in Munich as just the right
distance and my being much nearer is just a little too close for
comfort. I might be, of course, mistaken. But I have a fine nose
for these things.
I saw Angela and her baby about a month ago. They might be
coming (the whole lot of them) here, for Christmas. The
388 RICHARD IMRIE

relationship between Angela and myself is slowly improving.

(My God, - I seem to have nothing but ‘relationships’ on my
mind lately!)
The house here is fine. I still like it very much and 1 think I
should work well in it. Frau Kragler is looking after me, but she
has nowadays so much work that she can’t spend more than a
couple of hours here a day. Happily, I don’t need more. When
I’m temporarily exhausted with work, I cook for myself, I eat
only one substantial meal - about 3pm, but then I eat like a
horse. Your splendid cook-book is a great standby. During the
whole week I hardly speak with anybody. The telephone never
rings. I go to Kufstein once a week, get my provisions then, I
have a deep freeze compartment in my refrigerator and all the
meat I had stored in it at Christmas, I found now, after 9
months, in good order. I read a lot and I have lots of music with
me and whenever I want to relax I play my music . . .
In the evenings he would settle down to read the airmail edition of
The Times and listen to the World Service news, after which he would
get out his lumbering, state of the art reel-to-reel tape recorder and
give himself a classical music concert. Between the years of 19 52 and
1965 he claimed to have recorded almost eighty per cent of the output
of the B B C ’s Third Programme (so good was his collection that in
later years several musicians came to listen to performances by
renowned artists of the period that had not been preserved
elsewhere).
Strangely, he seems unwilling to admit to Marga Stapenhorst that
his work on ‘Careful, He Might Hear You’ was far from ‘bread and
butter work’. For the sake of appearances he makes out that his real
business is still as a novelist. He was certainly at work on a new novel
as he says, but few references are made to it again until two years
later, when he tells Michael on 7 July 1968 that it is ‘far more difficult
than anything I have ever tackled before’. The title was ‘The Unholy
Passion’ and it had a masterful opening: ‘Jesus Christ died on a
Saturday morning in the third week of May, i960. He was driving a
dark blue Volkswagen on the way to Munich, Germany . . . ’ The
setting was contemporary but the theme, yet again, was the shadow
cast by the war, and more profoundly, the shadow that has chased the
Jewish people since the crucifixion. The plot revolves around an
Oberammergau-like passion play, in a village that is clearly based on
 SECOND CH ILDHO OD 389

Thiersee. Among the characters (mostly straight transpositions of

local inhabitants) there is a promiscuous girl who may or may not be
a witch, a man who can do nothing but wrong who rapes a girl in a
misguided attempt to express his love, and a Jewish tour guide who is
finally crucified on the passion play stage.
There are some peculiar touches and changes of register, which
echo similar moves in The Archers’ films. The rape is placed within
the context of a comic drunk sequence. Julian Steen, the Jewish tour
guide, has sticky, smelly fish thrown over him (reminiscent of the glue
throwing in A Canterbury Tale. Somehow pungent, sticky substances
had connotations of evil for Emeric). Again Emeric made a point of
saying that ‘as happens so often in life, none of the characters is really
bad . . . they all have their reasons.’ Emeric was to spend the last
fifteen years of his life revising and rewriting ‘The Unholy Passion’. It
became something of an obsession.
For the meantime, then, Emeric struggled on with the unrealized
film projects and worked sporadically on his novel. Financially times
were tough. Michael, although not well off himself, acted with
extreme generosity, paying his ex-partner’s tax bills, lending him
small sums of money to tide him over. In 1967 he arranged for Emeric
to be paid £500 for purportedly acting as ‘script consultant’ on Age o f
Consent, Michael’s second Australian film, co-produced by and star­
ring James Mason.
By the summer of 1969 Emeric was not enjoying Austria so much.
A bar was opened in the house next door which kept him awake most
of the night when ‘all the drunkards of the Tyrol seem to gather
there’. Worse still was a streak of anti-Semitism that he had never
noticed before. Gangs of young men would wake him in the middle of
the night chanting anti-Semitic slogans outside his window. He
couldn’t work properly on ‘The Unholy Passion’ because he was
worried about how it would be received. He wrote to Michael on 13
April 1969:
The threatening thought that if such a book is published, its
author’s stay in this very bigoted, very antisemitic, very Roman
Catholic, very violent country like the Tyrol, would be rather
difficult, always slows me down. I cannot tone it down; I have
tried, I can’t. If I had any other place in reserve to go to I would
take the risk. But I haven’t. So, I always try to do some work on
other subjects in the hope to make a little money with them to
390 RICHARD IMRIE

make myself just a little more independent. Not to be able to see

further ahead than just a couple of months gives me a horrible
feeling of vulnerability. I don’t believe authors should be all that
secure. But six months security should not be beyond one’s
reach.
Little other work was forthcoming and his dislike for Austria grew.
Like Theo Kretchmar-Schuldorff before him, ‘a tired old man’, he
began to remember, ‘very foolishly . . . the English countryside, the
gardens, the green lawns, the weedy rivers, and the trees . . . ’ When he
took the noisy bar to court he lost and was convinced that anti­
Semitism was at work. ‘Do you know what the difference between
Germany and Austria is?’ he would ask. ‘In Germany, if you ask
someone “ Were you a Nazi?” , they say: “ Oh no, I knew nothing
about all of that” , but in Austria if you ask someone, “ Were you a
N azi,” he will say, “ No, I wasn’t - but he was.” ’
On 30 November 1969 he wrote to Michael with some unexpected
news:
I’m coming back, for good. 1 have put my house up for sale . . .
In a way it’s a defeat. But isn’t a defeat always a victory for
someone? Half of me (the minor half) has been defeated by my
better half. I feel wonderful having made up my mind. 1 now . . .
dislike this place. What a silly fool I was to leave the best
country in the world for just another country! And how very
clever I am (and how lucky to be without ties) to go back!! . . .
I’ve been working very badly for a long time now, I’m fed up
with it. The book I’m working on is fine and I have two more
subjects as good . . . But I find a fine landscape doesn’t mean
anything when it is full of rotten people . . . leaving for this
foreign country didn’t give me much pleasure, but if for nothing
else, the pleasure of coming home, made it worth all the trouble.
He didn’t want to move back to London, or any other big city, and
asked friends to look out for cheap cottages in either Scotland (to be
near my father and my brother and I - Angela had divorced my father
and moved to London) or the Home Counties. The Thiersee house
was sold to a psychoanalyst from Munich the following April and
Emeric moved to a rented flat in London for six months while he
viewed various properties. Michael wanted him in the Cotswolds
near him, but in the end Emeric opted for East Anglia. Lady Freyburg
 SECOND CH ILDHO OD 391

offered him a cheap cottage on her family’s estate in Aspall, a tiny,

quintessential^ English hamlet (half a dozen houses, a manor and a
church) twenty miles from Ipswich. The house was small and
thatched,'an ancient construction of warped oak beams, with two
low-ceilinged rooms on each floor (connected by a perilously steep
and crooked staircase), with a tiny kitchen and bathroom. Perfect
proportions for a diminutive writer on a limited income. But what
clinched it for him was the name: Shoemaker’s Cottage.
 C H APTER l8

Endings
. . . Now, here is the lake, and I still haven’t changed!
The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp

When I think of my grandfather I can’t help thinking of

Shoemaker’s Cottage at the same time. He and his house resembled
each other: small and squat, slightly shrunken by age, with a full
head of hair swept back over a high, intelligent forehead. They
even shared a very particular smell: warm, musty, mothbally, with
a touch of yesterday’s cooking, eau de cologne, and old age.
Emeric adored Shoemaker’s Cottage. It was the first home that was
truly his —he bought it outright for £500 - and he filled it with the
knick-knacks, mementoes and accretions of his long and varied life.
The low-beamed dining room had his Tyrolean table and chairs with
a forest of baroque candles at one end and Mediterranean painted
tiles instead of place mats. From the walls hung ceramics from the
Picasso pottery and a couple of Russian icons. There was hardly room
to negotiate around the room between the piles of magazines and
newspapers (mainly The Times and Time magazine). At the other end
of the room was a bookcase with the few books he hadn’t put into
storage, including the complete works of Dickens, Maupassant and
Churchill. Above that his music tapes were stacked.
His other room, the sitting room-cum-study had a dining-room
table for a desk that was permanently obscured by piles of papers,
scripts and notes, with a tin of boiled sweets or a magnifying glass
sticking out here and there and his majestic grey-green Hermes type­
writer lodged securely in the middle. Directly opposite were two Hein
Heckroth paintings, both views from the beach at the Voile d’Or
hotel in the south of France. Below were various photographs: Emeric
shaking hands with the Queen, laughing with Sir Thomas Beecham.
To one side there were three easy chairs, to the other a small table
that held his Oscar and other awards and had a little pair of red
ceramic shoes —a present from Michael —hanging over it. The room
 ENDINGS 393

also contained his Bang & Olufsen television on which he watched

the news and sports programmes. In fact, 19 7 1 was a great home­
coming year. Arsenal, back on form, became only the third team of
the century to win the famous double, the F.A. Cup and the league
championship.
Like the Hungarian plain of his youth, East Anglia is flat and
fertile. Emeric, remembering long-neglected habits, took to tending
his rose bushes and pruning his apple trees. The images and meta­
phors of the countryside which were always part of his writing found
some sort of fulfilment.
He even had a lake - or at least a pond - which he overstocked
with big, red, darting goldfish (‘I like living with fish,’ he said, ‘they
don’t speak to you.’). He overfed them every evening and nothing got
him quite so worked up in his last years as the heron which came
occasionally to gobble up a mouthful of easy prey. Emeric, in fact,
became ever more an animal lover, feeding the birds, ignoring the
mice that scuttled about his cottage and, in an eccentric touch, started
to leave old Pilsner beer bottle tops around the house filled with water
for the spiders to drink.
Not that he became a vegetarian. Anything but. The first relation­
ship he cultivated in the nearby town of Debenham was with the local
butchers, J. M. Neave and Sons. They were astounded by the quantity
and quality of meat this gnome-like man with the careful Hungarian
accent asked for. At first they assumed he had a large family to feed,
and the ageing Mr Neave still recalls Mr Pressburger’s knowledge of
cuts of meat.
Emeric became a well-loved figure around the area. Initially his
arrival caused a bit of a stir. Soon after he arrived a pair of old ladies
rang at the doorbell wanting him to come and open the village fete.
‘We know who you are,’ they said. ‘Who am I?’ responded Emeric.
‘ You’re Otto Preminger, the film director.’
All in all it was a quiet, very English retirement. It was about this
time that he made the comment to Chris Challis, ‘ You know, Chris, I
am much more English than you are. You were born English, but I
chose to be.’
Not that it was really a retirement. He continued to work, partly
because a writer can never stop, and partly because he desperately
needed to earn some money. But after so many fruitless projects,
Emeric only had one more film left in him.
In 19 7 1, Michael was the pariah of the British film industry. His
394 RICHARD IMRIE

last meagre foot in the door was a seat once a month on the board of
the Children’s Film Foundation, a charity funded by the Rank Organ­
isation. A regular complaint at these meetings was the dearth of
decent scripts for children’s films. Michael accordingly encouraged
Emeric to come up with a story idea and presented it to the board on
the understanding that he himself would direct.
To some it might seem a sad state of affairs that the joint swan song
of the once-glorious Archers should be a cheap and cheerful child­
ren’s fantasy with a budget of slightly over £40,000 - of which
Emeric received less than £ 10 0 0 for his script and as executive pro­
ducer. But The Boy who Turned Yellow was an apt farewell. Emeric
had always adored children’s films, and a children’s fantasy (Dann
Schon Lieber Lebertran) was one of his first films at Ufa. For Michael
it was a return to the scales of the quota quickie, where he had
learned his trade forty years before. There is something defiant in
their willingness to start from scratch again, their lack of pride. They
were proclaiming themselves truly to be ‘amateurs’ who would rather
make any film, no matter what the conditions, than wait for the big
salaries and proper organization of a Hollywood feature. There is
something emblematic in the fact that The Boy who Turned Yellow
was produced by Roger Cherrill, who had been their production
runner on The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp.
Emeric originally called his story The Wife o f Father Christmas. A
schoolboy called John has two mice, Father Christmas and his wife.
On a school trip to the Tower of London he loses the wife. Travelling
home on the underground he and the entire tube train turn bright
yellow somewhere between Chalk Farm and Hampstead where he
lives. The doctor (played by that old Archers’ stalwart Esmond
Knight) can’t cure him. Then, in the middle of the night, a strange
visitor arrives. His name is Nick - short for Electronic - and he claims
to be responsible for turning John yellow. Guiding John into the
television set - something only yellow people can do - they ski on the
electricity waves to the Tower of London where they rescue the
mouse. But as they are leaving John is caught by the Beefeaters. They
are going to chop off his head at dawn when another boy, the class
swat, thinks of an ingenious rescue plan. John travels home through
the airwaves and arrives back in bed in the right colour.
The film was shot by Chris Challis in March 19 72 and released on
16 September. Emeric himself went to see it at the Odeon in Ipswich
at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning to judge audience reaction. The
 ENDINGS
395

children loved it. They voted it best children’s film of the year that
year - and the next year.
Fast on the heels of success Emeric wrote another children’s script,
called ‘The Rain-Makers’, about rival gangs of kids and a magic
umbrella which makes it rain. For whatever reason, the board turned
the script down as ‘unsuitable for children’ .

Emeric went to London once a fortnight by train (he had long ago
sold his Bentley and now possessed a rakish, cream-coloured Kar-
mann Ghia sports car which he only used to do his shopping in
Debenham). The London trips followed a ritual pattern. He would
pay a visit to his agent, Christopher Mann, go to his favourite coffee
shop in Dean Street and buy his own specially prepared blend of
beans, followed by a walk down to South Molton Street for a box of
Prestat chocolates. In the evening he would dine with a friend and
perhaps attend the theatre or a film. Then he would retire for the
night to his club, the Savile in Brook Street, next to Claridges.
The Savile is a club with a literary heritage and a reputation for
idiosyncrasy. Michael had been a member for years and had encour­
aged Emeric to join on his return from Austria to give him a resort
while he was in town and a cheap place to spend the night. The neat
little Hungarian, with his cashmere jackets and brogue shoes, was
soon a regular feature of the place. As usual he left his mark. He
charmed the staff as only he knew how, and had the chief porter, the
portly Catriona, eating out of his hand. She gave him the unique —
and as yet undisclosed - privilege of a weekend key to the club so that
he could stay there even when it was officially closed. He also worked
his magic on the kitchen staff, who soon stocked his own blend of
coffee and carried a supply of Pilsner Urquell.
He grew to like the place enormously, standing as it does for all the
gentlemanly English virtues (when he died he left his awards to be
displayed in a cabinet in the beautiful French dining room). Among
the other members, Sir Ralph Richardson had the reputation as the
club eccentric, a reputation founded mainly on his propensity for
wearing bright red socks and driving a motorcycle to the club until he
was almost 80. Emeric had seen little of him for years, but their
friendship was soon warmly renewed.

Each generation rebels against the fashions and values of the pre­
ceding one, so perhaps it was inevitable that The Archers, so deeply
396 RICHARD IMRIE

unfashionable in the fifties and sixties, would be ‘rediscovered’ in

the seventies and eighties. ‘Social realism’ was loosening its grip and
critics began to cast around for an alternative, ‘subversive’ British
cinematic tradition - less insular, more romantic and visually flam­
boyant. Which is exactly what they found in The Archers.
The first major event in the rehabilitation process was a retrospec­
tive organized by Kevin Gough-Yates, at The National Film Theatre
in London in 19 7 1. A young film historian from the Central School
of Art, Gough-Yates was spurred on at first by fond childhood
memories of The Archers’ films, but his enthusiasm was not shared
by his colleagues who were most reluctant to show the films at all.
‘They thought they were tasteless, and couldn’t understand what I
saw in them,’ he recalls. Moreover, it was almost impossible to find
decent prints of many of the films which had been out of circulation
for so long.
It is easy now to underestimate the depths of professional obscur­
ity into which Michael and Emeric had plummeted since the mid­
fifties. Those who remembered him at all thought that Emeric was
long dead and although Michael was still a well-known figure on
Wardour Street, hawking his tattered wares, he was considered a
social outcast. But the public had not forgotten. The N FT was
surprised to find queues round the block for some of the bigger
films. Within the limits of its modest ambitions the retrospective was
a great success, so much so that Gough-Yates took it on a tour of
the Scandinavian countries and to the festival of British film in
Belgium the following year.
Though slowly at first, the ball had started to roll.
In 1978 Ian Christie organized a full retrospective at the N FT.
Both Michael and Emeric, he recalls, were somewhat anxious. Had
their films stood the test of time? Were the films as good as they
remembered? Would the younger generation understand? They
refused to see some of the films, including Oh . . . Rosalinda!! ‘They
couldn’t understand why anyone would spend good money to see
it,’ says Christie.
Other retrospectives followed in Locarno, Paris and the Museum of
Modern Art in New York. Within ten years the critical evaluation of
The Archers had reversed itself. The old reviews were quoted with a
kind of dismissive glee. The Archers became a new orthodoxy, fre­
quently hailed as the masters of British film. The critical plaudits
poured in. Several of their films entered the Sight and Sound poll of
 ENDINGS
39 7

the io o best films of all time. A Matter o f Life and Death was in the
top ten.
A number, of the Archers most important films had been severely
mangled shortly after release and did not exist in their original form.
(Emeric wrote to Michael: ‘1 wish I had thought of adding a curse to
the main titles of all our films, a terrible curse for all those who dare
to cut the original version of any of them.’) The National Film
Archive set to work attempting to restore them. Emeric’s beloved
Colonel Blimp, the most seriously damaged by cuts, was the first to
receive the restoration treatment and in 1985 was successfully re­
released (as, subsequently, were Black Narcissus and Gone to
Earth). The critics were astonished, grasping for superlatives to
praise Blimp as ‘a lost masterpiece’. It became quite common to
refer to it as ‘the greatest British film’. Even Andrew Sarris, the
American champion of auteurism and the French New Wave, dub­
bed it ‘the British Citizen Kane'.
In contrast to his extrovert partner, Emeric was loath to give
interviews or attend screenings, but he made an exception if they
were showing Blimp or, when it was restored, A Canterbury Tale.
He gloried in the fact that the latter film, so reviled in 1943, was
now widely understood and appreciated. He cited its re-evaluation
as an example of what he had christened so long ago in Rudna the
‘Shepherd’s Syndrome’, when something is not appreciated because
it is so far ahead of its time.
Arguably, the driving force of the ‘re-evaluation’ was not the
retrospectives but the appreciation of a new generation of film­
makers who found inspiration in The Archers. In Europe and
America directors, including Brian De Palma, Terry Gilliam, Neil
Jordan, Bill Forsyth, Derek Jarman, Sally Potter, Francis Ford Cop­
pola, George Romero, Bertrand Tavernier, Bernardo Bertolucci and
Steven Spielberg, found passion, colour, irony and wit in The
Archers’ films and admired and imitated them.
But there was one enthusiast more enthusiastic than any other.
Martin Scorsese had first been captivated by the ‘movie magic’ of
The Archers as a boy, watching their films on black and white
commercial television. As he grew up, attended film school and
started making films of his own he continued to watch The Archers’
films whenever he could. He still believes that the credit, ‘Written,
Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’
is ‘the finest end title in all movies’. In one of his first films, Box Car
398 EMERIC

Bertha, an exploitation film made for Roger Corman, he staged an

unusual homage by calling two of his hobo characters Emeric Press­
burger and Michael Powell. He tried to find out about this odd­
sounding pair of film-makers, but nobody seemed to know anything
about them, who they were, how they came up with that credit or
even if they were still alive.
Only in London in 1974 did Scorsese track down Michael - not
until 19 77 did he meet Emeric at the Savile Club - to tell him how
much he appreciated the films. And he has been telling anyone who
will listen the same thing ever since. Michael began to spend more
time in America, acting as an unofficial adviser to Scorsese, and later
in an official capacity for Francis Ford Coppola at his short-lived
Zoetrope Studios. Emeric, despite many invitations, refused to
budge from Shoemaker’s Cottage. He only visited Scorsese in New
York once, in 1980 during the Museum of Modern Art retrospec­
tive. The director and his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, were editing
Raging Bull all night in the director’s apartment. Emeric and
Michael showed up after dinner one evening. Confronted by this
scene of frenetic creativity, with the phone going non-stop, visitors
coming and going and racks of trims hanging up in the bathroom,
Emeric looked around calmly and remarked, ‘It reminds me of
Berlin in the Thirties.’
It was of course only in his seventies that I got to know my
grandfather. My brother, Andrew, and I used to see him two or
three times a year. Later on we would visit him at Shoemaker’s
Cottage, but when we were young he would come to our house in
Scotland, travelling up on the 10 o’clock Flying Scotsman from
Euston to Glasgow Central. When, in 1969 his daughter Angela
left my father, Emeric reacted by growing closer to him and more
distant from her. He saw her action as a repetition of what
Wendy had done to him.
His visits were events to look forward to. Because I didn’t
know my mother, 1 had only a very hazy idea of who this
affectionate, Santa Claus-like old man was. With his strange way
of talking and his funny stories about people and places I’d never
heard of, he was certainly very different from anything else I
had experienced in my sheltered provincial upbringing. He always
brought the best presents with him, usually from Hamleys:
little gadgets, pop guns, aeroplanes and adventure books. He
 ENDINGS
399

understood exactly what little boys like. At Christmas his presents

caused even more excitement. They always arrived well before the
25th in an enormous brown paper parcel. There were three or
four presents for each member of the family, in numbered little
parcels, each with a different dedication on it, which had to be
opened in strict order. Everyone’s final present was the same: a
box of his favourite handmade chocolates from Prestat in South
Molton Street.
Each day he would have a large English breakfast, something
he never had at home. I always remember how he left the egg
yolk until last, whole and unbroken like a sun on the plate, and
then with the blade of his knife he would lift it into his mouth
with an indescribable expression of pleasure on his face. After
breakfast he would ‘help around the house’ - which meant doing
the cooking. My stepmother still has a look of pleased disbelief
on her face when she talks about the time he used up 6 pints of
cream, 48 eggs, 12 lb of beef and 12 lb of pork, for ‘a little
dinner party’ .
In the evenings he played with us, told us stories and helped us
with our homework. I remember once I had been given a list of
ten new words to learn - I must have been eight at the time - and
had been instructed to compose a sentence incorporating each
word. Emeric —that was always what we called him, never
‘grandfather’ —told me it would be a far cleverer thing to
compose a little story which contained all of the words in a
paragraph or two. I did this and took it to my teacher. Mrs
McMillan, a stern old Helensburgh lady, ordered me to do it
again ‘properly’ the next night. So much for innovation!
On 20 September 1980 an unofficial honour was bestowed upon the
grand old pair of British cinema, an honour Emeric valued dis­
proportionately highly. Roy Plumley invited them jointly - a unique
event - on to his Desert Island Discs. Emeric’s four discs were
Bach’s ‘Prelude and Fugue’ (‘A wonderful, simple piece of music that
I play often when I have had some very good news or some very bad
news. To me it sounds as if the Lord had said: “ Let it be light!” And
it was light. Only this time the Lord had said “ Let it be music!” And
there was music.’); Beethoven’s ‘Violin Sonata in A ’ (the Kreutzer
Sonata), with George Solti on the piano; the final duet from Act III
of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by von Karajan; and
400 EMERIC

Bach’s ‘Partita No. 2 in D Minor’ with Yehudi Menuhin on the violin

(‘The last two minutes with the main theme stated at the end as at the
beginning. As if Bach would be saying, “ Now, then, this is what 1 was
talking about” ’).
Characteristically, whereas Emeric’s choices were motivated purely
by his sense of musical beauty, Michael’s all had strong personal,
literary or film associations: ‘Disc Jockey’ by Mike Nichols and Elaine
May, ‘Do not go gentle into that Good night’ read by Dylan Thomas,
Mussorgsky’s ‘On The Dnieper’ and the ‘Barcarole’ from The Tales o f
Hoffmann.
For their luxuries Michael opted for a blank ship’s log book and
Emeric a cask of brandy (having considered a pair of ‘medium-small
scissors to cut my nails and such’). For their books Michael asked for
Montaigne’s essays and Emeric Saul Bellow’s novel Herzog. This last
seems an odd choice, but then the tormented, half-comic, half-tragic,
part-Judaic, part-American emotional and metaphysical ramblings of
Bellow’s hero must have struck a personal note with Emeric.
In July of the following year (19 8 1), Gavin Millar made the first
full-length documentary on Powell and Pressburger, ‘A Pretty British
Affair’, for BBC 2’s Arena slot. The partners came across as an
eccentric but affectionate old pair. The paradoxical central thread was
how Emeric, a foreigner, tried so hard to be English, while Michael, so
very English, tried so hard to be foreign. They shot inside Shoemaker’s
Cottage, had Emeric commenting on the possible success of The Red
Shoes musical (‘Do you think it will be as good as the film?’ A sly look
and then: ‘That is not a fair question.’), and feeding his goldfish.
Michael was seen cavorting in Hollywood, as flamboyant as ever in his
black shirt and Panama hat, kneeling down to pray outside the offices
of Technicolor. At the end of the programme, interviewed side by side
in the hushed environs of the Savile Club, the final exchange summed
up the differences between the partners. Asked by Millar if they felt
embittered by the years of neglect and critical misunderstanding,
Michael stares in that ‘dare to tell me I’m wrong’ way and says, ‘Great
men are never recognized in their own country.’ Emeric looks at him,
raises his eyes slightly to the ceiling, and smiles: ‘ I hope this will be cut.’
Establishment recognition, of course, lagged behind the growing
critical buzz, but in 19 8 1 they were asked to accept fellowships of the
British Film Academy (BAFTA). Emeric was first informed of the event
by telephone and was convinced that it was a hoax, or worse, ‘one of
Eamon Andrews’ henchmen’ who wanted him to appear on ‘This is
 ENDINGS 401

Your Life’. Then he received an official invitation and wrote to

Michael: ‘I gather that you and I will he given fellowships of the
academy - as if we weren’t quite some fellows already . . . I immedi­
ately liked the word BAFTA when I saw it. It reminds me of the
Hungarian word for “ to fuck” .’ They had some doubt whether they
should accept the award or not, considering, as Emeric said, that
B A FTA had hardly been supportive over the past twenty years.
Michael wrote to him on 28 February 19 8 1 from Zoetrope Studios:
Dear Imre,
David Putnam asked me if I would accept with you the Homage
(Official) of BA FTA this March. I said it would depend on you.
If you said yes, I would. Otherwise I would see them fucked first.
Since then I have been expecting to hear from you. Have they
approached you, or not? Get Dennis van Thai to check up. Their
main reason for ‘honouring’ us is the fact that TV has scooped
all the awards for the past four years.
David Putnam (Allied Stars Pinewood) is OK. He is a pro­
ducer of Chariots o f Fire, chosen for Cannes and Royal Per­
formance. You will like it because it’s all about running.
Olympics 1924! Good production. No direction. Good boys.
Awful women. A British product enfirtl
Tell me if I am to come or not. And can I say anything if I do
come?
Emeric soon forgot any bitterness he may have felt and luxuriated in
the applause when Deborah Kerr presented the awards.
Two years later the BFI celebrated its 50th anniversary by handing
out honorary fellowships to six distinguished film-makers: Orson
Welles, Marcel Carné, Satyajit Ray, David Lean . . . and Powell and
Pressburger. Characteristically, Emeric was more excited about meet­
ing the Prince of Wales, who handed out the awards, than in
renewing his acquaintanceship with Welles or the other grandees.

Emeric’s autumnal years, it seems, were uncommonly blessed. But the

harmony was not complete. He continued to live in financially strait­
ened circumstances and in the late Seventies was forced to sell various
possessions, starting with pieces of silver and his Nonesuch edition of
Dickens. His money worries were only relieved in the early Eighties.
Most of the early Archers films were in profit and the increased
402 EMERIC

number of television showings both in Britain and in America meant

substantial royalty cheques, amounting to £ i 5,—20,000 a year.
Less easily resolved was Emeric’s simple desire to go on working.
Ideas, treatments and whole scripts continued to flow in a steady
trickle. He was frustrated and puzzled to see his old work praised while
his new output was rigorously ignored. ‘Even the best appreciation is
only secondhand,’ he wrote, ‘almost like chewing the cud.’ His greatest
disappointment was his novel, ‘The Unholy Passion’ . Only in 19 75,
after years of rewriting and revising did he feel ready to expose it to the
outside world. He thought that its piquant mixture of sex, violence and
religion was better suited to America than Britain and asked his old
friend Robby Lantz, now an established agent in New York, to handle it.
The publishers hated it. One reader’s report called it ‘macabre and
unattractive’. After a couple of months he asked Lantz to stop collect­
ing rejection slips. He was hurt by the rebuff and although every couple
of years thereafter he took out the manuscript and pottered around
with it, he didn’t dare to send it off to a publisher again.
Perhaps inevitably, there was also a sour side to all the adulation
which was being lavished on The Archers. Emeric, sometimes justly,
sometimes with a touch of paranoia, felt that he was not always given
proper credit for his contribution to the films. The reasons were often
straightforward enough. Michael was an extrovert, a natural self­
publicist, while Emeric was a reticent, even shy, man who avoided the
limelight by instinct. As a result press and public suckled on auteurism
and unaccustomed to the collaborative nature of The Archers’ part­
nership, forgot all about Emeric. Taken to its extreme, this meant that
even after all the fuss, people still thought that Emeric was dead. In
1978 Dilys Powell, referring in The Sunday Times to an Archers’ film
that was about to appear on television, noted that it had been directed
by Michael Powell and ‘the late Emeric Pressburger’. Emeric wrote her
a letter.
Shoemaker’s Cottage
20 March 1978
Dear Miss Powell,
I admit occasionally I’m late. But last Sunday (March 19th), I was
not. You were early.
Kindest regards,
Emeric Pressburger
 ENDINGS 403

A similar situation almost arose over the BAFTA award. Initially the
board were only going to give one award - to Michael. It was
Vivienne Knight, The Archers’ old publicist, who put them right.
When Richard Attenborough told her about the award she asked:
‘What about Emeric?’ And he said, ‘Oh no, my dear.’ But she said,
‘Dicky, cast your mind back to the credits: Written, Produced and
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.’ And he said,
‘Oh my God, you’re right!’ and got straight on the phone.
‘The lesson’, Emeric wrote after another such incident, ‘is clear. If
you happen to be a maker of films (or a member of a brass band) you
should blow your own trumpet every once in a while. If you don’t,
they’ll think you’re dead.’
These were accidents or understandable lapses of memory. What
Emeric found truly disturbing, however, were other, what he saw as
deliberate, slights. When the first retrospective was held in 19 7 1 it
was called: ‘Michael Powell (and in much smaller letters) in collabor­
ation with Emeric Pressburger’ and the photograph on the cover of
the programme bore a picture of Michael. Emeric made no comment.
Those were the days of blinkered auteurism, an ideology as free of
qualms and as closed to doubt as Stalinism.
But the next retrospective, in 1978, better organized and pub­
licized, was the cause of some friction. The front cover of the N FT
programme proclaimed ‘A Michael Powell Season’, though inside
Emeric was accorded only a marginally smaller typeface. Michael
Powell’s name alone was above the door of the cinema and BFI
officials failed to invite Emeric to the official opening party. Almost
simultaneously the BBC, running a season of Archer’s films, trailered
it as ‘A Season of Michael Powell Films’. Emeric felt a terrible
embarrassment at having to point out his position with regards to this
shoddy treatment:
As you well know, the omission to invite me to the reception the
other day alone would not have been tragic. But the fact that it
topped a number of other snubs made it so . . . I, as one of the
two principal makers of these films, have never felt inferior to
my partner, neither has Michael to his. That’s why we signed
our films Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell
and Emeric Pressburger. Do you think that credit titles in films
signify nothing and grow like leaves on a fig tree? . . . If the BFI
disregards what the credit titles say, it encourages the press to
404 EMERIC

disregard them as w e ll. . . My own pride in them is so great that

1 wouldn’t part from them for anything. . .
He was driven again in another letter to try and justify himself in
relation to his partner, in terms which probably meant little to a
hardened critic:
One would not think so, but I too have spent a lifetime in films
and the best part of it here in this country. We two were like
horses, different in temperament, never all that good singly as
the half of the pair. It happens often in life that two people are
thrown together by chance, have a brilliant moment and part
before they realise it. We were lucky to stay together for about
20 years. A team of horses . . . We have hardly ever worked
together but we have inspired each other. In his letter telling me
that he had decided to break our partnership Michael said that
he had often followed my suggestions without understanding
them and I had usually been right. That is how a real part­
nership works.
Afterwards he referred to the retrospective in a letter to Angela as
‘just a bad dream that recurred throughout October and November
19 78 ’. He felt vaguely that his foreignness had something to do with
it and claimed to be baffled by human nature: ‘I have been a Hun­
garian in many countries including 44 years in this country and I still
can’t get used to it. The human brain should have evolved something
like adrenalin to prevent getting upset by such trifles as happened to
me in 19 78 .’
In spite of his strong feelings on the subject, he obviously tried -
though not always successfully - to remain humorous when the
embarrassing task of pointing out his contribution was necessary.
When the Museum of Modern Art retrospective was listed as
‘Michael Powell in collaboration with the distinguished scriptwriter
Emeric Pressburger’ he wrote to the organizer:
I’m proud to be the scriptwriter on these films . . . but the main
titles indicate that I’m one of the two ‘makers’ . Some people, I’m
one of them, feel slightly embarrassed when one has to analyse
and evaluate one’s own performance in a complex piece of work
that can only be achieved by many. But, of course, if one fails to
do it credits erode and if those credits are about 35 years old,
they crumble into d u st. . . I have swallowed smaller things, even
 ENDINGS 405

if to me they were precious pearls. But I cannot swallow the

Museum of Modern Art, can I?

Only rarely did Emeric suggest that the inequality of his and Michael’s
reputations was Michael’s own fault. Sometimes he felt that Michael
should do more to correct inaccurate references by journalists - and
normally Michael was generous with his praise to Emeric. Once or
twice they did argue about it. Just prior to the second N FT season
Emeric wrote to his partner:

1 have a premonition of disappointment about the Michael

Powell - Robert Aldrich season [a Robert Aldrich retrospective
was scheduled to run concurrently]. I thought it would be a
Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger season. 1 know that what
I’ve just said is not gentlemanlike but there must be moments in a
40-year partnership when one must choose between remaining a
gentleman and telling the truth. When you are young and full of
steam you breeze about like a youthful steam engine. Silly
disappointments don’t matter. You’re always in a hurry to keep
up with your dreams. When you are getting older you begin to
live on memories and recognition. But even the best appreciation
is only second hand, almost like chewing the cud. Recognition
becomes charity. You get it from other people. You say thank you
and move on . . . to comment upon the size of it is bad form. In
spite of which that’s exactly what I am doing.
But Emeric’s occasional dissatisfaction over the dispersal of credits
should not be blown out of proportion - it was at least partially
self-induced. In fact, his relationship with Michael grew ever more
intimate as time passed. They grew to accept each other’s faults and —
as their correspondence indicates —to love one another more than ever.
Neither did their confidence in each other’s talents diminish. They
tried to work together again on various scripts; even on those projects
like ‘Pavlova’, ‘Other People’ (Marlon Brando’s proposed series on
Red Indians) and a version of ‘Baron Munchausen’, that did not
involve Emeric directly, Michael would send his ex-partner the script
for advice. (So important did he regard this that on the Munchausen
project he refused to give the producer his own opinion of the script
until a meeting had been arranged with Emeric in attendance, with the
result that the producer lost confidence in Michael and removed him
from the film.)
40 6 EMERIC

In 19 77 they collaborated again more fully than for many years.

They agreed to write a novel of The Red Shoes for Avon, the Ameri­
can paperback publishers. The advance was small - $5000 each - but
they had high hopes for the book as a supermarket bestseller. All
those little girls, would-be ballerinas, who had seen the film in 1948,
were ripe for nostalgic exploitation. They worked together on it in the
same alternating way as they had on The Archers’ scripts. Emeric
would write a first draft, which Michael would then revise and return.
They exchanged long letters over each new section as it was written:

2 6 .3.19 7 7 Shoemaker’s Cottage, Aspall

My dear Michael,
If you agree with the enclosed rough stuff, please rub and polish
it in your own inimitable style, send it back to me and I’ll type it
out again in those inevitable hours when I get stuck. We might
have to make other changes later.
Ever since I gave some thought to a R.Sh. book, I hoped to
begin with an unusual statement and introduce the shape of
story telling different from that of the film. (We have, I think,
both of these, now.) Now, our main job is to satisfy those who
know and love the film and also those who don’t know it as yet.
As I mentioned before, to me it would be ideal to write a novel
from which a good film has been made.
I hope you agree that ‘the first Door’ * doesn’t need more than
those present pages. I only thought to give importance to Ler­
montov, interest to the relationship between L and Dimitri and
leave showing the Stage the first time, as in the film, when Julian
sees it, first.
Everything will go faster as soon as we start using the wealth
of material of the film (any second, now).
It’s a pity we can’t talk to Miss Moldow [Their editor at
Avon]. I wonder why she did not come after all.
I’m in a great hurry to catch the ‘Male’ . I would be in even
greater hurry to catch the ‘Female’. Alas, my speed might not
suffice for that.
Much love
Imre

* Probably a reference to the scene at the beginning of the film when the students are
straining to push their way into the theatre.
 ENDINGS 407

Michael still had as much respect for Emeric’s talent as ever and
thoughts of rivalry seemed distant to him. He wrote to his old partner
when the final chapter was in the post to New York:
January 21 [1978]
Dearest Imre - I have discovered rather belatedly that I love
you: your faults as well as your virtues. In any case your virtues
far outweigh your faults. Unlike mine, alas!
The last few weeks of the book, when you were drawing
together all the strands of the rope by which Lermontov was to
hang himself was a reminder to me that I can never be a novelist
only a storyteller -
It was, as always, over the last 40 years, a privilege to work
with you.

Unfortunately the book, like so many of their later schemes, failed to

live up to their expectations. The first print run of 50,000 remained
largely unsold.
Simultaneously, the first of many Broadway producers, a stock­
broker called Wendell Minnick, was planning a full-scale musical of
The Red Shoes. One of the jokes in Gavin Millar’s Arena docu­
mentary was that Emeric refused to go to New York for the rehear­
sals because he had previously accepted an invitation to the Queen’s
Garden Party. On 2 1 July 19 8 1 he wrote to Michael, demonstrating
that there were new ideas in him yet, and somehow making Michael,
then resident in Hollywood, seem more of a foreigner than he:
The ‘Buck House Invite’ went reasonably well. As the first time,
some 20 years ago, 1 was alone, have never opened my mouth,
but this time I surveyed the location for a possible film. You
might remember (every one of our papers mentioned it, it hap­
pened about 6 weeks ago) that two German boys, both about 20
and both penniless, decided to spend the night in Hyde Park.
They knew that parts of Hyde Park were closed for the night but
it wasn’t difficult to climb over the wall. The night turned out to
be mild, the lawn soft, they slept well, had a bath in the lake
when they were discovered. It was not Hyde Park. It was the
garden of Buckingham Palace. They have told the Police the
truth, everybody had a good laugh and so had the people of
other countries, even some of the EEC.
Of course, I would make the unexpected visitors an English
408 EMERIC

girl and an American boy. Or an Irish girl with an English boy

(more difficult but - grudgingly - more worthwhile). The beauty
of it is that it couldn’t be done if what has happened had never
happened. As it is, 1 would emphasise that, under the circum­
stances, in the times when frequenters to the British Museum are
examined closely, Buckingham Palace with the Queen in resi­
dence, would be still far above such unpardonable depravity.
Be careful, please. Contrary to my Entr’acte idea, this one can
be stolen easily and with enthusiasm. Although we could make
it better than anybody - any offers?
Much love,
Imre
Emeric was always prone to bouts of melancholia. After the break-up
of his marriage they became more frequent and, in old age, amplified
by nostalgia. It is difficult to judge then just what valuation he put on
his own life, whether he felt fulfilled and vindicated by the increas­
ingly high reputation of the films of which he was ‘one of the two
principle makers’.
In 1984, following the death of his first wife, Frankie, Michael
married Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese’s editor (‘I know
how to make shoes, but how does one make Schoons? And once you
succeed in making Schoons what do you do with them? Or is the
process of making them the best part of it? Could be . . . of course, it
could be.’). To Emeric, Michael must have seemed blissfully unbur­
dened by the weight of guilt and moral, historical and personal
worries which so oppressed him. In the nicest possible way, he was
jealous. Unable to attend the wedding he wrote a wistful, regretful
note to the happy couple, paying particular attention to the con­
voluted sheet of directions which each invitee had been sent:
Shoemaker’s Cottage, Aspall, Stowmarket, Suffolk
17 M ay 1984
My dear Michael and Thelma,
I would so much like to write something nice to you both. After
all, few of your invited guests know as much as I do about
Michael and as little as I know about Thelma.
I liked the instructions under the heading of ‘The splicing of
Thelma Schoonmaker and Michael Powell’. I tried to imagine
the 70 miles from London to Avening; all those enticements on
 ENDINGS 409

how to approach Minchinhampton! The left forks, the right

forks! (1 was sorry not to stop at the Ragged Cot), the cruel
warning not to go down the valley into Stroud and especially the
caution: ‘Do not go into Cirencester!’ I thought of my own
marriage, the turn-offs, the roundabouts, the filling-stations . . .
if only I hadn’t gone into my Cirencester . . .
God bless you both!
I’ll pray for you.
With all my love,
Emeric

His dissatisfaction with his own life was due to his inability to put
down real roots, to belong to a country and start, and hold on to, a
family. A note written in his diary for 6 November 19 8 1 expresses
this sense of unfulfilment in a characteristically vivid metaphor:
Happiness - desolation - where are the limits . . . if the swallows
fly South every year and back again, how happy must they feel
when they arrive?! What must salmon feel to manage to cross
oceans and arrive back where they were born and their offspring
will be born as well! And what misery if they don’t succeed!
His closest friends were still Hungarians. Julian and Katia Schopflinn,
a doctor and psychoanalyst who lived in nearby Diss, grew close to
him and George Mikes was a regular visitor to the cottage. In 1977
the humorist dedicated his latest book, How to be Decadent, to ‘my
dear old friend Emeric Pressburger - the only man I know who is not
decadent. But —I hope —he can learn.’ It was together with Mikes and
another East Anglian Hungarian friend, Arthur Koestler (a peculiar
trinity of English Hungarian writers) that Emeric founded the Pig
Committee, a true piece of ‘stomach patriotism’.
For all these hommes de lettres one of the most ineradicable
memories of their youth was the traditional Hungarian disznotor, or,
as Koestler translated, ‘pig-eating orgy’. Pigs, fattened for a whole
year, were slaughtered amid great festivities and converted into
sausages, black puddings and greaves - delicacies of Magyar cuisine.
It was suggested that they should have their own East Anglian
disznotor. To this end the Pig Committee was formed and Mikes
voted president with the official title: Captain of the Pigs. Two piglets
were duly bought at market and given to a local farmer to raise.
When the time came, on Emeric’s 80th birthday, 5 December 1982, a
4io EMERIC

genuine Hungarian butcher, M r Janos Perity of Redhill, Surrey, was

engaged to perform the necessary butchering. The immediate result
were spectacular strings of several types of sausages, followed some
months later by smoked ham s/
Emeric’s own health had always been unnaturally robust for some­
one who ate what he did - no concessions to modern scaremongering
about fat or cholesterol - and took no exercise at all. In the early
seventies he was operated on for some slight trouble with his pan­
creas. Then, in 19 83, on his way to the BFI awards, he fell from the
train of Liverpool Street Station. He hit his head on the concrete floor
and there was quite a lot of blood, though the main injury was
internal. He must have damaged the muscles in his neck and over the
next few months his head - which had always appeared dispropor­
tionately heavy - began to sag, until it almost rested on his chest and
he found it difficult to raise it at all.
Now in his early eighties and growing slow and forgetful he found
it increasingly difficult to live on his own. He was fortunate with his
neighbours. In such a small, tight-knit, perhaps old-fashioned com­
munity, they were remarkably generous and helpful. Mrs Guild, the
owner of the manor house next door popped round every day, as did
Mrs Allen from another nearby cottage. Ronnie the gardener, and his
wife who cleaned and ironed for Emeric, began to do more and more
for him, without ever asking for extra pay. Soon they began to drive
meals round for him every day.
He also found it hard to express himself. Both his English and his
Hungarian had deteriorated. Perhaps spending so much time alone -
often weeks on end without properly speaking to other people - had
had a detrimental effect. He found it difficult to find the mot juste and
spoke slowly, often vaguely. Sometimes, in his last years, he would
start talking to me in Hungarian or German and get halfway through
the sentence before realizing. He became quite frustrated by this
disability. He no longer wrote letters and disliked talking on the
phone.
His old love, Magda wrote to him from Timi§oara:*

*Koestler, unfortunately, never had a chance to savour his. He and his wife committed
suicide in 19 8 3.
 ENDINGS 4II

Dearest Imre,
I missed you again. You spoke on the radio [the Hungarian
World Service], and it would have been nice to hear your voice
once more. They say that your pronunciation is a bit alien, and
that you are searching for words. How nicely you used to speak
and write Hungarian! Our teacher Ozerai used to hold you up
as an example to the whole class. Not to mention your student
letters from Prague, Stuttgart and even Berlin. There are a lot of
them with me. 1 cannot throw them out even though it doesn’t
make any sense, since I am not even a memory for you any
m ore. . .

I remember that my brother and I drove up from London to visit him

one Sunday in 1986. He had bought the usual feast of provisions,
tongues, pork cutlets and marrons glacés. ‘But,’ he said to us sadly,
‘I’ve forgotten how to cook them.’
In the spring of 1987 Emeric became seriously ill. He was taken
first to the hospital in Ipswich and then to a private nursing home
near Saxstead, about 20 miles from Aspall. He was now quite senile.
Even in his flashes of lucidity he found it difficult to express himself.
He had lost a lot of weight. His solicitor was given power of attorney
and Shoemaker’s Cottage and all his other assets liquidated to pay for
the nursing home. In January of the following year Angela visited him
for the first time in a decade. He held her hand but was unable to
speak. Being reunited with his daughter must have meant some kind
of a release. A little more than two weeks later, early in the morning
of 5 February, he died quietly in his sleep of bronchial pneumonia at
the age of 85.
He had expressed the wish to be buried in the village church at
Aspall. It was a cold dreary day and a small funeral, a few friends
from the village, the Schopflinns, my brother and I and our father.
Michael was unable to come. Martin Scorsese sent flowers.
At the last minute a long-forgotten Yugoslav cousin rang from
Belgrade to ensure we gave our grandfather a Jewish funeral. He
assured us that Emeric had been a practising Jew. No one else could
remember him going near the synagogue. As a concession, the liberal
Anglican vicar allowed a star of David to be engraved on his grave
stone. Below it are the words:
Emeric Pressburger novelist and screenwriter 19 0 2-19 8 8
followed by Walter Scott’s lines from A Matter o f Life and Death:
412 EMERIC

Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,

This world below and heaven above,
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
The critics were more generous in death than they had often been in
life. Michael himself wrote a touching piece for the Observer,
recalling his partner’s qualities with love and affection:
For what he meant to me, I look to another writer who also
loved Lewis Carroll - that great American, O. Henry. When he
wrote his only novel he called it Cabbages and Kings, and in a
short preface to the book he paid Rudyard Kipling a pretty
compliment. I quote from memory: ‘I thought that I had found
an original theme for my novel, and then I became aware that
the man from Bombay had been there before me. But instead of
writing a whole book, he had put it in one line in the mouth of
Sergeant Terence Mulvarney: “ but can them that helps others
help themselves?” The answer is - they can’t without a partner
whom they love and trust. And this is what Imre Pressburger has
meant to me.
They tell me he died in his sleep, but I’m sure it was in the
middle of a joke.’
A memorial evening was held in December at the B A FT A theatre in
Piccadilly. The invitation began: ‘Michael Powell believes Emeric
Pressburger is alive and well in heaven - and keeping a sharp eye on
what happens down here to the Archers’ films.’ Most of the surviving
Archers were in attendance.

Since Emeric’s death the renown and popularity of The Archers has
shown no signs of abating. They have well and truly joined the canon
of cinema greats from which they were so long excluded.
Before he died in 1990, Michael went on to write two long volumes
of brilliantly written memoirs which have justly earned him a reputa­
tion as the ‘Chateaubriand of cinema’. He gave them the joint title of
A Life in Movies, by which he meant to equate his own history with
that of the movies and to express that everything in his life was done
for the movies; he visited the theatre to cast actors, read books to
discover plots, travelled to find locations. The movies were his life.
Emeric was, as always, his partner’s complement. He lived a life,
full of adventure, love and suffering, some of which he put into his
 ENDINGS 41 3

movies. Without his experiences, his profound love of music, his

appreciation of art, without his positive qualities and his failings, one
feels that The Archers’ films would be expressions of style, of experi­
mentation and even enthusiasm, but they would not touch you,
would not affect your emotions —something that should be the aim of
every movie.
But even this is a simplification. If Emeric’s story demonstrates
anything, it is the absolute value but inexplicable mystery, of true
collaboration. Michael and Emeric, Emeric and Michael, they were
The Archers, that singular creative entity that resulted from the
combination of two such singular men.
 Filmography

The following filmography includes every film on which EP is known to be

credited and a handful of others to which he made a substantial uncredited
contribution. Full credits are given for ‘solo’ work, abridged credits for the work
with Michael Powell. (Those who wish more detailed credits on the Powell-
Pressburger films are referred to the filmography in Ian Christie’s Arrows o f
Desire (Faber and Faber; 1994).)

Germany

Abschied ‘ f a r e w e l l ’ (1930)

Dir: Robert Siodmak Sc: Emmerich Pressburger, Irma von Cube. Ph: Eugen
Schüfftan Mus: Erwin Bootz Arranged by: Herbert Lichtenstein Lyric: Gerd
Karlick Des: Max Knaake S: Erich Leistner Assoc Prod (Produktionsleiter):
Bruno Duday

CAST
Brigitte Horney (Hella), Aribert Mog (Peter Winkler), Emilia Unda (Frau Weber),
Konstantin Mic (Bogdanoff), Frank Günther (Neumann), Erwin Bootz (Erwin
Bootz), Martha Ziegler (Lina), Wladimir Sokoloff (The Baron), Esmée Symon,
Gisela Draeger, Marianne Mosner (The Lennox Sisters), Georg Nikolai, Erwin
Splettstösser, Bruno Hönscherle, Daisy Rensburg

PC: UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Filming: 27 June-7 July 1930
Censor: 14 Aug 1930
Length: 80 mins
Dist: UFA
Première: 25 Aug 1930

Das Ekel ‘ t h e scoundrel ’ (1931)

Dir: Franz Wenzler, Eugen Schüfftan Sc: Emmerich Pressburger, Erich Kästner
(uncred.) after a play by Hans Reimann and Toni Impekoven Ph: Eugen
Schüfftan, Bernhard Wentzel Mus: Herbert Lichtenstein Des: Hans Sohnle, Otto
Erdmann Cost: Hermann Rosenthal, Friedrich Havenstein S: Walter Tjaden
 FILMOGRAPHY
415

Assoc Prod: Bruno Duday Prod Man (Aufnahmeleiter): Fritz Schwarz Stills: Otto
Schulz

M ax Adalbert (Aldalbert Bulcke), Emilie Unda (Hermine, his wife), Evelyn Holt
(Katharina, their daughter), Heinz Wagner (Egmont, their son), Heinz Könecke
(Quitt), Viktor Franz (Scheelhase), Rosa Valetti (Frau Kochanke), Ernst Pröckl
(Werndorff), Hans Hermann Schaufuss (Schutzmann Lemke), Alfred Abel
(Guide), Paul Henckels (Law Officer), Julius E. Herrmann (Weichert), Martha
Ziegler (Frau Weichert), Rudolph Biebrach (Prison Warder), Erik Schütz

PC: UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Filming: on location at stadium, 19 April 19 3 1; studio, March-end April
19 3 1
Censor: 2 June 19 3 1
Length: 82 mins
Dist: UFA
Première: UFA Theatre Kurfürstendamm, Berlin, 5 -3 1 June 19 31

Dann Schon Lieber Lebertran

‘i’d rather have cod liver oil’ (1931)

Dir: M ax Ophüls Sc and idea: Emmerich Pressburger, Erich Kästner Ph: Eugen
Schüfftan, Karl Puth Mus: Norbert Glanzberg Des: Hans Sohnle, Otto Erdmann
S: Walter Tjaden, Assoc Prod: Bruno Duday

Käthe Haack (Mrs Augustin, the mother), Max Gülstorff (Mr Augustin, the
father), Alfred Braun (St Peter), Paul Kemp (Michel, his apprentice), Hannelore
Schroth-Haak (Ellen), Gert Klein (Peter)

PC: UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Filming: Aug 19 3 1
Length: 24 mins
Dist: UFA
Première: 23 Oct 19 3 1

D er Kleine Seitensprung' t h e little escapade ’ (1931)

Dir: Reinhold Schünzel Sc: Reinhold Schünzel, Emmerich Pressburger, after an

idea by Schünzel Ph: Werner Brandes Mus: Ralph Erwin S: Dr Erich Leistner
Des: Robert Herlth, Walter Röhrig, Werner Schlichting Mus Dir: Curt Lewinnek
Lyric: Robert Gilbert Make-up: Ernst Schülke, Wilhelm Weber Assoc Prod:
Günther Stapenhorst Prod Man: Erich von Neusser
4i 6 FILMOGRAPHY

CAST
Hermann Thimig (Walter Heller), Renate Müller (Erika, his wife), Hans
Brausewetter (Dr Max Eppmann, Head of Transport), Otto Wallburg (August
Wernecke, Industrialist), Hilde Hildebrand (Lona, his wife), Mrs Dinah (a For­
tune Teller), Hermann Blass (Piano Player), Oscar Sabo (a Londoner), Marthe
Ziegler (Maid), Paul Westermeier (Dancer in a Bar), Ottilie Dietze, Olga Engl,
Berte Gast, Rut Jacobson, Hildegard Kohnert, Michael von Newlinski, Gertrude
Wolle

PC: UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Filming: June 19 3 1
Censor: 14 Aug 19 3 1
Length: 88 mins
Dist: UFA
Première: Gloria-Palast, Berlin, 21 Aug 19 31

French version: Le Petit Ecart (1931)

Crew as above, except Dir: Reinhold Schünzel, Henri Chomette Sc: Raoul
Ploquin, Henri Chomette after German screenplay Lyric: André Mauprey

CAST
Pierre Richard-Willm (Bernard Heller, Rechtsanwalt), Jeanne Boitel (Jaqueline,
his wife), Lucien Baroux (Martial Hepmann), André Berley (Auguste Becker,
Industrialist), Louise Lagrange (Lona, his wife), Mrs Dinah (a Fortune Teller),
Robert Pizani (Piano Player), Fernand Frey (Pamphile), Odette Talazac (a
Client), Myno Burney, Yvonne Garat, Willy Rozier, Theo Thony, Alice Tissot

PC: UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Filming: began June 19 3 1
Dist: Alliance Cinématographique Européenne, Paris (ACE)

Emil und die Detective ‘ e m i l and the detectives ’ (1931)

Dir: Gerhard Lamprecht Sc: Billie Wilder, Emmerich Pressburger (uncred.),

Erich Kästner (uncred.) after Kästner’s book Mus: Allan Gray Ph: Werner
Brandes Cam Assis: Karl Drömmer, Karl Krien Des: Werner Schlichting Make­
up: Wilhelm Weber, Ernst Schülke S: Hermann Fritzsching Art Adviser: Carl
Meinhardt Assoc Prod: Günther Stapenhorst Prod Man: Erich von Neusser
Stills: Emanuel Loewenthal

CAST
Fritz Rasp (Herr Grundeis), Käthe Haack (Frau Tischbein), Rolf Wenkhaus
(Emil Tischbein), Rudolph Biebrach (Watchman Jeschke), Olga Engly (Grand­
mother), Inge Landgut (Pony Hütchen), Hans Joachim Schaufuss (Gustav with
the hooter), Hubert Schmitz (Teacher), Hans Richter (Fliegender Hirsch), Hans
Albrecht Löhr (Dienstag), Ernst-Eberhard Reling (Gerold), Waldemar Kupczyk
 FILMOGRAPHY 417
(Mittenzwei), Martin Baumann, Gerhard Dammann, Rudolph Lettinger, Mar­
garete Sachse, Georg Heinrich Schnell, Hubert Schmitz (The Professor)

PC: X UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Filming: began 6 July 19 3 1
Censor: 6 Nov 19 3 1
Length: 75 mins
Dist: UFA
Première: 2 Dec 19 3 1

Ronny (1931)

Dir: Reinhold Schünzel Sc: Emmerich Pressburger, Reinhold Schünzel. Ph: Fritz
Arno Wagner, Robert Baberske Ph assist: Werner Krien Mus: Emmerich Kalman
Arranged by: Erich Wolfgang Korngold (uncred.). Mus Dir: Franz Grothe
Orchestra: Marek Weber and his Orchestra Lyric: Rudolph Schanzer, Ernst
Welisch Des: Werner Schlichting, Benno von Arent Cost: Benno von Arent Props:
Albert Schlopsnies Dance Choreography: Heinz Lingen Make-up: Emil Neu­
mann, Hermann Rosenthal, Maria Jamitzky S: Hermann Fritzsching Ed: Ernst
Fellner Assoc Prod: Günther Stapenhorst Prod Man: Erich von Neusser Stills:
Horst von Harbou

CAST
Käthe von Nagy (Ronny), Willy Fritsch (Prince of Perusa), Hans Wassmann
(Chief Marshal), Aribert Wäscher (Minister of State), Wolfgang von Schwind
(Minister of War), Olly Gebauer (Lisa), Kurt Vespermann (Bomboni), William
Huch (Head Waiter), Willi Grill (Anton), Wilhelm Diegelmann

PC: UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Filming: 7 Sept-18 Nov 19 3 1
Censor: 16 Dec 19 3 1
Length: 98 mins
Dist: UFA
Première: Gloria-Palast, Berlin, 22 Dec 19 31

French version: Ronny (1931)

Crew as above except Dir: Reinhold Schünzel, Roger Le Bon Sc: Raoul Ploquin,
after German screenplay

CAST
Käthe von Nagy (Ronny), Marc Dantzer (Rudolph, Prince of Perusa), Fernand
Frey (The Minister), Lucien Baroux (Theatre Director), Georges Deneubourg
(Minister of Justice), Gustave Huberdeau (Minister of State), Charles Fallot
(Finance Minister), Monique Casty (Lisa), Guy Sioux (Bomboni), Lucien Callam-
and (Anton)
4i8 FILMOGRAPHY

PC: UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Filming: Sept-Nov 19 3 1
Dist: Alliance Cinématographique Européenne, Paris (ACE)

Das Schöne Abenteuer ‘ t h e beautiful adventure ’ (1932)

Dir: Reinhold Schünzel Sc: Reinhold Schünzel, Emmerich Pressburger, after the
play La Belle Aventure by Gaston Arman de Caillavet, Robert de Fiers, Etienne
Rey Ph: Fritz Arno Wagner, Robert Baberske Mus: Ralph Erwin Mus Dir:
Hans-Otto Borgmann Lyric: Fritz Rotter Des: Werner Schlichting Make-up:
Wilhelm Weber, Oscar Schmidt Cost: Adolf Kempler S: Hermann Fritzsching Ed:
Edward von Borsody Assoc Prod: Günther Stapenhorst Prod Man: Erich von
Neusser Stills: Günther Pilz

CAST
Alfred Abe (Count d’Eguzon), Ida Wüst (Countess d’Eguzon), Wolf Albach-Retty
(André d’Eguzon, their son), Käthe von Nagy (Hélène de Trévillac), Adele
Sandrock (Mrs de Trévillac, her grandmother), Otto Wallburg (Valentin Le
Barroyer), Hilde Hildebrand (Mrs de Serignan), Julius Falkenstein (Herr Char­
train), Gertrud Wolle (Mrs Chartrain), Kurt Vespermann (Mr Desmignières),
Blandine Ebinger (Frau Desmignières), Julius E. Herrmann (Mr Dubois), Lydia
Pollmann (Jeanne), Ferinand Hart (Mr Durant)

PC: UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Filming: end April—end May (sets constructed 18 April)
Censor: 5 Aug 1932
Length: 91 mins
Dist: UFA
Première: Gloria-Palast, Berlin, 18 Aug 1932; Carnegie Theatre, New York, 4
Dec 1932

French version: La Belle Aventure (1932)

Crew as above except Dir: Reinhold Schünzel, Roger Le Bon French Dial:
Etienne Rey

CAST
Jean Périer (Count d’Eguzon), Paule Andral (Countess d’Eguzon), Daniel Lecour-
tois (André, their son), Käthe von Nagy (Hélène de Trévillac), Marie-Laure (Her
Grandmother), Lucien Baroux (Valentin Le Barroyer), Jeanne Provost (Madame
Serignan), Adrien Le Gallo (Monsieur Chartrain), Renée Fleury (Madame Char­
train), Mauricet (Monsieur Desmignières), Arletty (Madame Desmignières),
Charles Lorrain (Monsieur Dubois), Robert Goupil (The Detective), Michèle Alfa
(Jeanne), Georges Deneubourg (Dr Pinbrache), Lucien Callamad (Didier), Mar­
guerite Templey (Jeantine), Paul Olivier (Railway President), Véra Phares (Little
Girl)
 FILMOGRAPHY 419

Studio: UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Filming: Aug 1932
Dist: Alliance Cinématographique Européenne, Paris (ACE)

Wer Zahlt Heute N och? ‘ w h o bothers to pay n o w a d a y s ?’ (1932)

Dir: Heinz Hille Sc: Emmerich Pressburger, after a sketch by Stephen Zugor Ph:
Karl Puth Des: Willi A. Hermann Assist Des: Herbert Lippschitz

CAST
Max Ehrlich, Hermann Vallentin, Hedi Heissling, Henry Lorenzen

PC: UFA, Neubabelsberg Studios

Censor: 28 July 1932
Length: 27 mins
Dist: UFA

Lumpenkavaliere (1932)

Dir: Carl Boese Sc: O’Fredrick-Lauritzen Jr. Story: Karl Noti, Hans Wilhelm Ph:
Karl Hasselmann, Max Nekut, Franz Hoffermann Mus: Frank Fox Lyric: Karl
Farkas Des: Arthur Berger, Emil Stepanek, S: Alfred Norkus Ed: Else Baum,
Emmerich Pressburger Prod: Gregor Rabinowitsch, Arnold Pressburger, Assoc.
Prod: Wilhelm Szekely, Prod Man: Karl Sander, Franz Hoffermann

CAST
Harald Madsen (Pat), Carl Schenstroem (Patachon), Ingeborg Grahn (Kitty),
Henry Bender (Mr von Hagen), Annie Rosar (Mrs von Hagen), Hans Thimig
(Fritz, their son), Attila Hörbiger (Otto, the Wrestler), Carl Goetz (the Junk
Dealer), Wera Engels (the Thief), Lizzi Holzschuh (Paula), Richard Waldemar
(the Prison Director), Otto Schmöle (Director-General), Karl Farkas (the Judge),
Viktor Franz (A Man), Emmy Flemmich (the Governess), Karl Matuna (ist
Theatre Director), Walter Brant (2nd Theatre Director)

PC: Deutsch-Österreichischer Kontingentfilm (uncred.) and Cine-Allianz

Tonfilm, Berlin and Südfilm, Berlin.
Studio: Sascha-Atelier, Vienna
Filming: began mid-May 1932
Censor: 21 Nov 1932
Length: 85 mins
Dist: Chronos-Film, Berlin
Première: Vienna, 5 Aug 19 32; Primus-Palast, Berlin, 12 Dec 1932
420 FILMOGRAPHY

Sehnsucht20 2 ‘ d e s i r e 2 0 2 ’ (1932)

Dir: M ax Neufeld Sc: Emmerich Pressburger, Irma von Cube, Karl Farkas Ph:
Otto Kanturek, Anton Pucher Mus: Richard Fall Mus Dir: Willy Schmidt-
Gentner, Frank Fox Lyric: Karl Farkas Des: Arthur Berger S: Alfred Norkus Ed:
Else Baum Prod: Gregor Rabinowitsch, Arnold Pressburger Prod Man: Karl
Ehrlich Assist Dir: Franz Hoffermann

CAST
Magda Schneider (Magda), Luise Rainer (Kitty), Fritz Schulz (Bobby), Rolf von
Goth (Harry), Attila Hörbiger (Paul, Magda’s brother), Mizzi Griebl (Magda’s
mother), Hans Thimig (Civil Servant), Paul Kemp (Silber), Lina Woiwode

PC: Deutsch-Österreichischer Kontingentfilm (uncred.) and Cine-Allianz

Tonfilm, Berlin
Studio: Sascha-Atelier, Vienna
Filming: began 1 1 July 1932
Censor: 9 Sept 1932
Dist: Chronos-Film, Berlin
Length: 85 mins
Première: Vienna, 2 Sept 19 32 ; Gloria-Palast, Berlin, 15 Sept 1932

French version: Une Jeune Fille et un Million

Crew as above except French dial: Serge Veber, Fred Ellis

CAST
Madeleine Ozeray (Magda), Christiane Delyne (Kitty), Claude Dauphin (Bobby),
Daniel Lecourtois (Jacques), Robert Moor (?), Camille Solange (Kitty’s mother),
Marfa Dhervilly (Kitty’s aunt), Robert Le Vigan (an Official), Jean Arbuleau
(Hesse), Marthe Derminy, Alexandre Dréan, Raymond Leboursier

Dist: Société des Films Osso, Paris

Eine von Uns (Gilgi) ‘ o n e of us’ (1932)

Dir: Johannes Meyer Sc: Irma von Cube, Emmerich Pressburger (uncred.), after
the novel Gilgi, Eine von Uns by Irmegard Keun Ph: Carls Drews Ph Assist:
Walter Essek Mus: Franz Grothe Mus Dir: Franz Grothe Lyric: Fritz Rotter Des:
Hans Jacoby, Hans Minzloff Make-up: Alfred Lehmann, Frieda Lehmann Cost:
Anny Loretto, Hans Kothe S: Emil Specht Ed: Hanne Kuyt Prod: Felix Pfitzner,
Ilja Salkind Prod Man: Felix Pfitzner Assist Dir: Walter Lehmann Prod Assist:
Ernst Garden Stills: Eugen Klagemann.
 FILMOGRAPHY 421
CAST
Brigitte Helm (Gisela Krön, Gilgi), Gustav Diessl (Martin), Jessie Vihrog (Olga),
Ernst Busch (Peter), Günther Vogdt (Stephan), Paul Biensfeldt (Hermann Krön),
Helene Fehdmer (his wife), Gudrun Ady, Lydia Alexandra, Julius Brandt, Ger­
hard Dammann, Helmut Gauer, Karl Geppert, Jutta Jol, Erwin Kaiser, Wera
Liessem, Karl Walter Meyer, Anita Mey, Karl Platen, Otto Reinwald, Hermine
Sterler.

PC: TK Tonfilm-Production Berlin; Efa Studios, Berlin Halensee

(Paramount-Film, Berlin)
Filming: began 9 Aug 1932
Censor: 3 Oct 1932
Length: 99 mins
Dist: Paramount-Film, Berlin, Hisa-Film, Berlin
Première: Cologne 4 Oct 19 32; Capitol, Berlin, 20 Oct 1932

. . . Und es Leuchtet die Puszta (Bie uns in Budapest. . . )

\ . . A N D T HE P L A I NS AR E G L E A M I N G / O N C E UPON A T I ME IN
BUDAPEST’ ( 1 9 3 3 )

Dir: Heinz Hille Sc: Emmerich Pressburger, after the novel The Old Rogue by
Kalman Mikszath Ph: Karl Puth Mus: Ernst Erich Buder Prod: Heinz Hille

CAST
Rosy Barsony (Baroness Maria Inockay), Käroly Sugar (Kaspar Borly, Gutsver­
walter), Wolf Albach-Retty (Peter Borly, Hussar Lieutenant, his grandson), Tibor
von Halmay (Lieutenant Count Belassa), Magda Kun (Magda, Maria’s friend),
Olga Limburg, Hansi Arnstadt, Heinz Salfner, Hans Zesch-Ballot, Franz Goebel

PC: UFA
Length: 74 mins
Dist: UFA
Première: UFA Palast am Zoo, 13 Feb 1933

Hungarian version: A Vén Gazember ‘ t h e old rogue ’ (1932)

Crew as above

CAST
Rozsi Barsony (Maria), Karoly Sugar (Borly Gaspar), Llosvay Gustav (Borly
Laslo), Halmay Tibor (Balassa Grof), Gyongyossi Erzebet (Balassa Grofno),
Magda Kun (Magda), Taray Ferenc (Inokay Kornel Baro), Cs. Acel Llona (A
felesege), E. Etsy Emilia (Perkalne), Venczell Bela (Draskeczy Tabornok), Har-
sanyi Rezsuo (A Vizsgalobiro), Kovacs Imre (A jegyzo), Dery Hugo (1st Boriigy-
nok), Bilicsi Tivadar (2 Boriigynok)
4 22 FILMOGRAPHY

Première: Urâniâban, 22 Dec 1932

Dist: UFA

France

Incognito O R I G I N A L T I T L E : ‘ SON A L T E S S E V O Y A G E ’ ( 1 9 3 3 )

Dir: Kurt Gerron Prod: Oscar Danciger Sc: Emmerich Pressburger Dial: Jacques
Natanson Ph: Michel Kelber Mus: Hans May

CAST
Renée Saint Cyr (Hélène), Pierre Brasseur (Marcel), Louis-Jacques Boucot (The
Prince of Roumélie), Barencey (The Director), Margo Lion (Client), Jean Guillet
(Trainer), Maximilienne (Deaf Lady), Madeleine Guitty (The Prince’s Secretary),
Lucien Walter (Concierge), Jacques Luce (Groom), Fanny Lacroix

PC: Productions Arys

Length: 85 mins

Une Femme au Volant ‘ w o m a n at the w h eel ’ (1933)

Dir: Kurt Gerron, Pierre Billon Prod: Romain Pinès Sc: Emmerich Pressburger
Dial: Jacques Natanson Ph: Rudi Maté, Louis Née Mus: Walter Jurmann,
Bronislaw Kaper Lyr: Louis Poterat

cast
Lisette Manvin (Yvonne Jadin), Henri Garat (Henry Villier), George Tréville (M.
Villier), Odette Talazac (Nurse), Danièle Brégis (Singer), Louis Baron fils (M.
Jadin), Robert Arnoux (Baron d’Arcole), Lucien Callamand (Detective), Jacques
Normand (President of the Tribunal), Pierre Sailhan (Judge), Jean Kolb
(Procurator-General), Jaqueline Doret (Monique), Raymond Cordy, Guy Derian
(Mechanics), Raymond Rognoni, Paul Clerget (Advocates), François Carron,
Pierre Repp

PC: Films RP
Length: 85 mins

M on Coeur T\Appelé ‘ m y heart is c a l l i n g ’ (1934)

Dir: Carmine Gallone, Serge Veber Prod: Gregor Rabinovitsch, Arnold Press­
burger Sc: Ernst Marischka, Emmerich Pressburger Ph: Friedl Behn-Grund Mus:
Robert Stolz, Werner Schmidt-Boelcke Des: Werner Schlichting S: Hermann
Fritzsching
 FILMOGRAPHY
4 23

CAST
Danielle Darrieux (Nicole Nadin), Jan Kiepura (Mario Delmonti), Lucien Baroux
(Rosé, the Director), Rolla France (Vera Valetti), Colette Darfeuil (Marget),
GabrielM Favrolles), Nono Le Corre (Casserole), Charles Dechamps (Arvelle,
Opera Director), Jeanne Cheirel (Director of a Fashion Studio), Julien Carette
(Coq), Edouard Hamel, Bill-Bocketts, Pierre Piérade, Hermant

PC: Cine-AllianzTonfilm
Length: 84 mins

Monsieur Sans-Gêne original title : ‘th e satyr ’ (1935)

Dir: Karl Anton Prod: Gerard Strausz Story: Emmerich Pressburger Sc:
Emmerich Pressburger, René Pujol Dial: René Pujol Ph: Ted Pahle Des: Jacques
Krauss Mus: Ralph Erwin

CAST
Josseline Gaël (Monique Perrochin), Fernand Gravey (Fernand Martin), Armand
Dranem (Prompt), Ginette Gaubert (Juliette Durand), Jim Gérald (M. Perrochin),
Jean Aquistapace (Theatre Director), Thérèse Dorny (Feminist), Charles
Dechamps (Pierre Crémieux), Jeanne Byrel (Governess), A.M. Julien (President),
Nicolas Rimsky (Musician), Andrée Wendler, Georgina, Roger Gaillard, Henry
Jullien, André Numès fils, Jacques Henley, Frank Maurice

PC: Amora Films

Length: 95 mins
Dist: Gallic Films

American version: One Rainy Afternoon (1936)

Dir: Roland V. Lee Prod: Jesse L. Lasky Sc: Stephen Avery Add Dial: Maurice
Hanline, based on the story by Emmerich Pressburger and the screenplay by
Emmerich Pressburger, René Pujol Ph: Peverell Marley Cam Op: Merritt
Gerstad, Ed: Margaret Clancy Art Dir: Richard Day S: Paul Neal Mus Dir:
Alfred Newman Mus Score: Ralph Erwin Lyrics: Preston Sturges, Harry Tobias
Cost: Omar Kiam Assist Dir: Percy Ikerd

CAST
Francis Lederer (Philippe Martin), Ida Lupino (Monique Pelerin), Hugh Herbert
(Toto), Roland Young (Maillot), Erik Rhodes (Count Alfredo), Joseph Cawthorn
(M. Pelerin), Countess Liev de Maigret (Yvonne), Donald Meek (Judge), Georgia
Caine (Cécile), Richard Carle (Minister of Justice), Mischa Auer (Leading Man),
Angie Norton (Hortense), Eily Malyon (President of Purity League), Ferdinand
Munier (Prosecutor), Murray Kinnell (Theatre Manager), Phyllis Barry (M.
Pelerin’s Secretary), Lois January (Maillot’s Secretary)
4 24 FILMOGRAPHY

PC: Pickford-Lasky
Studio: United Artists
Dist: United Artists
Length: 80 mins
Released: May 1936

La Vie Parisienne (1936)

Dir: Robert Siodmak Prod: Seymour Nebenzal Sc: Emmerich Pressburger Dial:
Marcel Carré, Benno Vigny after the operetta by Jacques Offenbach with libretto
by Henri Meilhac, Ludovic Halévy Ph: Armand Thirard, Jean Isnard Des: Jac­
ques Colombier Mus: Jacques Offenbach adapted by Maurice Jaubert Cost: Jean
Patou, Marcel Roches Choreography: Ernst Matray S: William Sivel Assist Dir:
René Montis

CAST
Max Dearly (Don Ramiro de Medoza), Conchita Montenegro (Helenita),
Georges Rigaud (Jacques Medea), Christian Gérard (Georges), Marcelle Praince
(Liane d’Ysigny), Germaine Aussey (Simone), Jean Périer, Roger Dann, Jacques
Henley, Jane Lamy, Austin Trevor, Claude Roussell, Enrico Giori

PC: Néro-Film
Length: 95 mins
Dist: United Artists
Première: 22 Jan 1936

English version: Parisian Life (1936)

Crew as above except Sc: Emmerich Pressburger, Anthony Kimmins, Katherine
Cawdron

CAST
M ax Dearly, Conchita Montenegro, Neil Hamilton (Jacques), Tyrrell Davis
(Georges), Eva Moore (Liane), Carol Goodner (Simone), Austin Trevor (Don
Joao), Billy Hartnell, Aubrey Mallalieu, Dennis Cowles, Colin Leslie

Britain

The Challenge (1938)

Dir: Milton Rosmer, Luis Trenker. Sc: Emeric Pressburger Scenario: Emeric
Pressburger (uncred.), Patrick Kirwan, Milton Rosmer, adapted from Kamps
Aufs Matterhorn by Carl Hansel Ph: Georges Perinal, Albert Benitz Cam op:
Robert Krasker Des: Vincent Korda, Frederick Pusey Mus: Allan Gray Mus Dir:
 FILMOGRAPHY 4 25

Muir Mathieson Ed: E. B. Jarvis S: A. W. Watkins Prod: Günther Stapenhorst

Exec Prod: Alexander Korda

cast ,
Robert Douglas (Edward Whymper), Frank Birch (Rev. Charles Hudson), Geof­
frey Wardwell (Lord Francis Douglas), Moran Capiat (Hadow), Lyonel Watts
(Morris), Luis Trenker (Jean Antoine Carrel), Mary Clare (his mother), Fred
Groves (Favre), Joan Gardner (Felicitas), Lawrence Baskcomb (The Podesta),
Ralph Truman (Giordano), Reginald Jarman (Minister Sella), Tony Sympson
(Luc Meynet), Cyril Smith (Customs Officer), Lloyd Pearson (Seiler), Violet
Hayward (Mrs Seiler), Babita Soren (Mrs Croz), Luis Gerald (Croz), Max
Holzber (Older Guide), Emeric Albert (Younger Guide), Howard Douglas
(Ropemaker), D. J. Williams, Bernard Miles, Tarva Penna (Peasants)

PC: Denham Productions for London Film Productions

Studio: Denham
Length: 75 mins
Dist: United Artists
Première: 14 May 1938

The Spy in Black (1939)

Dir: Michael Powell Sc: Emeric Pressburger from Roland Pertwee’s adaptation of
a novel by J. Storer Clouston Prod: Irving Asher Pres: Alexander Korda

PC: Harefield Productions

Spy for a Day (1939)

Dir: Mario Zampi Sc: Anatole de Grunwald, based on a screenplay by Hans

Wilhelm and Emeric Pressburger based on the story ‘A Source of Irritation’ by
Stacy Aumonier Add Dial: Ralph Block, Tommy Thompson Ph: Bernard Know­
les Cam Op: Jack Hilyard Ed: Enio Zampi Supervizing Ed: David Lean Des: Paul
Sherrif Mus: Nikolas Brodsky S: Sash Fisher Assist Dir: Michael Anderson Prod
Man: Theo Lageard

CAST
Duggie Wakefield (Sam Gates), Paddy Browne (Martha Clowes), Jack Allen
(Captain Bradshaw), Albert Lieven (Captain Hausemann), Nicholas Hannen
(Colonel Pemberton), Gibb McLaughlin (Colonel Ludwig), Allan Jeayes (Colonel
Roberts), Alf Goddard (Sergeant Bryan), George Hayes (Corporal Boehme), Eliot
Makeham (Mr Trufit), Hay Petrie (Mr Britt), O. B. Clarence

PC: Two Cities and Paramount British

Studio: Shepperton
Filming: Sept 1939
426 FILMOGRAPHY

Length: 71 mins
Dist: Paramount

Contraband (1940)

Dir: Michael Powell Sc: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell. Based on a screen­
play by Brock Williams, from a story by Pressburger Prod: John Corfield

PC: British National

Atlantic Ferry v s title : ‘sons of the sea ’ (1941)

Dir: Walter Forde Prod: Max Milder Sc: Gordon Wellesley, Edward Dryhust,
from Emeric Pressburger’s adaptation of the book by Derek Mclver and Wynne
Mclver. Ph: Basil Emmott

cast

Michael Redgrave (Charles Mclver), Griffith Jones (David Mclver), Valerie Hob­
son (Mary Anne Morison), Margaretta Scott (Susan Donaldson), Bessie Love
(Begonia Baggot), Hartley Power (Samuel Cunard), Milton Rosmer (George
Burns), Frederick Leister (Morison), Henry Oscar (Eagles), Edmund Willard
(Robert Napier), Charles Victor (Grogan), Felix Aylmer (Bank President), Frank
Tickle (Donaldson), David Keir (Stubbs), Jean Lester, Roddy Hughes, Aubrey
Mallalieu, James Knight, Leslie Bradley, Joss Ambler, Ian MacLean, Joe Cun­
ningham, James Harcourt

PC and Dist: Warner Brothers

Length: 108 mins
Première: June 1941

49th Parallel (1941)

Dir: Michael Powell Sc: Emeric Pressburger Add dial: Rodney Ackland Prod:
Michael Powell

PC: Ortus Films/Ministry of Information

Breach o f Promise vs title : ‘a d v e n t u r e in blackmail ’ (1942)

Dir: Harold Hulth, Roland Pertwee Prod: Richard Norton, Michael Brooke
Story: Emeric Pressburger Sc: Roland Pertwee Ph: Jack Cox Ed: Sidney Cole
Mus: Allan Gray, Mischa Spoliansky, John Greenwood, Miklos Rozsa
 FILMOGRAPHY
4 27

CAST
Clive Brook (Peter Conroy), Judy Campell (Pamela Lawrence), C. V. France
(Morgan), Marguerite Allan (Pamela Rose), Percy Walsh (Saxon Rose), Dennis
Arundell ✓ (Philip), George Merritt (The Professor), David Horne (Sir Hamar),
Charles Victor (Sir William), Aubrey Mallalieu (Judge), Tony Bazell (Rex)
PC: British Mercury
Length: 79 mins
Dist: M GM

One o f Our Aircraft is Missing (1942)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

PC: The Archers

The Silver Fleet (1943)

Dir/Sc: Vernon Sewell, Gordon Wellesley Original Story: Emeric Pressburger

(uncred.)

Squadron L e a d e rX ( 1943)

Dir: Lance Comfort Prod: Victor Hanbury Story: Emeric Pressburger Sc:
Wolfgang Wilhelm, Miles Malleson Ph: Mutz Greenbaum Stills: Max Rosher

CAST
Eric Portman (Erich Kohler), Ann Dvorak (Barbara Fenwick), Walter Fitzgerald
(Inspector Milne), Barry Jones (Bruce Fenwick), Henry Oscar (Dr Schültz),
Beatrice Varley (Mrs Krohn), Martin Miller (Mr Krohn), Frederick Richter
(Inspector Siegel), Charles Victor (Marks), Marjorie Rhodes (Mrs Agnew), Mary
Merrall (Miss Thorndike), Carl Jaffe (Colonel in Luftwaffe), Aubrey Mallalieu,
David Peel, John Salew

PC and Dist: RKO Radio British

Studio: Denham
Filming: Aug 1942
Length: 100 mins
Première: 2 Jan 1943

The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp (1943)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

PC: The Archers

4 2.8 FILMOGRAPHY

A Canterbury Tale (1944)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

PC: The Archers

/ Know Where I'm Going (1945)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

PC: The Archers

Wanted for Murder (1946)

Dir: Lawrence Huntington Prod: Marcel Heilman Sc: Emeric Pressburger, Rod­
ney Ackland after the play by Percy Robinson, Terence de Marney Add Dial:
Maurice Cowan Assoc Prod/Ph: Max Greene (Mutz Greenbaum) Cam Op: R.
Francke Mus/Lyric: Mischa Spoliansky Ed: E. B. Jarvis Cost: Anna Duse Des:
Charles Gilbert Make-up: Jerry Fairbank Hair: Polly Richards Prod Man: Gilbert
Coventry Assist to Prod: Dave Blumenfeld

CAST
Eric Portman (Victor), Dulcie Gray (Anne), Derek Farr, Roland Culver, Stanley
Holloway, Barbara Everest, Bonar Colleano, Jenny Laird, Kathleen Harrison, Bill
Shine, Viola Lyel, John Salew, John Ruddock, Edna Wood, George Carney, Maty
Mackenzie, Wilfred Hyde White, Mourd Lister, Gerard Kempinski, Caven
Watson, Wally Patch

PC and Dist: Excelsior

Studio: Welwyn Studios
Length: 103 mins

A Matter o f Life and Death (19 4 6)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

PC: The Archers

Black Narcissus (1947)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

PC: The Archers

 FILMOGRAPHY 429

The End o f the River (1947)

Dir: Derek Twist Sc: Wolfgang Wilhelm after the novel by David Holdridge Prod:
Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

PC: The Archers

The Red Shoes (1948)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger Sc: from an original screenplay

by Emeric Pressburger with additional dialogue by Keith Winter

PC: The Archers

The Small Back Room (1949)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger Sc: based on the novel by Nigel
Balchin

PC: The Archers. A London Films Presentation

Gone to Earth (1950)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

PC: London Film Productions, The Archers, Vanguard Productions. A

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Production. An Alexander
Korda and David O. Selznick Presentation

The Elusive Pimpernel (1950)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

PC: The Archers for London Film Productions. Michael Powell and
Emeric Pressburger Production. A London Films Presentation.

The Tales o f Hoffmann (1951)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger. Based on the opera by Jacques

Offenbach with libretto by Jules Barbier updated by Dennis Arundel

PC: A Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Production. A London Films

Presentation. Vega. The Archers. British Lion Film Corporation.
430 FILMOGRAPHY

Twice Upon a T im e ( i 953)

Dir/Prod: Emeric Pressburger Sc: Emeric Pressburger from Erich Kastner’s novel
Das Doppelte Lottchen Ph: Chris Challis Cam Op: Freddie Francis Art Dir: Arthur
Lawson Ed: Reginald Beck Mus: Johannes Brahms, Carl Maria von Weber Mus Dir:
Frederic Lewis S: John Cox Assoc Prod: George R. Busby Assist Dir: Sydney Streeter

CAST
Hugh Williams (James Turner), Elizabeth Allan (Carol-Anne Bailey), Jack Haw­
kins (Dr Mathews), Yolande Larthe (Carol Turner), Charmaine Larthe (Anne
Bailey), Violette Elvin (Florence la Roche), Isabel Dean (Miss Burke), Michael
Gough (Mr Lloyd), Walter Fitzgerald (Professor Reynolds), Eileen Elton (Ballet
Dancer), Kenneth Melville (Ballet Dancer), Nora Gordon (Emma), Isabel George
(Molly), Cecily Walger (Mrs Maybridge), Molly Terraine (Miss Wellington),
Martin Miller (Eipeldauer), Lily Kahn (Mrs Eipeldauer), Jean Stewart (Mrs
Jamieson), Margaret Boyd (Mrs Kinnaird), Myrette Morven (Miss Rupert), Jack
Lambert (Mr Buchan), Archie Duncan (Doorman), Colin Wilcox (Ian), Pat Baker
(Sonia), Monica Thomson (Thelma), Margaret McCourt (Wendy), Alanna Boyce
(Susie), lisa Richardson (Hilary).

PC: London Films

Length: 75 mins
Dist: British Lion
British Release: 5 July 1953

O h . . . Rosalinda!! (1955)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger. Based on Johann Strauss’s

operetta Die Fledermaus with new libretto by Dennis Arundel

PC: An Associated British Picture Corporation Presentation. A Michael

Powell and Emeric Pressburger Presentation

The Battle o f the River Plate (195 6)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

PC: Arcturus Productions. A Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Production

III M et by Moonlight (19 57)

Sc/Prod/Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger from the book by W. Stanley

Moss.
 FILMOGRAPHY 431

PC: A Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Production for The Rank
Organisation Film Productions/Vega Productions

Miracle in Soho (1957)

Dir: Julian Amyes Prod/Sc: Emeric Pressburger Ph (Eastman Color): Chris Chal-
lis Ed: Arthur Stevens Art Dir: Carmen Dillon Mus: Brian Easdale S: Arthur
Ridout

CAST
John Gregson (Michael Morgan), Belinda Lee (Julia Gozzi), Cyril Cusack (Sam
Bishop), Rosalie Crutchley (Mafalda Gozzi), Peter Illing (Papa Gozzi), Marie
Burke (Mama Gozzi), Ian Bannen (Filippo Gozzi), Brian Bedford (Johnny),
Barbara Archer (Gwladys), John Cairney (Tom), Lane Meddick (Steve), Billie
Whitelaw (Maggie), Julian Somers (Potter), Harry Brunning (Ernie), Douglas Ives
(Old Bill), George Cooper (Foreman), Cyril Shaps (Mr Swoboda), Richard Mar­
ner (Karl), Gordon Humphries (Buddy Brown), Mrs Coleman (Betty Shale), Junia
Crawford (Delia), Michael Collins (Lorry Driver), Wilfred Lawson (Mr Morgan)

PC: Rank Organisation Film Productions

Length: 98 mins
Dist: Rank Organisation
Première: Odeon, Leicester Square, 7 July 1957

Behold a Pale Horse ( 1964)

Dir/Prod: Fred Zinnemann Sc: J. P. Miller from Emeric Pressburger’s novel

Killing a Mouse on Sunday Ph (B&W): Jean Badal Ed: Walter Tompson Art Dir:
Alexandre Trauner Set Dec: Auguste Capelier, Maurice Barnathan Mus/Mus
Dir: Maurice Jarre Cost: Elizabeth Haffenden, Joan Bridge S: Jean Monchablon
Assist Dir: Paul Feyder Assoc Prod: Alexandre Trauner

CAST
Gregory Peck (Manuel Artiguez), Mildred Dunnock (Pilar), Omar Sharif (Father
Francisco), Anthony Quinn (Captain Vinolas), Raymond Pellegrin (Carlos),
Paolo Stoppa (Pedro), Daniela Rocca (Rosanna), Christian Marquand (Lt. Zag-
anar), Marietto Angeletti (Paco Dages), Perrette Pradier (Maria), Zia Mohyeddin
(Luis), Rosalie Crutchley (Teresa)

PC: Highland Films, Brentwood Productions

Length: 12 1 mins
Dist: Columbia
Release: August 1964
43* FILMOGRAPHY

Operation Crossbow (19 6 4)

Dir: Michael Anderson Prod: Carlo Ponti Sc: Richard Imrie (pseud, for Emeric
Pressburger), Derry Quinn, Ray Rigby from an original story by Duilo Coletti,
Vittoriano Petrilli. Ph: (Metrocolour - Panavision) Erwin Hillier Mus: Ron
Goodwin Ed: Ernest Walter Assist Dir: Basil Rayburn Prod Man: Sydney Streeter

CAST
Sophia Loren (Nora), George Peppard (Lt. John Curtis), Trevor Howard (Profes­
sor Lindemann), John Mills (General Boyd), Tom Courtenay (Robert Henshaw),
Richard Johnson (Duncan Sandys), Richard Todd (Wing Commander Douglas
Kendall), Sylvia Syms (Constance Babington Smith), Jeremy Kemo (Bradley),
Anthony Quayle (Bamford), Lilli Palmer (Frieda), John Fraser (Flt-Lt. Andre
Kenny), Barbara Rueting (Hanna Reitsch), Paul Henreid (General Ziemann),
Helmut Dantine (General Linz)

PC: Carlo Ponti

Length: 118 mins
Dist: Metro

They’re a Weird M ob (1966)

Dir/Prod: Michael Powell Sc: Richard Imrie (pseud, for Emeric Pressburger)

PC: Williamson (Australia) Powell (GB). A Michael Powell Production

The B oy who Turned Yellow (1972)

Dir: Michael Powell Sc: Emeric Pressburger

PC: Roger Cherrill for the Children’s Film Foundation

 Bibliography of Emeric Pressburger

Selected Journalism

‘Auf Reisen’, B. Z. am Mittag, 28 March 1928

2 untitled articles, Film-Kurier, 2 and 22 November 1929
‘Abschied - Der Erste Milieutonfilm’, Licht-Bild-Bühne, 19 August 1930
‘Abschied’ (script extract), Filmkunst, September 1930
One o/^Our Aircraft is Missing (novélisation) His Majesty’s Stationers, 1942
‘London Fog’ (with Michael Powell), Variety, 5 January 1944
untitled article (with Michael Powell) on their American trip, Kine Weekly, 7
June 1945

Novels

Killing a Mouse on Sunday (London 1961)

The Glass Pearls (London 1966)
The Red Shoes (with Michael Powell) (New York 1978)
 Bibliography

My greatest debt is to Michael Powell’s autobiography A Life in Movies (two

volumes, Heinemann 1986 and 1992). Other publications which I drew on
extensively were:
Rodney Ackland and Elspeth Grant, The Celluloid Mistress (London 1954)
Ian Christie, Arrows o f Desire (London 1985)
Ed. Ian Christie, Powell, Pressburger and Others (London 1978)
Ian Christie, ‘Alienation Effects. Emeric Pressburger and British Cinema’ (Mon­
thly Film Bulletin, 1984, p. 318)
Jeffrey Dell, Nobody Ordered Wolves (London 1939)
Hervé Dumont, Robert Siodmak, le maître du film noir (Lausanne 1981)
Lotte H. Eisner, The Haunted Screen (Paris 1952)
Thomas Elsaesser, ‘Pathos and Leavetaking’, Sight and Sound, Vol 53 no. 1
(Winter 1983-4)
Charles Fenyvesi When the World was Whole (New York 1990)
Monk Gibbon, The Red Shoes Ballet (London 1948)
- The Tales o f Hoffman (London 19 51)
Kevin Gough-Yates, The European Film-Maker in Exile in Britain 19 3 3 -4 3 (Ann
Arbor 1991)
- ‘The British Feature Film as an International Concern’ in Theatre and Film in
Exile, ed. Berghaus (Oxford 1989)
- Michael Powell in Collaboration with Emeric Pressburger (London 19 7 1)
Julius Hay, Born 1900 (London 1974)
Michael Korda, Charmed Lives (New York 1978)
Karol Kulik, Alexander Korda, the Man who Could Work Miracles (London
1975)
Paul Marcus, Strangers Everywhere (London 1939)
Geoffrey M c N a b Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry (London 1993)
George Mikes, How to be Seventy (London 1982)
- H ow to bean A lien (London 1946)
Gary O’Connor, Ralph Richardson (London 1980)
Max Ophiils, Spiel Im Dasein (Stuttgart 1959)
Rex Stapleton, ‘A Matter of Powell and Pressburger’, (MA thesis, Polytechnic of
Central London, 1984)
Paul Tabori, Alexander Korda (London 1959)
David Thomson, Showman - The Life o f David O. Selznick (London 1993)
Maurice Zolotow, Billy Wilder in Hollywood (New York 1987)
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 435

Many periodicals have been drawn upon, foremost among them: Variety, Kitie-
matograph Weekly, Film-Kurier and Pern's Privat-Berichte (later, Pern’s Personal
Bulletin). I have also made use of the Criterion laser disc editions of The Tales o f
Hoffmann and The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimpy with their invaluable
commentaries by Michael Powell and Martin Scorsese.
 Source Notes

Much of the material used - scripts, letters, autobiographical notes - comes from
the Pressburger Collection (PC) in the Special Collections department of the
British Film Institute.
Contractual details for the pre-Archers period come largely from documents
held in the Pressburger Collection and the Ufa files at the Bundesarchiv in
Koblenz. For the Archers period, this information is mainly from the files of
London Management Ltd, agents for the Powell and Pressburger estates.
All letters from MP to EP are held in the Pressburger Collection and are used
courtesy of the Estate of Michael Powell. Michael very rarely dated his corres­
pondence.
Unless otherwise noted all direct quotations from EP and MP are from:
Autobiographical notes and letters held in the Pressburger Collection at the BFI.
Ian Christie, unpublished interview with EP (undated).
Nancy Dennis, unpublished interview with EP (i i July 1978).
Rex Stapleton, interview with EP, October 1984 (part of his M A thesis A Matter
o f Powell and Pressburger).
Kevin Gough-Yates, interviews with EP and MP (12 November and 22 Septem­
ber 1970), published by the N FT for the first Powell-Pressburger retrospective in
19 7 1 as Michael Powell in collaboration with Enteric Pressburger.
Kevin Gough-Yates, interview with MP, published on the occasion of the Brus­
sels Europalia (October 1973).
Michael Powell’s two volume autobiography, A Life in Movies.

Chapter i
p. 3 i t was a hectic’, Kine Weekly, 1 October 1942.
p. 4 The quotation from The Life and Death o f Colonel Blimp is from the
shooting script dated June 1942 (PC).
p. 8 The quotation from a A Canterbury Tale is from a first undated treatment
(PC).
p. 10 Details of Emeric’s education come from the city library in Subotica.
p. 13 In September 1991 Kato Schoepflin told me that Emeric had shown her a
script of St Peter's Umbrella which he had written for Korda - no trace of it survives.

Chapter 2
p. 17 ‘ If anyone from’, Adolph Aczel interview with KM (July 1993).
 SOURCE NOTES
43 7

p. 17 Details of Emeric’s education come from reports held in the national

archive in Timi§oara.

p. 18 ‘One day we were’, Fricy Szekely interview with KM (July 1993).

p. 21 ‘Commercial people’, The Glass Pearls, p. 76.
p. 29 ‘When I was twelve’, Jozef Pressburger, interview with Andrew Mac­
donald, April 1989.
p. 31 Letter to Magda Röna (PC).
p. 32 Letter to Magda Röna, dated 8 November 1958 (PC).
p. 33 ‘Our whole effort’, Murnau comes to America, quoted in Graham Petrie,
Hollywood Destinies (London 1985) p. 34.
p. 3 5. ‘We were all amazed’, Adolph Aczel, op. cit.

Chapter 3
The sources for this chapter are Pressburger’s autobiographical notes (PC) and
my own memories. Mondnacht and A u f Reisen are both in the PC.

Chapter 4
p. 64 ‘did little more than’, Fred Zinneman, telephone interview with KM,
November 1990.
p. 64 ‘ It was a tiny picture’, Billy Wilder, interview with KM , January 1992.
p. 66 ‘ Robert Siodmak and I’, Billy Wilder, op. cit.
p. 68 ‘the most beautiful’, Wolfgang Petzet, Kuntswart, 28 April 19 3 1.
p. 69 ‘mawkish perfection o f’, Lotte Eisner, The Haunted Screen, p. 312 .
p. 69 ‘The first Milieu sound-film’, EP, in Licht Bild Bühne, 19 August 1930.
p. 70 ‘I’ve got a great’, Walter Reisch, interview, 1982, courtesy of Thomas
Elsaesser.
p. 71 ‘There is one golden’, quoted in Max Ophiils, Spiel im Dasein, p. 47.
p. 71 ‘ He was not an assertive’, Billy Wilder, op. cit.
p. 72 EP’s notebook is in the PC.
p. 74 ‘Emeric Pressburger and I’, Erich Kästner, in Günther Stapenhorst The
Producer {Munich 19 71).
p. 75 Excerpt from script of Dann Schon Lieber Lebertran courtesy of Stiftung
Deutsche Kinematek.
p. 81 ‘ Don’t be nervous’ etc., Max Ophiils, Spiel Im Dasein, pp. 14 2 -5 .
438 SO URCE NOTES

Chapter^
p. 83 ‘The ruling class’, Louise Brooks, Lulu in Hollywood (New York 1982)
P- 97­
p. 86 ‘I was very young’, from Gunther Stapenhorst The Producer.
p. 87 ‘Schiinzel when I’, Marga Stapenhorst, letter to KM , February 19 9 1.
p. 89 ‘In the brief period’, Thorold Dickinson, The Disovery o f Cinema
(London 19 7 1) pp. 57—8.
p. 90 ‘nice, bright, unassuming’, Felix Jackson, letter to KM (July 1991).
p. 33 ‘We are convinced’, quoted in Variety, 12 February 1934.
p. 93 ‘ “ He repeated in a way” ’, Film-Kuriery 30 March 1993.
p. 94 Extracts from Ufa board minutes courtesy of the Bundesarchiv in
Koblenz.

Chapter 6
p. ioo ‘I remember best’, The Glass Pearls, p. 84.
p. 103 ‘with Billy Wilder’, Rudolph Joseph, letter to KM , July 19 9 1.
p. 104 ‘All, even the oldest’, Karl Stern, quoted in Marion Berghahn, Conti­
nental Britons (Oxford 1988) p. 34.
p. 104 ‘To be a writer’, Herbert Friedanthal, ibid. p. 37.
p. 105 ‘The other language’, Max Ophiils, Spiel Im Dasein, p. 175.
p. 105 ‘They appeared to be’, Henry Koster, in Strangers Everywhere.
p. 106 ‘an incognito which’ etc., Renée St Cyr, Le Temps de Vivre (Paris 1974)
pp. 57-8.
p. 106 ‘ Large and jovial’, Michel Kelber, interview with KM , April 1993.
p. 106 ‘The cameraman’, St Cyr, op. cit.
p. 107 ‘A Masterpiece of French Cinema’, Variety, 12 June 1934.
p. 108 The anecdote reflecting differing working attitudes in France and
Germany comes from Frederick W. Ott, The Films o f Fritz Lang.
p. 108 ‘Thank you for’, Fritz Podehl, letter to EP, 1 1 May 1934 (PC),
p. 109 Undated letter to George Ramon (PC).
p. 1 10 ‘Things are cheaper’, George Ramon, letter to EP, 7 April 1934 (PC),
p. 1 10 ‘They used to sit’, Michel Kelber, op. cit.
p. 1 1 1 ‘A ta table o f’, Rudolph Joseph, op. cit.
p. h i ‘At times I thought’, Ernst Toller, quoted in He Was A German by
 SOURCE NOTES
439

Richard Dove (London 1990) p. 67.

p. 1 1 3 ‘To tell you’, letter from unidentified producer at Minerva Films, 1

October ¿934 (PC).

p. 1 1 6 ‘The music of life’, Max Ophuls, quoted in Max Ophuisy ed. Paul
Willemen (London 1978) p. 32.
p. 1 17 ‘For another moment’, La Vie Parisienne, handwritten script (PC),
p. 1 18 ‘A Piquant Cocktail’, advertising in Kine Weekly, 26 March 1936.

Chapter 7
p. 12 2 ‘He looked rather shabby’, Marga Stapenhorst, letter to KM, April
19 9 1.
p. 123 ‘For a Shilling’, from The Good Companions, J. B. Priestley (London
1929).
p. 124 ‘My models were’, Alfred Hitchcock, quoted in Donald Spoto, The Life
o f Alfred Hitchcock (London 1983) p. 68.
p. 125 ‘Paradox Film Productions’, Jeffrey Dell, Nobody Ordered Wolves, p. 3.
p. 125 ‘He was fond’, Michael Korda, Charmed Lives, p. 15.
p. 126 ‘An Outsider often makes’, Stephen Watts, ‘Alexander Korda and the
International Film’, Cinema Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 1, Autumn 1933.
p. 128 ‘Almost certainly the worst’, Graham Greene, The Spectator, 19 March
1937­
p. 129 Roswalt letter courtesy of Joan Colburn Atkinson (PC).
p. 1 3 1 i understand from you dear letter’, Gisella Pressburger to EP, 18 Sep­
tember 1936 (PC).
p. 134 Paul Rotha’s comment was relayed to me by Kevin Gough-Yates.
p .1 3 7 Schiinzel letter courtesy of Anne-Marie Schiinzel (PC).
p. 139 ‘He had all these’ etc., Agnes Anderson, interview with KM, December
1990.

Chapter 8
p. 143 ‘I used to go there’ etc., Miklos Rozsa, interview with KM, December
1990.
p. 145 ‘Well, gentlemen’, quoted from Michael Powell’s autobiography, A Life
in Movies.
p. 147 ‘Asher asked’, Miklos Rosza, op. cit.
p. 150 ‘We would do what’, Valerie Hobson, interview with KM, August 1991-
440 SOURCE NOTES

p. 1 5 1 ‘but, I mean nobody’, Hugh Stewart, interview with KM , February

19 9 1.
p. 1 5 1 ‘ He was the best looking’, Valerie Hobson, op. cit.
p. 1 5 1 ‘He was a master’, Robert Morley and Sewell Stokes, Responsible
Gentlemen (London 1966) p. 89.
p .1 5 2 ‘Where are the master shots’, Hugh Stewart, op. cit.
p. 15 3 ‘Sometimes Michael Powell’, Agnes Anderson, op. cit.
p. 154 ‘In the early days’, Michael Powell, interview with Andrew Macdonald,
December 1988.
p. 155 ‘Working with Emeric’, 1980 interview with MP, quoted in EP’s Variety
obituary, 10 February 1988.
p. 15 7 ‘I was one of three directors’, Michael Powell, ‘The Beauty of Image’,
John Player Lecture, N FT, 10 January 19 7 1.
p. 1 i have been living’, EP, letter to Ministry of Labour, 29 September 1938
(PC).

Chapter 9
p. 16 1 ‘he wrote the film’ etc., Valerie Hobson, op. cit.
p. 163 ‘seemingly without reason’, Miklos Rozsa, op. cit.
p. 163 ‘simple act of bloody mindedness’, Miklos Rozsa, op. cit.
p. 163 ‘We admired Emeric’ etc., George Mikes, How To be Seventy, p. 118 .
p. 164 ‘I don’t know if’ etc., Agnes Anderson, op. cit.
p. 165 Mol memo, quoted from Powell, Pressburger and Others, ed. Ian
Christie.
p. 166 ‘But what is the story?’, quoted in Michael Powell’s A Life in Movies.
p. 168 ‘I’m a rotten sailor’, EP’s diary of the Canadian trip extends from 13
April to 21 May 1940 (PC).
p. 17 1 ‘It would obviously be deplorable’, letter from illegible official at Mol, 3
June 1940 (PC).
p. 17 2 ‘We want to show’, from treatment for 49th Parallel dated June 1940
(PC).
p. 17 2 ‘Finance must not’, quoted in Michael Powell’s A Life in Movies.
p. 174 ‘Dear Emeric, the ship is’, undated letter from MP to EP (PC),
p. 174 ‘Mickey, as I came’ etc., Rodney Ackland, The Celluloid Mistress, p. 97.
p. 175 49th Parallel shooting script dated November 1940 (PC).
 SOURCE NOTES 441

p. 17 7 ‘My dear Micky, I think’, EP to MP, 7 September 1940 (PC),

p. 178 ‘Let him go home’, June 1940 treatment (PC).
p .17 9 ET’s diary (PC).

p .17 9 ‘ You call us Germans’, quoted from November shooting script.

p. 180 ‘I settled down with it’, David Lean quotations courtesy of Kevin
Brownlow.

p. 18 1 Schunzel letter 15 April 1942, courtesy of Anne-Marie Schunzel (PC).

Chapter 10
p. 184 ‘I wouldn’t dream’, Bert Batchelor, unpublished memoirs, courtesy of
Kevin Brownlow.
p. 185 ‘We tried to arrange’, George Mikes, How to be Seventy, p. 144.
p. 186 EP’s diaries (PC).
p. 188 ‘the age of the English’, Ian Christie, Arrows o f Desire, p. 14.
p. 189 ‘In theory we’, MP interview in Variety, 1980.
p. 189 ‘We do few films’, EP letter to Michel Kelber, 25 May 1943.
p. 189 ‘One: we owe our’, undated draft letter from MP to Wendy Hiller, held
by the estate of Michael Powell.
p. 192 ‘when we discussed’, undated draft letter to MP (PC).
p. 193 Ronnie Neame told me that he walked off the set of Aircraft during a
telephone conversation in December 1992.
p. 193 ‘Say terrible things’ etc., interview with Googie Withers in Brian
Mcfarlan, Sixty Voices (London 1992).
p. 193 ‘A very disturbing’ etc., Peter Ustinov, ibid.
p. 194 ‘They always seemed’, Vivienne Knight, interview with KM, March
19 9 1.
p. 197 ‘I know I have’, J. Arthur Rank, quoted in Geoffrey Mcnab’s J. Arthur
Rank and The British Film Industry, p. 62.
p. 199 ‘ I doubt if any’, David Lean, Penguin Film Review, 1947.
p. 199 ‘But Emeric was always’, Sidney Gilliat, interview with KM, March
19 9 1.
p. 201 ‘All through the winter’, Joan Page, interview with KM, March 1991.
p. 203 ‘They sat through it’, quoted in Ralph Richardson by Gary O’Conner,
p. 139.
442- so u rc e NOTES

Chapter n
p. 205 The epigraph comes from an ‘autograph book’ belonging to the late
Wendy Newmann.
p. 206 ‘Nobody knew what’, MP, interview with Andrew Macdonald, Decem­
ber 1988.
p. 208 ‘What are the chief’, memorandum from EP and MP to the Films
Division, Ministry of Information, 16 June 1942. Held by the Powell Estate.
p. 208 ‘spun the tale’ David Low, Autobiography, p. 273.
p. 209 ‘Do not neglect’, MP, undated letter to EP.
p. 214 The quotation from Blimp is from the shooting script dated June 1942
(PC).
p. 2 17 ‘The quality o f’, Wendy Hiller, interview with KM , June 1992.
p. 2 18 ‘I discovered that’, Wendy Hiller, op. cit.
p. 219 ‘What makes him one?’ Laurence Olivier to MP, 28 May 1942. Powell
Estate.
p. 220 ‘I have been considering’, letter from Sir James Grigg to MP, 22 May
1942. Powell Estate.
p. 221 ‘Englishmen are by nature’, MP, undated draft letter to Sir James Grigg.
Powell Estate.
p. 221 ‘We should certainly’, undated Mol reader’s report. Powell Estate.
p. 222 ‘The pressure of work’, Brendan Bracken, letter to MP, 7 July 1942.
Powell Estate.
p. 223 i attach, as directed’, this and all other government memos about Blimp
are quoted from Ian Christie’s Powell, Pressburger and Others.
p. 224 ‘What’s this supposed’, this exchange between Walbrook and Churchill
was reported by Curt Reiss in his obituary article in Weltwoche, 21 February
1964 (‘The last Charmer: the eight Careers of Adolph Wohlbrueck’ ).
p. 227 ‘British Pictures contained’, Kine Weekly y 13 January 1949.
p. 227 ‘The British Citizen Kane’, Sarris has repeated this claim on several
occasions, for instance, Village Voice, 19 April 1988.

Chapter 1 2
p. 229 ‘ I don’t think anyone’, Cine-Technician, April 1944.
p. 230 ‘He had such’, Angela Gwyn John, interview with KM , December 1990.
p. 230 ‘Sometimes he dictated’ etc., Betty Curtis, interview with KM , March
19 9 1.
 SOURCE NOTES
443

p. 23 2 ‘If we suggested anything’, Joan Page, interview with KM , March 19 9 1.

p. 233 ‘We often used’, EP, interviewed by Michael Billington, Kaleidoscope
(BBC Radio 4, broadcast 15 September 1980).
p. 234 ‘What films lack’, MP, Daily Telegraphy 20 March 1943.
p. 234 ‘A tale of four’, quotation from advertisement in Kine Weekly 14
December 1943.

p. 236 ‘This causes a tremendous’, EP, introduction to A Canterbury Tale at

M O M A retrospective, New York, December 1980. Courtesy of Martin Scorsese.
p. 239 ‘As I read I’, Vivienne Knight, op. cit.
p. 240 ‘We have made’, introduction to A Canterbury Tale at M O M A retro­
spective. Courtesy of Martin Scorsese.
p. 240 ‘there was no time’, Joan Page, op. cit.
p. 245 ‘was not a vote’, Cyril Connolly, H o riz o n y vol. XII, no. 69, September
1945, p. 149.
p. 245 ‘I had been very choosy’ etc., Wendy Hiller, op. cit.
p. 247 ‘Myself and the operator’, Erwin Hillier, interview with KM, March
19 9 1.
p. 248 ‘Michael took it’, Wendy Hiller, op. cit.

Chapter 1 3
p. 253 ‘their films had colour’, Billy Wilder, interview with KM , January 1992.
p. 254 ‘But Emeric was wonderfully’, Marius Goring at EP’s memorial service
at BAFTA, December 1988.
p. 255 ‘A marvelous film technician’, Christopher Challis, interview with KM,
May 19 9 1.
p. 255 ‘ mark on the set’, Sydney Streeter, interview with Rex Stapleton 1983.
p .2 55 ‘where I was able’, Alfred Junge, quoted in Catherine A. Surowiec,
Accent on Design (London 1992).
p. 256 ‘they wanted to’, Jack Cardiff, telephone interview with KM, November
19 9 1.
p. 258 ‘All we did’, Billy Wilder, op. cit.
p. 262 ‘ meant that you didn’t’ etc., Sidney Gilliat, op. cit.
p. 262 ‘Using process backgrounds’, MP, memo to Rank, February 1945, held
by the Powell estate.
p. 263 ‘ I don’t mind abandonment’, EP, undated draft telegram to MP (PC).
444 SOURCE NOTES

p. 264 ‘Dear Mick have postponed’, EP, telegram to MP, 4 January 1946 (PC).
p. 266 ‘the searching scrutiny’, David Farrar, autobiography, No Royal Road
(London 1946), p. 125.
p. 267 ‘Mickey and Emeric used’, Kathleen Byron, interview with KM , May
19 9 1.
p. 267 ‘ You shouldn’t argue’, ibid.
p. 268 ‘It was the combination’, Marius Goring, Arundel Festival lecture, 1
September 1984.
p. 269 ‘mostly on different’ etc., Brian Easdale, interview with KM , March
1992.

p. 271 ‘New understanding o f’, MP, in Penguin Film Review, 1947.

p. 271 ‘Many of us cinephiles’, Andrew Sarris, Premiere, December 1985.
p. 272 ‘The documentary movement’, Michael Balcon, Michael Balcon
Presents, p. 130.

Chapter 14
p. 273 ‘Michael and I have’ EP, undated draft letter to Wendell Minnick (PC),
p. 274 ‘the popular and prolific’, Kine Weekly, 27 May 1937.
p. 275 ‘Script, Ballet Story\ undated handwritten note possibly from Alexander
Korda (PC).
p. 277 ‘very much in command’, Keith Winter. Courtesy of Nancy Dennis.
p. 277 ‘Understand Emeric Pressburger’, Alexander Korda to Harold Boxhall,
10 August 19 4 1. This and other material dealing with the ‘pre-history’ of The
Red Shoes comes from the Korda files at the BFI.
p. 278 ‘We owned or still’, Alexander Korda to David Cunynghame, 29
October 1945, loc. cit.
p. 279 ‘Lermontov in a spotlight’, this extract is from a script held at the BFI.
p. 281 ‘My picture has’, Hein Heckroth’s diary, 28 May 1947.
p. 282 ‘To make a symbol. . . ’, Heckroth, op. cit., 1 1 January 1947.
p. 282 ‘ He was very keen’, Chris Challis, interview by Rex Stapleton, 19
September 1984.
p. 282 ‘The most exciting’, Jack Cardiff, op. cit.
p. 283 ‘he asked some’, Heckroth, op. cit., 23 March 1947.
p. 283 ‘See Massine to discuss’, ibid., 29 March 1947.
 SOURCE NOTES 445

p. 284 ‘He called out to’, Marius Goring, Arundel Festival lecture, 1 September
1984.
p. 284 ‘utterly commonplace’, Heckroth, op. cit., 17 March 1947.
p. 285 ‘He thinks making’, Heckroth, ibid., 23 March 1947.
p. 285 ‘But I will not say’, Heckroth, ibid.
p. 286 ‘The last thing F etc., Moira Shearer, interview with KM , March 19 9 1.
p. 287 ‘Personally I am not’, Heckroth, op. cit., 3 May 1947.
p. 288 ‘miles of padded pink’ etc., Angela Gwyn John, op. cit.
p. 290 ‘it was terribly big’, Valerie Hobson, op. cit.
p. 290 ‘We drank Pernod’, Vivienne Knight’s diary of the shoot reproduced in
The Red Shoes publicity folder 12 June 1947 (PC).
p. 291 ‘ burning up like’ etc., Moira Shearer, op. cit.
p. 292 ‘there was one piece’, Robert Helpmann, quoted in Monk Gibbon, The
Red Shoes, p. 59.
p. 293 ‘They had no idea’, Moira Shearer, op. cit.
p. 293 ‘He chose his targets carefully’, anonymous interviewee, April 19 9 1.
p. 294 The story about Walbrook vowing never to work with Emeric and
Michael again was passed on to me by the Walbrook researcher Julian Rees.
p. 294 ‘demolished Yvonne Aundrey’ etc., Shearer, op. cit.
p. 295 ‘Don’t discourage the boys’, Ronald Neame telephone interview with
KM , December 1992.
p. 296 ‘We believe in’, Paul Tabori, Alexander Korda, p. 272.

Chapter 1 5
p. 300 i was so pleased’, Kathleen Byron, op. cit.
p. 304 ‘Will any gentleman’, reproduced in ‘Mr Powell Replies’ in Picturegoer,
1 December 1950.
p. 305 ‘Goldwyn had double-crossed’, Vivienne Knight, op. cit.
p. 305 ‘Michael would generally’ etc., Freddie Francis, interview with KM,
August 19 9 1.
p. 306 ‘The simple settings’, EP, in Cinema Studio, 29 December 1948.
p. 306 ‘My husband says’, quoted in A Life in Movies, vol. II, p. 58.
p. 307 ‘Mr Goldwyn wants’, EP, in Kine Weekly, 3 February 1949.
p. 307 ‘ He seemed somewhat’, quoted in Kine Weekly, 10 August 1949.
446 SOURCE NOTES

p. 307 ‘I hate to say’, David O. Selznick to MP and EP, 30 August 1949,

quoted from Showman by David Thomson, p. 545.
p. 3 1 1 ‘about as far removed’, ibid., p. 542.
p. 3 1 1 ‘Emeric would never’, Christopher Challis, interview with KM , op. cit.
p. 3 1 1 in these scenes’, quoted in Thomson, op. cit., p. 543.
p. 3 12 i gave myself this’, ibid., p. 548.
p. 3 12 ‘ Really it’s a sculptural’, Heckroth, quoted in Cinema Studio, 28 Sep­
tember 1949.
p. 314 ‘ For some reason’ etc., Michel Kelber, op. cit.
p. 3 1 4 ‘Do we have to’, Sidney Gilliat, op. cit.
p. 3 15 ‘Psss! Pss!’, Christopher Challis, op. cit.
p. 3 16 ‘After rushes one day’, ibid,
p. 3 16 ‘Well, Sir Alexander’, Vivienne Knight, op. cit.
p .3 1 7 ‘The erraticness is the’, Stephen Watts, in Picturegoer, 4 November
1950.
p. 318 ‘The grey eminence’, Cyril Cusack, interview with KM , March 19 9 1.
p. 318 ‘Emeric was a nanny’, Michael Gough, letter to KM , December 1992.
p. 319 ‘Why I’m getting out’, from unknown periodical dated 22 April 1949, in
BFI Powell-Pressburger pressbooks.
p. 320 ‘He was usually’, Angela Gwyn John, op. cit.
p. 320 ‘he was extremely’, Valerie Hobson, op. cit.
p. 32 1 ‘I, thy faithful friend’, quoted from Monk Gibbon’s The Tales o f
Hoffmann.
p. 322 ‘I just felt’, Moira Shearer, op. cit.
p. 322 ‘ You leave the critics’, Sir Thomas Beecham, quoted in Michael Powell,
A Life in Movies, vol. II, p. 89.
p. 322 ‘Have you ever seen’, A Life in Movies, vol. II, p. 97.
p. 324 ‘ In order to get’, and the excerpt from the screenplay, are quoted from
Monk Gibbon, The Tales o f Hoffmann, p. 45.
p. 325 ‘On the screen it’, Picturegoer, 21 April 19 5 1.
p. 325 ‘the studio was’, Christopher Challis, op. cit.
p. 326 ‘almost the complete’, Monk Gibbon, op. cit., p. 57.
p. 327 ‘ Hein, who came’, Christopher Challis, op. cit.
p. 327 ‘ Ultimately, Powell and Pressburger’s’, Martin Scorsese, in Sight and
 SOURCE NOTES 447

Sound, October 1992.

P- 3 27 the effects were’, George Romero, The Daily Telegraphy 17 September

I 992-
p. 330 ‘he asked me’, Vivienne Knight, op. cit.
p .3 3 0 ‘ You’ll never work’, Noreen Ackland, interview with KM , January
19 9 1.
p. 330 ‘the film began’, Moira Shearer, op. cit.
p. 3 3 1 ‘more as he’, Christopher Challis, op. cit.

Chapter 1 6
p .3 3 3 ‘declared it’, Sidney Streeter, interviewed November 1984, Rex Stap­
leton, op. cit.
p. 335 ‘needs, must, necessity’, ibid.
p. 33 5 ‘the only child’, Angela Gwyn John, interview with KM , October 1992.
p. 3 3 5 ‘ He had no direct’, Christopher Challis, op. cit.
p. 336 ‘the Powell drive’, Sydney Streeter, op. cit.
p. 336 ‘I was summoned’, Guy Hamilton, letter to KM, April 1993.
p. 339 The Golden Years script (PC) is dated August 1952.
p. 342 EP’s diary (PC) runs from August to December 1952.
p. 345 ‘unfortunately, the whole’, letter to Michel Kelber, 21 August 1952.
p. 346 ‘didn’t stand a chance’, Hans Marcus, interview with the author, May
I 992-
p. 348 Excerpts from ‘The Thistle’ are from an undated draft script in the PC.
p. 349 ‘drop everything for it’, quoted in EP’s diary, 14 January 1953 (PC),
p. 352 ‘He talked of two’, EP’s diary, 16 January 1953 (PC).
p .358 ‘ I always had the feeling’, EP in interview with Michael Billington,
Kaleidoscopey op. cit.
P-359 We used to talk’, Patrick Leigh-Fermour, letter to KM , December 1990.
p. 360 ‘Even on the very’, Judith Buckland, interview October 1984, Rex
Stapleton, op cit.
p. 360 ‘personal problems’, Sydney Streeter, op. cit.
p. 360 ‘Hell to film’ etc., Charles Orme, interview with KM , March 1992.
p. 360 ‘The experience was not’ etc., Dirk Bogarde, letter to KM, February
19 9 1.
448 SOURCE NOTES

p. 361 i t was a very sad’, Buckland, op. cit.

p. 361 in her opinion’, Cyril Cusack, op. cit.

Chapter 1 7
p. 366 T h e more I saw’, information Folder’ on Miracle in Soho, published by
Rank Organisation, 1957 (PC).
p. 367 ‘a weak script’, lan Bannen, letter to KM , January 1993.
p. 368 ‘You are a writer’, Brigu’s comments (PC).
p. 369 ‘Gandhi has often’, quoted from treatment of Written in The Stars (PC).
p. 369 ‘When we talked’, quoted in Stephen M. Silverman, David Lean
(London 1989), p. 89.
p. 370 ‘My beloved Magduska’, EP to Magda Nugel, 8 November 1958 (PC),
p. 373 ‘Emeric, I want you’, Anna Kashfi, undated (1957) letter to EP (PC),
p. 373 ‘He was very’, Tom Greenwell, letter to KM , July 1992.
p. 374 ‘He wanted to’, Bill Hopkins, interview with KM , August 19 9 1.
p. 374 ‘Quite suddenly’, EP, quoted in Daily Mail, 21 October 19 6 1.
p. 375 ‘ I told Emeric’, Bill Hopkins, op. cit.
p. 377 ‘I know it is’, EP, letter to Stapenhorst, 12 October 1962 (PC).
p. 379 ‘But then I seem’, EP, letter to Marga Stapenhorst, 20 October 1961
(PC).
p. 379 ‘Because of his background’, Bill Hopkins, op. cit.
p. 379 ‘he could never’, Marga Stapenhorst, letter to KM , July 19 9 1.
p. 380 ‘Judging from the signs’, EP, letter to Marga Stapenhorst, 19 June 1966
(PC).
p. 381 ‘That was really’, The Times, 5 July i960.
p. 384 ‘I have never worked’, Joshua Logan to EP, 27 January 1967.
p. 384 ‘I expect most’, EP, undated letter to MP (PC).
p. 385 ‘The more 1 think’, EP, undated (1967) letter to MP (PC).
p. 385 ‘as if Crosse were’, Michael Frayn, in Sight and Sound, October 1992.
p. 386 ‘ I’m still convinced’, EP, letter to Michael Frayne, 1 June 1967 (PC).
p. 386 ‘ I think they’re’, Michael Frayn, letter to EP, 31 August 1967 (PC).
p. 386 ‘ Isn’t it unjust’, EP, letter to Michel Kelber, 5 February 1970.
p. 387 ‘What worries me’, EP to MP, 1 3 April 1969 (PC).
 SOURCE NOTES 449

p. 389 ‘All the drunkards’, EP to Marga Stapenhorst, 25 June 1969 (PC).

Chapter 1 8
p. 393 ‘ You know, Chris’, Christopher Challis, op. cit.
p. 396 ‘They thought they were’, Kevin Gough-Yates, interview with KM ,
February 1993.
p. 396 ‘They couldn’t understand’, Ian Christie to KM , 1992.
p. 397 i wish I had thought’, EP, undated (1978?) letter to MP (PC).
p. 397 ‘ movie magic’, Martin Scorsese, in his foreword to Ian Christie’s Arrows
o f Desire.
p. 398 ‘it reminds me’, Thelma Schoonmaker-Powell to KM, 1992.
p. 400 ‘I gather that’, EP, letter to MP, 2 August 1980 (PC).
p. 403 ‘What about Emeric’, Vivienne Knight, op. cit.
p. 403 ‘The lesson’, EP, undated (1980) draft letter to M OM A (PC).
p. 403 ‘As you well know’, EP, undated (1978) draft letter to Ian Christie (PC).
p.404 ‘One would not think’, EP, undated (1978) draft letter to unknown
person (PC).
p. 404 ‘just a bad dream’, EP, letter to Angela Gwyn John, 22 January 1979
(PC).
p. 404 ‘I’m proud to be’, EP, undated (1980) draft letter to M O M A (PC),
p. 405 ‘I have a premonition’, EP, undated (1978) draft letter to MP (PC),
p. 4 1 1 Letter from Magda Rona in PC.
p .4 12 ‘For what he meant’, MP, Observer, 14 February 1988.
 Index

115
A b d u l th e D a m n e d , 2 5 5 , 25 6 , 2 6 1, 266, 3 1 2 , 3 2 5 , 3 2 7 ;
(‘Farewell’ ), 58, 6 6 - 7 2 , 9 1 , 19 2 ,
A b s c h ie d collaborative style, 2 5 4 - 6 , 2 8 0 -5 , 3 * 6 ;
338 , 36 5 -6 ‘ bad taste’, 262n ; use of music, 2 5 5 - 6 ,
A C E , 90 2 6 1, 2 6 8 -7 0 , 3 2 7 - 8 ; ballet company,
Ackland, Noreen, 3 3 0 28o ;Ju n g e’s departure, 2 8 0 - 1 ;
Ackland, Rodney, 1 5 2 , 17 4 relationship with Korda, 2 9 8 -9 , 3 0 1 - 2 ,
A C T , 12 7 , 18 4 3 0 6 -8 , 3 1 9 , 3 3 0 - 1 , 3 3 2 - 3 , 3 5 8 ; return
Aczel, Dr Adolph, x v -x v i, 17 , 1 8 , 3 5 to realism, 30 1 ; co-production
Aczel, M rs, xv—xvi agreements, 3 0 2 - 1 3 ; litigation, 30 7,
Adalbert, M ax, 74 3 1 3 - 1 4 , 3 1 5 - 1 6 ; P ic t u r e g o e r critique,
Agate, James, 1 8 0 , 1 8 3 , 18 8 , 239 3 1 7 - 1 8 ; actors’ impressions of, 3 1 8 - 1 9
2 0 2-3
A i r m a n ’s L e t t e r to h is M o t h e r , A n , delusion of independence, 3 3 7 ; rejected
Albach-Retty, W olf, 92 projects, 3 4 2 - 3 , 3 5 2 ; return to favour,
Albers, Hans, 7 2 , 86 3 5 8 ; tensions, 3 5 9 -6 0 ; end of
Aldrich, Robert, 405 partnership, 3 6 1 - 2 ; income from films,
Alexander, Curt, 1 5 2 3 8 6 ,4 0 1 ; children’s film, 39 4 ; EP’s
Allegret, M arc, 1 1 5 , 308 memorial evening, 4 1 2
Allen, Elizabeth, 3 3 5 Archibald, George, 199
Allen, M rs (neighbour), 4 10 Arno, Sigi, 106
A l l e s F ü r G e l d , 88 Arpad (Khazar chieftain), 6
Allison, George, 1 2 3 Arpâd, Kosztolanyi, 10
A m e r ic a n in P a r is , A n , 2 7 3 Arsenal, 1 2 3 - 4 , *5 4 , 192., 33 ^ 345» 393
Amyes, John, 36 5 Arundel, Dennis, 30 4, 32 3
Andersen, Hans Christian, 1 3 , 2 7 5 , 276 , Arys brothers, 106
29 7 Asher, Irving, 14 4 , 14 5 , 14 7 , 15 0 , 1 5 1 - 2
Anderson, M axwell, 238 Ashton, Frederick, 3 2 2 - 4
Andrews, Harry, 38 5 Associated British Picture Corporation
Anton, Karl, 1 1 4 (ABPC), 3 5 5
Antos (civil engineer), 5 2 - 3 Association of Free Hungarians in Great
Arany, Janos, 34 Britain, 18 5
Archers, The: Wilder’ s opinion of films, Astoria, 12 9
xiii—xiv; revival of interest and A t la n t ic F e r r y , 15 6
retrospectives, 2 5 , 3 9 6 - 7 ; influences, Attenborough, Richard, 2 3 8 , 2 7 m , 369,
1 5 7 ; creation, 1 8 7 - 9 ; manifesto, 403
18 9 -9 0 , 3 3 7 ; first film, 1 9 1 ; relationship Attlee, Clement, 245
with Rank, 19 3 , 19 7 , 29 7, 298, 3 1 8 , ‘ A uf Reisen’, 44, 4 5 - 8 , 1 1 7
3 19, 3 3 7 , 3 4 2 - 3 , 35 1; EPand Powell Aundrey, Yvonne, 294
work exclusively for, 19 5 ; Independent Aurora Films, 1 1 4
Producers, 19 8 - 2 0 0 ; B l i m p budget, 2 2 3 ; Austen, Harold, 2 2 7
secretarial team, 2 3 0 ; script-writing Avon publishers, 406
partnership, 23 1 - 3 ; production schedule, Ayars, Ann, 3 2 2 , 3 30
2 4 1 ; opening sequences, 2 4 8 ; change in
style, 2 5 0 ; use of colour, 2 5 0 - 1 , 2 5 3 , Bacall, Lauren, 328
 IND EX
4 SI

Bach, Johann Sebastian, 25, 399 censorship, 2 7 1 , 29 5 ; reception, 2 7 1 - 2 ;

Baker, Josephine, 83 profits, 2 9 2n; themes, 300; restoration
Baker, Stanley, 3 5 8 , 38 5 and re-release, 39 7
Baker, Suzy, 3 7 2 ‘ Black Ties’, 384
Balchin, Nigel, 2 6 3, 26 4, 299 Bloom, Claire, 34 3
Balcón, Michael, 2 7 2 , 3 4 2 - 3 B lu e A n g e l, T h e , 106
‘ Ballet Story’, 15 6 Blumenfeld, Dr and Mrs, 350
B a n b u r y N o s e , 246 Bogarde, Dirk, 360
Bannen, lan, 3 6 7 Bogart, Humphrey, 328
Banyai, George von, 1 3 7 ‘ Bomber B for Bertie’, 190—1
‘ Baron Munchausen’, 405 Bommart.Jean, 1 5 2
Baroncelli, Jacques de, 1 1 5 B o n n ie P r in c e C h a r lie , 3 0 1, 302n, 3 1 2 , 3 1 6
Baronova, Irina, 276 Bootz, Erwin, 68
Barrie, Sir James, 17 3 B o u l e d e S u if, 2 1 7 , 3 84
Barsony, Rosy, 92, 96 Boulting, John, 18 4
Bartók, Béla, 1 3 , 22 , 25 ‘Bouquet’, 34 8 , 3 8 4 -5
Bassermann, Albert, 2 8 5 , 294 B o x C a r B e r th a , 3 9 7 - 8
Basti, Lala, 1 6 3 - 4 B o y w h o T u r n e d Y e llo w , T h e , 3 9 4 -5
Bastin, C liff‘ Boy’, 1 2 3 , 19 2 Boyer, Charles, 13 8
Batchelor, Bert, 18 4 Bracken, Brendan, 22 2 , 2 2 3 , 226
B a t t le o f th e R i v e r P la t e , T h e , 3 5 2 - 4 , Brackett, Charles, xiii
357-8 Brahms, Johannes, 204
Beck, Reginald, 33 6 Braithwaite, Richard, 375n
Beddington, Jack, 1 9 1 , 240 Brando, Marlon, 3 7 3 , 405
Beddoes, Ivor, 28 2 Brasseur, Pierre, 10 5 , 110 , 29 1
Beecham, Sir Thomas, 32 0 , 3 2 2 - 4 , 39 2 B r e a c h o f P r o m is e , 18 6 , 19 5
Beef und Steak, 106 Brecht, Bertholt, 83, 10 4, 1 3 1
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 32 , 399 Breton, André, 10 5
B e h o l d a P a le H o r s e , 3 7 7 British Film Academy (BAFTA), 4 0 0 -1,
Behrman, S.N ., 1 3 1 4 12
Bellow, Saul, 400 British Film Institute (BFI), 2 2 7 , 4 0 1, 403,
Belmondo, Jean-Paul, 3 5 3 4 10
Ben-Gurion, David, 35 0 British International Pictures, 12 4
Benitz, Albert, 1 3 5 British Lion, 298, 30 5, 308, 358
Benjamin, Walter, 10 4 British National, 1 6 0 ,1 7 0 , 1 9 1 , 196, 305
B e r g R u ft, D e r , 1 3 3 Brochart, Quentin, 1 1 4 —15
Berger, Ludwig, 96, i2 7 n , 1 5 7 , 27on, Brook, Clive, 18 6, 19 5 , 200
2-7 4 - 5 Brooks, Louise, 83
Bergman, Ingrid, 2 5 3 Brown, Pamela, 246
Bergner, Elizabeth, 1 7 2 . - 3 , 17 6 , 1 7 7 , 2.3 0 Browne, Irene, 285
B e r lin e r I llu s t r ie r t e r ,
44 Brynner, Yul, 35 9 , 369
Bernhardt, Curtis (Kurt), 10 4, 1 2 1 , 1 3 2 , Buckland, Judith, 360, 36 1
134 Bunyan,John, 234
Bertolucci, Bernardo, 266, 39 7 ‘ Burmese Silver’, 14 7
Biró, Eva, 16 3 Burns, Robert, 348
Biró, Lajos, 12 7 0 , 12 8 , 308 Burton, Richard, 385
Black, Brinsley, 3 7 2 Busby, George, 3 3 5
B l a c k C o m e d y , 386 Byron, Kathleen, 2 6 7 -8 , 270 , 300
B la c k N a r c is s u s : subjective reality, 3 3 ; EP’s B Z a m M it ta g , 44, 4 5 ,4 8
project, 2 6 1, 26 3, 2 6 4 - 5 ; story, 2 6 4 -6 ;
design, 266, 2 8 1 ; casting, 2 6 6 -7 ; filming, C a e s a r a n d C le o p a t r a , 198 , 249, 281
2 6 7 - 8 ; budget, 26 8, 2 7 8 ; score, 2 6 8 -7 0 ; C a e s a r 's W ife , 15 3
45* IND EX

Callas, M aria, 384 C h o ru s L in e , A , 273

Campbell, Jeremy, 3 7 1 Christie, Ian, 3 5 6 , 396
Campbell, Pandora, 3 7 2 Christie, M r (gardener), 288
Cannes Film Festival, 3 3 0 - 1 Churchill, Winston: opposition to B l i m p , 4,
C a n t e r b u r y T a le , A : themes, 8, 26 5, 300; 2 2 3 - 5 , 2 .16 -8 ; friendship with Korda,
Colpepper character, 1 1 , 2 3 6 - 7 , 23 8 , 1 2 5 , 16 0 ; quoted, 1 5 9 ; supports film
36 6, 3 7 8 ; reception, 25, 2 3 9 -4 0 , 249, propaganda, 16 0 ; US involvement policy,
2 5 8 ; writing, 2 3 1 ; values, 2 3 3 - 4 ; story, 16 6 ; Prime Minister, 1 7 1 ; EP’s attitude
2 3 5 - 8 ; glue throwing, 2 3 6 , 23 9 , 38 9 ; to, 18 5 , 18 7 , 204, 2 2 2 , 3 9 2 ; invokes
opening sequence, 2 3 5 - 6 , 24 8 , 24 9; myth of England, 23 3
casting, 2 3 8 ; filming, 2 3 9 ; restoration Cilento, Diane, 35 8
and re-release, 240, 3 9 7 ; Powell on, 3 8 1 Cine-Allianz, 9 1 , 93
Capek, Carel, 38 4 C in e -T e c h n ic i a n , 229
Capitol cinema orchestra, 4 1 , 4 9 Cineguild, 19 8 , 37 0
Cardénas, 3 7 2 C in e m a , 15 8 , 306
Cardiff, Jack, 25 6 , 266, 2 7 1 , 280, 28 2 C in e m a S t u d io , 3 1 2
C a r e f u l, H e M ig h t H e a r Y o u , 38 4 , 3 8 7 - 8 C it iz e n K a n e , 2 2 7 , 39 7
Carlton Films, 1 3 3 , 289, 3 5 5 Clair, René, 12 6 , i2 7 n , 25 6 , 366
Carné, Marcel, 68, 1 2 1 , 3 6 6 , 4 0 1 Clark, Kenneth, 1 6 6 - 7
Carroll, Lewis, 4 1 2 Clarke, Robert, 3 4 2
Cartier, Rudolph, 18 4 Clouston, Storer, 14 4 , 148
‘ Cassia’, 3 5 8 , 36 2 , 3 8 1 Cocteau, Jean, 10 5
Catriona (Savile Club porter), 39 5 Cohn, Harry, 20 3, 3 3 7 , 3 4 1
‘Cauldron, The’, 34 2 Cole, Sidney, 18 4
Cavalcanti, Alberto, 1 1 5 , 1 2 1 Colman, Ronald, 18 4
Ceauqescu, Nicolae, 33 Columbia Pictures, 14 4 , 20 3, 3 3 7 , 3 4 1 - 2 ,
Central Registry of Aliens, 15 9 377
Chagall, M arc, 348 Comfort, Lance, 196
C h a lle n g e , T h e , 1 3 3 - 6 , 14 3 , 256 ‘Conjuror, The’, 15 6 —7
Challis, Christopher: memories of Junge, Connery, Sean, 38 5
2 5 5 ; R e d S h o e s , 2 8 1 - 2 , S m a ll B a c k Connolly, Cyril, 245
R o o m , 300; London Films retainer, 30 2; Conrad, Joseph, 1 1 5
E l u s i v e P im p e r n e l , 30 4, 3 1 6 ; G o n e to Conte, Manfred, 35 8
E a r t h , 3 1 1 , 3 1 2 - 1 3 , 3 1 5 ; T a le s o f C o n t r a b a n d : EP’s script, 1 6 0 - 1 , 23 0 ;
H o ffm a n n , 3 2 2 , 3 2 5 , 32 7 , 3 3 1 ; T w ic e budget, 160 , 3 3 5 ; propaganda element,
U p o n a T im e , 3 3 5 ; on Powell, 3 5 7 , 360; 160 , 16 5 ; story, 1 6 1 - 2 ; filming, 1 6 2 - 3 ;
III M e t B y M o o n l ig h t , 36 0; M ir a c le in reception, 1 6 3 ; US sale, 17 0 ; income
S o h o , 36 6 ; EP’s Englishness, 3 9 3 ; B o y from, 17 8
w h o T u r n e d Y e l l o w , 394 Cooper, Duff, 1 7 2
Chamberlain, Neville, 15 9 , 16 2 Coppola, Francis Ford, 3 9 7 , 398
Chandler, Raymond, 3 4 1 Corfield, John, 16 2 , 1 6 3 , 1 9 1
Chaplin, Charlie, 22 , 2 2 7 Corman, Roger, 398
Charrell, Erich, 95 Correll, Ernst Hugo, 70, 76
C h a r io t s o f F ir e , 4 0 1 Court, Hazel, 286
Charles, Prince of Wales, 4 0 1 Coward, Noël, 1 6 3 , 1 9 m
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 23 4 C ox, Jack, 12 4
Cherrill, Roger, 394 Crosby, Bing, 3 5 5
Chesterton, G.K ., 22 9 , 2 3 7 - 8 , 244 Crown Film Unit, 269
Chevalier, Maurice, 3 5 5 Cube, Irma von, 58, 7 2 , 9 1, 10 3
Chiari, Walter, 3 8 2 - 3 , 384 Cukor, George, 3 1 5
Children’s Film Foundation, 394 Cunynghame, David, 2 7 8 , 32 3
‘ Chinese Fish’, 1 5 2 Currie, Finlay, 17 3
 INDEX
453

Curtis, Betty, 2 3 0 , 2 3 2 , 2 4 0 , 2 4 3 Devi, Leila, 368

Cusack, Cyril: S m a l l B a c k R o o m , 3 0 0 - 1 ; Dezsó, Kosztolányi, 10
G o n e to E a r t h , 3 1 0 - 1 1 ; opinion of EP Diaghilev, Sergei, 27 4 , 284, 286, 338
and Powell, 3 1 8 ; on EP-Powell split, 3 6 1 ; D i a l M f o r M u r d e r , 365
M ir a c l e in S o h o , 366 Dickens, Charles, 39 2 , 4 01
Cziffry, Géza von, 1 1 5 Dickinson, Thorold, 90
Czinner, Paul, i2 7 n , 1 7 2 - 3 , 1 7 6 Dieterle, Wilhelm, 13 0
Dietrich, Marlene, 9 6 , 1 5 1
Dahne, Frâulein, 52 Dillon, Carmen, 3 6 6 -7
D a i ly E x p r e s s , 263 Disney, Walt, 10 7, 27on, 336n
D a i l y F ilm R e n t e r , 296 Dittersdorf, Karl Ditters von, 3 2
D a i ly H e r a ld , 29 7 Dix, Otto, 280
D a i l y M a il , 2 2 5 , 2 2 6 ,3 7 4 ‘Doctor’s Story, The’, 308
D a i ly T e le g r a p h , 2 3 4 ,3 2 8 D o k t o r M a b u s e , 65
Dali, Salvador, 1 0 5 , 2 8 1 , 3 0 1 Dólbin, Alfred, 83
Dalrymple, Ian, 30 2 Dolin, Anton, 274
D a n c in g P o s t m a n , T h e , 14 3 Donat, Robert, 2 19 , 264, 266
Dandi, Roberto, 1 1 5 Donáth, Agí (later Pressburger, finally
Dane, Clemence, 18 3 Anderson), s e e Pressburger
D a n n S c h o n L i e b e r L e b e r t r a n , 7 6 - 8 2 ,3 9 4 D o p p e lte L o ttch e n , D a s , 3 3 4 - 5
Daumier, Honoré, 69 Dorati, Antal, 276
D ’Aumonier, Stacey, 1 3 2 Doré, Gustave, 24 2
David, Jacques Louis, 20 2 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 69
Davis, John: Independent Frame process, D o u b l e C r im e o n th e M a g in o t L i n e , 13 8
26 2 ; ‘ rationalization’ programme, 29 2 ; Dove, Captain Patrick, 35 3
budget control, 2 9 2 ,2 9 5 , 2 9 7 ,3 0 6 ; EP’s Dowling, Robert, 328n , 3 3 7 , 3 4 1
negotiations, 3 5 7 ; B a t tle o f th e R iv e r Drake, Sir Francis, 2 1 9
P la t e , 3 5 7 - 8 , III M e t B y M o o n lig h t , D r u m , T h e , 14 7 , 15 7 , 22 3
3 5 9 - 6 1 ; M ir a c le in S o h o , 3 6 5 - 6 Duday, Bruno, 57 , 68, 70, 7 3 , 85
D a y ,‘ Papa’ , 266 D u e l in th e S u n , 25 3
Deans, Marjorie, 27 5 Dupont, E.A., 16 2 , 25 5
Dearly, M ax, 1 1 6 , 1 1 8 Dvorak, Ann, 196
Degas, Edgar, 283
Delfont, Bernard, 304n Ealing comedies, 3 1 6 - 1 7
Del Guidice, Filippo, 1 8 6 , 1 9 1 Ealing Studios, i9 7n , 3 4 2
Dell, Jeffrey, 1 2 5 , 1 5 7 Easdale, Brian: B la c k N a r c is s u s score,
DeMille, Cecil B., 2 4 7 ,3 2 9 ,3 4 2 , 3 5 5 2 6 9 -7 0 ; R e d S h o e s , 2 8 5 ; London Films
Denham studios: B l i m p , 3, 2 2 3 ; three of retainer, 30 2; T a le s o f H o f f m a n n , 3 2 2 ;
EP’s films at once, 4, 2 2 3 ; design and ‘Bouquet’, 34 8 ; M ir a c le in S o h o , 366
construction, 12 6 ; non-British staff, Ede, Róna, 23
1 27n ; Korda loses control, 1 3 3 ; T h e E d g e o f th e W o r ld , T h e , 14 7 , 16 7 , 1 7 3 ,
C h a lle n g e , 1 3 5 ; EP’s first visit, 14 3 ; S p y in 24 3, 1 6 in
B la c k , 1 4 4 - 5 , 1 4 9 -5 0 ; T h ie f o f B a g d a d , Edward Small Agency, 1 37n
1 5 7 - 8 ; war-time requisition, 160 ; re­ Eggerth, Marta, 1 1 2
opening, 16 2 ; technicians’ propaganda E in e v o n U n s (G ilg i) (‘Gilgi - one of us’), 91
film, 1 8 4 - 5 ; Rank buys, 19 1 ; C a n t e r b u r y Einstein, Albert, 2 6 - 7
T a le , 2 3 9 ; / K n o w W h e r e T m G o i n g , 24 7 Eisner, Lotte, 68, 7 2
Deniz, Liese, 3 7 2 E k e l , D a s (‘The Scoundrel’ ), 7 2 - 4
DePalma, Brian, 2 7 3 , 3 9 7 E le p h a n t B o y , 267
Deutsch, Oscar, 1 7 2 , 1 7 7 , 1 7 9 , 1 9 1 Elizabeth II, Queen, 34 8 , 39 2
Deutsche Technische Hochschule, Prague, Elstree studios, 2 5 5 , 30 5, 3 3 5
20 Éluard, Paul, 105
454 IN D E X

E l u s i v e P im p e r n e l, T h e , 30 3 -7 , 3 13 , 1 7 2 - 3 , 1 7 6 - 7 ; filming, 1 7 9 - 8 0 , 2 7 7 ;
3 15 -18 W albrook’s performance, 17 9 , 2 1 9 ;
E m i l a n d th e D e t e c t iv e s , z8, 7 4 - 6 , 3 34 Lean’s editing, 18 0 , 3 6 7 ; reception,
Empress, 3 3 5 1 8 0 - 2 ; ‘sympathy for the enemy’ , 18 0,
E n d o f th e R iv e r , T h e , z 6 z n 22 6 , 229n; Pageant extract, 18 5 ;
E n fa n t s d u P a r a d is , L e s ,
10511 influence, 18 7 , 2 2 1 ; A ir c r a ft comparison,
Engel, Erich, 95 1 9 1 , 1 9 4 , 1 9 5 ; Oscar award, 2 0 3;
Ernst, M ax, 280 profits, 29 2n
Esway, Alexander, 12 8 , 2 5 3 Fougasse, 2 1 9
E v e n in g N e w s , 29 7 ‘ Four Days in a Hero’s Life’, 19 5
E v e n in g S t a n d a r d , 20 3, 208, 3 7 2 F o u r F e a th e r s , T h e , 14 7 , 1 5 7
Francis, Freddie, 30 4, 30 5, 3 3 5 , 34 4
‘ Face Like England, A ’, 36 7 Frank, Governor Hans, 3 4 1
Fairbanks, Douglas, 22 Franco, General Francisco, 3 7 7
Falk, Norbert, 48 F r a n k f u r t e r Z e i t u n g , 44
Falkenstein, Julius, 96 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke, 14
Fall, Leo, 88 Franz Joseph, Emperor, 15
Fanck, Dr Arnold, 1 3 3 , 1 3 4 Frayn, Michael, 3 8 5 - 6
F a n t a s ia , 27on Free German League of Culture, 18 5
Farkas, Nicholas, 1 1 5 Freunde, Erich, 18 5
Farnan, Abraham, 2 5 1 - 2 Freunde, Karl, 33
Farrar, David: B la c k N a r c is s u s , 2 6 6 -7 ; Freyburg, Lady, 3 7 3 , 3 9 1
friendship with EP, 28 8 ; S m a ll B a c k Friedanthal, Herbert, 104
R o o m , 300; London Films retainer, 30 2; Fritsch, Willy, 90
G o n e to E a r t h , 3 1 0 F ü h r e r S c h e n k t d e n J u d e n E i n e S ta d t, D e r ,
‘Fathers and Sons’, 1 5 4 , 1 5 6 lo y n
Féher, 27on
Feld, Hans, 69 Gaal, Béla, 1 3 3
Fellini, Federico, 38 3 Gabor, Zsa Zsa, 13 9
F e m m e a u V o la n t, U n e (‘Woman at the Gaigen, the Misses, 28 2
Wheel’ ), 10 7 Gainsborough Studios, i9 7n
Ferrer,José, 3 5 1 Gandhi, Indira, 368
Ferrer, Mel, 3 5 4 , 3 5 5 Gandhi, Mahatma, 3 6 7 - 7 0
Festetich, Graf, 40 Garbo, Greta, 18
Feyder, Jacques, 12 6 , i2 7 n , 256 Gaumont British, 1 3 1 , 19 1
FID ES, 3 5 5 General Film Distributors, 1 7 2 , 199
Fielding, Xan, 35 9 George VI, King, 14 8 , 2 5 7 , 298
F ift h C o l u m n , T h e , 2 4 1 Geray, Steve, 92, 1 2 1 , 13 9 , 17 0 , 2 5 3
F il m - K u r ie r , 49, 69, 94 German, Erwin, 14 3
F ilm W e e k ly , 3o8n Gerron, Kurt, 1 0 6 - 7 , n o , 1 1 2 , 1 5 2 , 29 1
Filmsonor Tobis, 1 5 2 G h o s t G o e s W e st, T h e , 256
Flaubert, Gustave, 2 3 2 Gibbon, Monk, 32 5
F le d e r m a u s , D i e , 89, 3 4 2 - 3 , 35 4 Gide, André, 1 1 5
F ly in g D u t c h m a n , T h e , 9 1 Gielgud, John, 20 2, 246, 3 1 9
Fokine, Michel, 276 Gillet, Bill, i6 7n , 18 6
Fonteyn, M argot, 286, 3 3 3 Gilliam, Terry, 39 7
Ford, John, 14 4 Gilliat, Sidney, 19 8 , 199, 2 6 2 - 3 , 308, 3 3 5
Forster, E .M ., 265 Giraudoux, Jean, 35 4
Forsyth, Bill, 39 7 G i r l f r o m M a x i m 's , T h e , 1 3 2
4 9 t h P a r a lle l : research trip, 1 6 6 - 7 1 ; G la s s P e a r ls , T h e , 1 0 1 - 3 , 3 7 8 -8 0 , 38 7
Canadian involvement, 16 7 , 3 1 9 ; script, Godard, Jean-Luc, 2 7 1
1 7 2 - 8 ; budget, 17 2 , 17 6 , 17 8 ; casting, Godden, Rumer, 2 6 1, 2 6 4 - 5 , 269
 IND EX 455

Goebbels, Joseph, 9 3 - 4 , 13 4 , 166 Harrison, Kay (Kendall), 278

‘ Golden Y ears,T h e’, 3 3 8 - 4 2 , 34 5
Goldschmidt, Pali, 3 7 1
Goldwyn, Frances, 306
Goldwyn, Samuel: 4 9 t h P a r a lle l offer, 17 8 ;
Niven contract, 2.53, 30 3, 3 0 5; Powell
negotiations, 29 6 ; quoted, 29 8 ; Korda
co-production deal, 30 2 ; P im p e r n e l,
3 0 3 -7 ,3 16
Gollner, Nana, 2 8 6 - 7
G o n e to E a r t h , 3 0 8 - 1 5 , 39 7
G o n e w it h th e W i n d , 14 9 , 1 7 2 , 22 5
G o o d E a rth , T h e , 91
G o o d b y e M r C h i p s , 1 6 2 , 1 6 5 , 166
Goring, Marius, 2 5 4 , 268, 284, 285
Gough, Michael, 300, 3 1 8 , 3 3 5 - 6
Gough-Yates, Kevin, 396
Grable, Betty, 1 7 1
Grainger, Miss (Ganna, nanny), 288, 3 1 4
Granger, Stewart, 3 5 8 , 35 9
Gray, Allan (Josef Zmigrod): friendship
with EP, 1 2 1 ; EP’s meeting with Wendy,
2 1 1 ; B l i m p score, 2 2 3 , 2 5 6 ; career,
2 5 5 - 6 ; M a t t e r o f L i f e a n d D e a t h , 256,
26 8; R e d S h o e s commission, 280 ; R e d
S h o e s score rejected, 2 8 4 -5
G r e a t B a r r ie r , T h e , 1 3 1
G r e a t Z ie g f e l d , T h e , 91
Greenback (Abraham Greenbaum,
W endy’s first husband), 2 1 1 , 2 1 2
Green, Wendy, s e e Pressburger
G r e e n T a b le , T h e , 280
Greenbaum, Abraham, s e e Green, Jack
Greenbaum, Mutz, 19 6
Greene, Graham, 12 8 , 308
Greenwell, Tom , 3 7 2 , 3 7 3
Gregson, John, 366
Griffith, D .W ., 1 1 6
Harrison, Rex, 1 5 2
Harvey, Lilian, 66
Havelock-Allan, Anthony, 19 8 , 288
Hawkins, Jack, 300, 3 3 5 , 35 3
Haydn, Joseph, 32
Haynes, Stanley, 184
H e a v e n C a n W a it , 256
Heckroth, Ada, 280
Heckroth, Hein; career, 2 8 0 - 1 ; R e d S h o e s ,
2 8 1 - 2 , 2 8 3 - 7 , 290, 29 2 ; nickname for
Wendy, 289; S m a ll B a c k R o o m , 3 0 1;
London Films retainer, 30 2; E lu s iv e
P im p e r n e l, 304, 30 5; G o n e to E a r t h ,
3 1 2 ; T a le s o f H o f f m a n n , 3 2 2 , 32 4 , 3 2 5 ,
3 2 7 , 3 2 9 ; relationship with EP, 32 6 ;
S t o r y o f G il b e r t a n d S u lliv a n , 3 3 5 ;
‘ Bouquet’, 34 8 ; ‘Salt of the Earth’,
3 5 0 - 1 ; O h . . .R o s a l in d a ! !, 3 5 6 ; EP’s
bathroom tiles, 35 6 ; returns to Germany,
3 5 8 ; paintings, 39 2
Heilman, Marcel, 13 8 , 198
Helm, Brigitte, 91
Helpmann, Robert, 280, 2 8 3 - 6 , 292, 3 2 2
Hemingway, Ernest, 24 1
Henry, O., 4 1 2
H e n r y V , 23 9 , 336 , 3 39 , 366
Hepburn, Audrey, 3 5 4 , 38 5
H e r e C o m e s M r J o r d a n , 256
H e r z o g , 400
Hetheyi, Laci, 1 6 3 - 4 , 186
Heymann, Werner, 95
Hildyard, Jack, 336
Hille, Heinz, 91
Hiller, Wendy: Archers’ manifesto sent to,
18 9, 3 3 7 ; likes O n e o f O u r A ir c r a ft , 194 ,
2 1 8 ; B l i m p casting, 2 1 7 - 1 8 ; / K n o w
W h e r e I ’m G o i n g , 2 4 5 - 8

Grigg, Sir James, 2 2 0 - 3 , 22 5 Hillier, Erwin, 23 8 , 240, 2 4 3, 24 7

Grosz, George, 83 Hindenburg, President Paul von, 93
Gruñe, Karl, 1 1 5 Hinze, Gerhard, 185
Guild, M rs (neighbour), 4 10 Hitchcock, Alfred, 12 4 , 15 2 , 1 6 1 - 2 ,
Guinness, Alec, 369, 38 5 ¿53
Hitler, Adolf: Ufa role under, 65, 9 3; rise,
‘ Habeas Corpus’, 384 65, 7 2 ; Berlin policy, 8 3 - 4 ; M e r r y
Hackett, Walter, 2 7 5 W i d o w enthusiast, 88; Chancellorship,

Hajos, Ernó, 1 1 0 9 3 ; policies, 98; Stapenhorst’s meeting,

Halmay, Tibor, 92 1 1 0 ; émigré attitudes, 1 1 1 ; admiration
Halmos, George, 20, 2 7 - 8 forTrenker, 13 4 ; Schiinzel’s relationship,
Hamilton, Guy, 33 6 13 6 ; Mussolini meeting, 18 6 ; Strauss’s
Hamilton, Neil, 1 1 6 attitude, 34 1
Harman, Jympson, 29 7 Hobson, Valerie: S p y in B l a c k , 149-5 • ;
456 IN D E X

1 5 2 ; A t la n t ic F e r r y , 1 5 6 ;
S ile n t B a t t le , Films deals, 30 2
C o n tra b an d , 1 6 0 - 1 ; friendship with EP, Individual Pictures, 19 8
1 6 0 - 1 , 28 8 , 3 2 0 ; memories of Ingram, Rex, 14 6 , 1 5 7 , 290
Hampstead house, 290 ; memories of EP’s International PEN group, 18 5
love of music, 32 0 ; testifies against EP in In va d ers, T h e , 1 8 1 ,1 9 8
divorce, 346 Isherwood, Christopher, 6 6 ,1 3 4
Hoffman, Yoli (EP’s niece), 259 Isleworth Studios, 30 1
Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Amadeus, 3 2 1
Hoffmannstal, Hugo von, 33 9 Jackson, Felix, s e e Joachimson
H o l d B a c k th e D a w n , 13 8 Jackson, Jerry, 15 3
Holden, William, 369 Jacob, Judge Lloyd, 3 1 3
Hollender, Frederic, 10 3 Jannings, Emil, 3 2 , 6 6 ,1 2 9
Hollywood, 1 3 6 - 8 Jarman, Derek, 39 7
H o n e y m o o n , 3 81 Jeans, Ursula, 223
Hopkins, Bill, 3 7 4 - 5 , 37 9 Joachimson, Felix, 9 1
H o r i z o n , 24 5 Johns, Glynis, 17 6
Horney, Brigitte, 67 Jones, Jennifer, 3 0 8 - 1 1 , 3 1 3 , 3 1 9
Horthy, Admiral Niklos, 18 5 Jooss, Kurt, 280
Howard, Leslie: 4 9 t h P a r a lle l, 17 0 , 1 7 2 , Jordan, Neil, 39 7
1 7 7 , 17 9 , 1 8 1 , 1 8 5 ; Independent Joseph, Rudolph, 10 3 , 1 1 1
Producers, 19 8 ; S c a r le t P im p e r n e l, 30 3, Joseph II, Emperor, 6 - 7
316 Joyce, James, 9
Howard, Trevor, 3 5 3 Junge, Alfred: B l i m p Turkish bath
Hugenberg, Alfred, 6 5—6, 92, 93 sequence, 3; career and reputation, 16 2 ,
Hunter, Kim, 2 3 9 , 2 5 3 2 5 4 - 5 ; C o n t r a b a n d , 16 2 ; B l i m p budget,
Hurst, Brian Desmond, 14 4 2 2 3 ; EP’s communication with, 2 3 3 ; /
Huth, Harold, 19 5 K n o w W h e r e I 'm G o i n g , 2 4 7 ;
contribution to Archers’ style, 2 5 4 - 6 ,
I K n o w W h e r e I 'm G o i n g ( I K W I G ) : dream 280 ; B la c k N a r c is s u s , 266, 2 7 1 , 2 8 1 ;
sequence, 7 5 , 24 9 ; style, 2 3 3 ; script, Oscars, 2 7 1 ; R e d S h o e s design snub,
2 4 2 - 4 ; values, 2 4 4 - 5 ; casting, 2-45-6; 2 8 0 - 1 ; resignation from Archers, 2 8 1
filming, 2 4 6 - 7 ; budget, 2 4 7 - 8 ; opening Jurgens, Curt, 362n
sequence, 2 4 8 -9 ; reception, 250, 2 5 8 ;
sexuality theme, 2 6 5 ; Swedish première, 65, 15 0
K a b in e t t d e s D r C a lig a r i, D a s ,
2 6 7 ; imaginary world, 324 Kabos, Magda (née Röna), 1 3 , 20, 3 1 - 2 ,
Ianotta, Elena, 3 7 2 3 7 0 -2 ,4 10 -11
I d e a l H u s b a n d , A n , 295 Kafka, Franz, 20
IFCO (International Film Exchange Kalman, Emmerich, 88
Company), 8 5 - 6 Karajan, Herbert von, 399
III M e t B y M o o n l ig h t , 3 3 2 - 3 , 3 5 1 , 35 9 —6 1 Karinthy, Frigyes, 34 , 256
lllu s t r ie r t e r F il m - K u r ie r , 67 Karl Ferdinand University, Prague, 20
Impekoven, Toni, 73 Karsavina, Tamara, 283
Imrie, Richard, 3 8 1 Kashfi, Anna, 3 7 3
In W h ic h W e S e r v e , 19 m , 19 2 , 194 Kästner, Erich, 7 4 - 6 , 82, 3 3 4 , 344
I n c o g n it o (originally ‘Son Altesse Voyage’ ), Kätscher, Rudolph, 9 3, 96, 1 2 1 , 1 2 2
10 6 -7 Kaye, Danny, 3 1 9
Independent Frame, 2 6 2 - 3 , 2-64, 2.66 Kelber, Michel: In c o g n it o , 10 6; EP lodges
Independent Producers: creation and with, 10 9; memories of EP in Paris, n o ;
structure, 1 9 8 - 9 ; S il v e r F le e t , 200; EP’s letters, 18 9 , 3 4 5 , 38 6 ; W endy’s
Pinewood base, 2 5 4 ; Independent Frame illness, 3 1 4 ; EP visits in Paris, 3 4 3 ; on
process, 2 6 3 ; R e d S h o e s , 2.77-, difficulties, Wendy divorce, 34 8 ; K illin g a M o u s e ,
2 9 5 ; advantages, 29 7 , 299 ; London 376, 377
 IND EX
457

Kendall, Kay (Harrison), 278 Korda, Vincent, 28 1

Kennedy, Joan, 18 6 Korda, Zoltán, 14 3 , 1 4 7 - 8 , 288
Kennedy, Ludovic, 3 3 0 Kornfeld (émigré in London), 13 0
Kerr, Deborah: B l i m p , 3, 2 1 8 , 2 2 3 ; bound Kortner, Fritz, 1 1 5
by M G M contract, 2 3 8 , 2 4 5 ; B la c k Kosterlitz, Henry, 105
N a r c is s u s ,
2 6 7 ; ‘ Night Before’ project, Kragler, Frau, 388
3 8 4 ; B A F T A awards presentation, 4 0 1 Krahy, Hans, 88
Keun, Irmegard, 9 1 , 1 0 4 Krauss, Clemens, 34 3
Kiepura, Jan, 1 1 2 Krauss, Werner, 86
K illin g a M o u s e o n S u n d a y , 3 7 5 - 8 K r e u tz e r S o n a ta , T h e , 1 1 5
Kimmins, Anthony, 30 1 Krim, Arthur, 349, 3 5 5
K in e W e e k l y , 3, 18 0 , 20 3, 26 4, 2 7 2 , 3 1 5 , Krudy, Gyula, 34
3i 9 Krupp, General, 359
K in e m a t o g r a p h W e e k l y , 12 7 Kun, Magda, 92, 1 2 1 , 1 3 3 , 1 3 9 , 1 6 3
Kipling, Rudyard, 4 1 2
Kirsta, Gerry, 28 3 L a d y in th e L a k e , 341
Kirwan, Patrick, 13 4 , 14 4 , 18 3 1 6 1 ,1 6 5
L a d y V a n is h e s , T h e ,
Klang-Film sound system, 64 Lamarr, Hedy, 67
Klein, Lord, 5 0 -2 , 5 4 - 5 ‘ Lamb and the Lark, The’, 26 1
K le in e S e it e n s p r u n g , D e r (‘The Little Lamprecht, Gerhard, 75
Escapade’ ), 87 Lang, Fritz: Nero Films, 63, 66; H a n g m e n
Knight, Esmond: S il v e r F le e t , 2 0 1; E n d o f A l s o D i e , 86; M e t r o p o lis , 64, 65, 9 1 ;
th e R iv e r , z 6 z n \ B l a c k N a r c is s u s , 2 6 7 ; Ufa, 6 5 ; M , 2 3 8 - 9 ; L i l io m , 2 4 1 , 25 6 ; EP
R e d S h o e s , 2 8 5 ; G o n e to E a r t h , 3 1 0 ; B o y meets, 2 5 3 ; D e r M ü d e T o d , 256
w h o T u r n e d Y e l l o w , 394 Langsdorff, Captain, 3 5 3
Knight, Vivienne, 2 3 9 , 290, 30 5, 3 3 0 ,4 0 3 Lantz, Robbie, 1 6 3 ,4 0 2
K n ig h t W it h o u t A r m o u r , 256 Larthe, Yolande and Charmaine, 3 3 5
Koestler, Arthur, 8 4 - 5 , 1 8 5 , 36 8 ,4 0 9 , Lasky, Jesse L., 1 1 4
4 io n Laughton, Charles, 274
Kofler, Miss (maid), 288 Launder, Frank, 198 , 26 3, 30 2, 308
Kollarik, M rs (cook), 288 Laurie, John, 348
Korda, Alexander: family background, 5; L a w r e n c e o f A r a b ia , 3 3 7
S t P e t e r 's U m b r e lla , 1 3 ; early successes, Lawson, Arthur, 2 8 1, 30 2, 3 3 5 , 358
1 1 8 ; lifestyle, 1 2 5 - 6 , 2 5 2 ; film empire Lean, David; editor of 4 9 t h P a r a lle l , 18 0;
plans, 1 2 5 - 8 , 18 7 , 19 7 , 2 9 8 -9 , 3 0 1 - 2 ; sponsors EP for A C T membership, 18 4 ;
H e n r y V I I I , 12 6 , 1 3 2 ; Stapenhorst co­ In W h ic h W e S e r v e , 19 m ; Independent
production, 1 3 3 , 1 3 5 ; hires EP, 140, Producers, 198 , 19 9 ; B l i m p influence,
1 4 3 - 5 , 1 6 3 ; S p y in B l a c k , 1 4 4 - 5 ; Powell 206; P a s s a g e to In d ia , z 6 $ n \ Korda
contract, 1 4 7 ; ‘ Conjuror’, 1 5 6 - 7 ; T h i e f contract, 30 2; Korda’s Indian film
o f B a g d a d , 1 5 7 , 2 4 1 ; war propaganda, suggestions, 3 5 2 , 3 6 7 - 8 ; Gandhi project,
16 0 , 1 8 1 ; affection for Richardson, 2 0 1; 3 6 7 - 7 0 , 380 ; BFI honorary fellowship,
ballet film project, 2 7 4 - 7 ; marriage to 4 01
Merle Oberon, 2 7 5 , 2 7 8 ; Lermontov Lederer, Francis, 1 1 4
character, 28 6 ; Archers picture deal, Lee, Belinda, 3 6 6 -7 , 3 7 2
2 9 5 -6 , 299 ; knighthood, 19 8 ; Archers Lehar, Franz, 89
five-film contract, 30 2, 3 3 1 - 3 ; Lehmann, Use, 3 0 - 1
P im p e r n e l, 3 0 3 - 4 , 3 0 6 -7 , 3 1 6 ; Selznick Lehmann, Lili, 30
lawsuit, 3 1 3 , 3 1 4 - 1 5 ; T a le s o f Leigh, Vivien, 14 4 , 1 4 8 - 9 , 1 8 1 , 2 7 7 , 356
H o ffm a n n , 3 2 2 , 3 2 3 , 3 2 9 - 3 1 ; T w ic e Leigh-Fermor, Patrick, 35 9
U p o n a T im e , 3 3 4 - 5 , 3 3 6 ; offers work to Leighton, Margaret, 303
EP, 3 5 2 Leiser, Erwin, 253
Korda, Michael, 12 5 Lejeune, C .A .: C o n t r a b a n d review, 16 3 ;
458 INDEX

Sq u a d ro n L e a d er X review, 19 6 ; B l i m p Low , David, 2 0 8 -9

review, 2 2 5 ; / K n o w W h e r e T m G o i n g Lubitsch, Ernst, 6 5 -6 , 8 8 , 1 0 4 , 1 1 8 , 1 2 8
review, 2 4 9 ; A M a t t e r o f L i f e a n d D e a t h Lucas, Cornel, 3 7 2
review, 2 5 8 ; B l a c k N a r c is s u s review, Ludwig, Emil, 1 1 1
2 7 1 ; R e d S h o e s review, 2 9 7 ; E l u s iv e Lulky, Frau, 56
P im p e r n e l review, 3 1 6 Lupino, Ida, 1 1 4
Lemke, Miss (maid), 288 Lustig, Hans G., 10 3
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 85 Lvosky, Cilly, 10 3
L e t z t e M a n n , D e r , 32 , 3 3 , 65, 7 1
Levi, Primo, 2 6 \ M , 239
L i c h t - B i l d - B i i h n e , 69, 88 MacGinnis, Niall, 17 3
Liebmann, Robert, 7 1 , 74 , 96, 2 7 5 M cGrath, Pat, 20 2
L i f e magazine, 35 9 M a d a m e D u b a r r y , 88
L i f e a n d D e a t h o f C o l o n e l B li m p , T h e : 88
M a d e l v o m B a lle t, D a s ,
filming, 3 - 4 ; personal resonances, 4, 9, M ahagonny, 83
29, 2 1 0 , 2 1 2 - 1 4 ; role of women, 2 4 - 5 , M a i L a n y o k (‘Today’s Girls’ ), 1 3 3
2 1 0 , 2 2 7 ; Theo’s speech, 8 5; influences, M a jo r B a r b a r a , 2 1 7
18 4 ; story, 2 0 6 - 8 ; origins, 2 0 8 -9 ; style, Mallarmé, Stéphane, 18
2 0 9 - 1 0 ; casting, 2 1 7 - 2 3 ; official Mamoulian, Rouben, 3 1 5
obstructions, 2 2 0 - 7 ; reception, 2 2 5 - 8 , M a n in G r e y , T h e , 24 5
22 9 , 2 3 3 ; flashback structure, 2 2 7 , 3 2 4 ; M an W h o K n ew T o o M uch, T he, 152
US screening, 2 2 7 , 25 0 ; restoration and Mann, Christopher: EP negotiations, 18 6 ,
re-release, 2 2 7 , 3 9 7 ; art direction, 2 5 5 ; 1 8 7 , 1 9 3 , 3 4 2 - 3 ; Rank meeting, 1 9 7 ;
score, 2 5 6 ; cameraman, 2 5 6 ; sexuality Archers split, 3 6 2 ; advice to EP, 38 4 ;
theme, 2 6 5 ; takings, 2 9 2n; band-leader, EP’s trips to London, 395
3 2 3 ; experimentation, 338 Mann, Heinrich, 10 4 , 1 3 1
L i l i o m , 2 4 1 , 25 6 Mann, Thomas, 10 4, 1 3 1
L i o n H a s W in g s , T h e , 160 , 16 2 Marcus, Hans, 346
Litvak, Anatole, 249, 2 5 3 Marcus, Paul (PEM), 1 3 0 - 1 , 1 3 6
L i v e r p o o l P o s t , 16 2 M a r e N o s t r u m , 14 6
Livesey, Jack, 22 3 Maria Theresa, Empress, 6
Livesey, Roger: B l i m p , 3, 2 2 2 - 3 ; Pageant Marks, Leo, 362n , 38 2
readings, 1 8 5 ; / K n o w W h e r e T m G o i n g , Marks, Simon, 349
2 4 5 - 6 ; M a tte r o f L ife a n d D e a th , 2 5 3 -4 Marlowe, Christopher, 18 3 , 243
Livesey, Sam, 22 3 Marvell, Andrew, 23 3
Lloyd, Harold, 22 M arx, Karl, 6
Loder,John, 1 5 2 M ary, Queen, 32 8
Logan, Joshua, 384 Mason, A .E.W ., 15 7
London Films: Dell’s experiences, 12 5 ; Mason, James, 2 4 5 , 35 9
Korda’s creation, 12 6 ; Toeplitz’s share, Massey, Raymond: 4 9 t h P a r a lle l, 16 7 , 17 0 ,
1 3 2 ; T r o o p s h i p , 1 3 4 ; T h e C h a lle n g e , 1 7 2 , 1 7 6 - 8 ; Powell theatre venture, 3 3 3
1 4 3 ; Veidt’s contract, 14 4 ; EP’s Massey, Vincent, 16 7 , 18 0, 220, 3 1 9
employment as contract writer, 15 6 ; R e d Massine, Léonide, 2 8 3 - 4 , Z9U 2 9 2 > 32.1,
S h o e s , 15 6 , 2 7 7 ; I d e a l H u s b a n d , 295n ; 338
Korda’s resurrection, 2 9 8 - 9 ; EP-Powell Masters, John, 3 5 2
contracts, 2 9 8 -9 , 30 2, 3 3 2 ; financial M a tter o f L ife a n d D e a th , A (A M O L A D ):
difficulties, 3 0 1 - 2 , 3 5 2 ; B o n n ie P r in c e origins, 7 7 , 2 5 6 - 7 ; proposed and
C h a r l ie fiasco, 3 0 1 ; Lopert distribution postponed, 2 4 1 ; casting, 250 , 2 5 3 - 4 ; use
deal, 328n ; T w i c e U p o n a T i m e , 336 of colour, 2 5 0 - 1 , 2 5 6 ; story, 2 5 0 - 2 ;
Lopert, Ilya, 328n Junge’s art direction, 2 5 4 - 5 ; music,
Lopert Films, 328n 2 5 5 - 6 , 2 6 8 - 9 ; filming, 2 5 7 , 2 6 1 ; Royal
Lorre, Peter, 10 3 , 23 9 Command Performance, 2 5 7 ; reception,
 IN D E X 459

2 5 7 - 8 , 2 7 2 , 3 9 7 ; dialogue, 2 7 m ; M ir a c le in S o h o , 10 7 , 3 6 5 - 7
Heckroth’s work on, 2 8 1 ; in S ig h t a n d ‘ Misty Island, The’, 2 4 2 - 3
S o u n d top ten, 39 7 Mitler, Leo, 1 1 5
Maughanj, W . Somerset, 1 5 3 M og, Aribert, 67
Maupassant, Guy de, 2 1 7 , 38 4 , 39 2 M oholy-Nagy, László, 83
M axwell, Gavin, 380 M oldow, Miss (Avon editor), 406
M ay, Elaine, 400 Molnár, Ferenc, 3 4 ,1 0 8 , 24 1
M ay, Karl, 1 3 , 204n Monique (EP’s girlfriend in Paris), 1 1 3
Mayer, Carl, 3 3 , 7 1 , 7 7 , 1 7 3 , 186 M o n s ie u r S a n s -G ê n e (‘ M r Shameless’), 1 1 4
Mayer, Louis B., 3 3 7 Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de, 400
‘ Meine Schwester und Ich’ , 93 Montenegro, Conchita, 1 1 6 , 1 1 8
Melchior, 34 Montgomery, Robert, 3 4 1
Melies, Georges, 9 Morley, Robert, 1 5 1 , 300
M e l o d ie d e s H e r z e n s , 68 Mosley, Oswald, 229
‘Men Against Britannia’, 13 8 Moss, Stanley, 3 3 3 , 359
Mengele, Joseph, 37 9 M o u li n R o u g e , 16 2 , 25 5
M e n s c h e n a m S o n n t a g (‘People on Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 25, 32, 3 2 2
Sunday’ ), 58, 6 3 - 4 , 66, 68 M ü d e T o d , D e r , 256
Menuhin, Yehudi, 400 Müller, Hans, 96
Menzies, William Cameron, i2 7 n Müller, Renate, 70, 88
Merrigan, Katie, 3 7 2 M ü n c h e n e r , 44
M e t r o p o lis , 6 4 ,6 5 , 90, 90 Muni, Paul, 27 4 , 3 5 1
M G M : Z w e i m a l S y lv e s t e r , 1 1 5 ; Schiinzel Murnau, F.W ., 3 3 , 65, 6 6 ,1 0 4 , 238
contract, 13 6 , 1 3 8 ; B r e a c h o f P r o m i s e y Museum of Modern Art, New York, 240,
19 5 ; Kerr contract, 2 3 8 , 2 4 5 , 26 7 ; 3 9 6 ,4 0 4 -5
O p e r a t io n C r o s s b o w , 380 Mussolini, Benito, 186
M id s u m m e r N i g h t ’s D r e a m , A , 3 1 9 Mussorgsky, Modest, 400
Mikes, George: friendship with EP, 14 , M y H e a r t Is C a llin g , 1 1 2
1 6 3 - 4 , 2.88, 3 7 2 ; H o w to b e a n A l i e n ,
1 2 0 , 1 6 3 , 1 8 3 ; Association of Free Nabokov, Vladimir, 12 0
Hungarians, 1 8 5 ; B l i m p research, 209; N agy, Käthe von, 90
Pig Committee, 409 Nandor, Ujhelyi, 38
Mikszath, Kalman, 1 3 , 34 , 9 1 , 3 34 Nash, Paul, 28 1
Miles, Bernard, 18 6 Natanson, Jacques, 106
Millar, Gavin, 4 0 0 ,4 0 7 National Film Archive, 39 7
Miller, Alice Duer, 18 3 National Film Finance Corporation, 302,
Miller, Lee, 2 8 1 355
M illio n s L i k e U s , 19 2 National Film Theatre (NFT), 3 9 6 ,4 0 3 ,4 0 5
Mills, Hayley, 336n Neagle, Anna, 2 18
Mills, Reginald, 269, 30 2, 304 Neame, Ronald, 198 , 294, 29 5, 370 , 380
Milton, John, 3 3 2 Neave, J.M . and Sons, 393
Minelli, Vincente, 1 1 6 , 2 7 3 Nebenzal, Seymour, 6 3 -4 , 66, 10 5, 10 7,
Minerva Films, 1 1 2 116
Ministry of Information (Mol): Negri, Pola, 18
C o n t r a b a n d , 1 6 0 ,1 6 5 ; film propaganda Nehru, Jawaharlal, 368
memo, 1 6 5 - 6 ; 4 9 t h P a r a lle l , 1 6 6 - 7 , 1 7 1 , Nero Films, 63, 66
1 7 7 - 8 , i 9 i ; E P ’s release, 1 7 1 - 2 ; O n e o f Neusser, Erich von, 99—100
O u r A ir c r a f t , 1 9 1 , 19 4 ; B l i m p , 2 2 0 - 2 ; N e w S ta te s m a n , 18 0

M a t t e r o f L i f e a n d D e a t h , 240, 250 N e w S ta te s m a n a n d N a t i o n , 239

Minnick, Wendell, 4 07 N e w s C h r o n ic le , 249, 2 5 7 , 30 1
‘ Miracle in St Anthony’s Lane’, 10 7 , 1 1 2 , Newman, Harold, 3 4 4 - 7
1 5 2 - 3 , 2 6 1, 26 4, 35 8 Newman, Wendy, s e e Pressburger
460 IN D E X

N ic e -S o ir , 291 Orme, Nancy, 34 5

Nichols, Mike, 400 Ortus Films, 166
Nick, Professor, 7 1 Orwell, George, 3 3 3
N ie b e lu n g e t t , D i e , 65 ‘ Other People’, 405
‘Night Before, The’, 38 4 O ’Toole, Peter, 38 5
Nijinsky, Romola, 27 4 , 278 O u r F ilm , 18 5
Nijinsky, Vaslav, 27 4 , 27 8 , 283 O u r T o w n , 386
Nikolics, Baron, 1 1 , 1 2 Ozep, Fedor, 1 1 5
N in e t e e n E ig h t y - f o u r , 3 3 3 Ozerai, Professor, xv, 1 7 , 4 1 1
Niven, David: M a t t e r o f L i f e a n d D e a t h ,
250 , 2 5 3 ; ‘White Cockade’ project, 2 6 1 ; Pabst, G .W ., 6 3, 66, 1 0 3 , 1 1 6
B o n n ie P r in c e C h a r lie , 3 0 1 ; P im p e r n e l, Padarewsky, Ignace Jan, 22
3 0 3 ,3 0 5 ,3 16 Paddy the Cope, 26 1
N o b o d y O r d e r e d W o lv e s , 12 5 , 1 5 7 Paganini, Niccolo, 27 6
N o s f e r a t u , 65 Page, Joan, 2 0 1, 230 , 2 3 2 , 2 4 3 , 2 7 7 , 3 8 1
Pageant of the Four Freedoms, 18 5
P a r a d in e C a s e , T h e , 30 8, 3 1 3
Oberon, Merle: ballet film project, 1 3 3 , Paramount, 1 1 4 , 1 2 9 , 1 3 0 , 249, 3 4 3 ,
2 7 4 - 5 , 2 7 7 ; outbreak of war, 15 8 ; 354-5
Korda marriage, 2 7 5 , 2 7 8 ; S c a r le t P aren t T ra p , T h e , 336n
P im p e r n e l, 303 Pascal, Gabriel, 17 0 , 19 8 , 2 1 7 , 249, 2 8 1
O b s e r v e r , 1 6 3 , 1 9 6 , 2 2 5 , 29 7 , 3 1 6 , 4 1 2 P a s s a g e to I n d ia , A , 265
Offenbach, Jacques, 1 1 5 , 3 2 0 - 1 , 32 4 Pat und Patachon, 7 1
O h . . . R o s a l in d a ! !, 90, 294n, 3 5 4 - 7 , 396 Patón, Bill, i6 7 n , 38 7
Olivier, Laurence: Leigh marriage, 14 9 , Pauker, Edmund, 108
35 6 ; 4 9 t h P a r a lle l, 1 7 2 , 17 6 , 17 9 , 1 8 1 , ‘ Pavlova’, 405
2 7 7 ; Fleet Air Arm, 2 0 1; T h e V o lu n te e r , Pavlova, Anna, 283
20 2; B l i m p , 2 1 9 - 2 2 ; H e n r y V , 2 39 , 336 , ‘ Peace in Our Time’ , 1 5 2
36 6 ; regard for Pamela Brown, 24 6; Old Peck, Gregory, 308, 3 3 7 , 3 4 2 - 3 , 3 7 7
Vic US tour, 26 4; Eaton Square flat, 356 P e e p in g T o m , } 6 z n , 3 8 1
‘ Ondine’, 354 PEM , s e e Marcus
O n e o f O u r A ir c r a f t is M is s in g : project, Penrose, Roland, 28 1
1 9 0 - 1 ; M ol support, 1 9 1 ; script, 1 9 1 - 2 , Périnal, Georges, i2 7 n , 1 3 5 , 256
1 9 4 - 5 ; opening sequence, I 9 i > 19 4 * 2 4 8 ; Périnal, Vincent, i2 7 n
casting, 1 9 2 - 3 ; filming, 19 3 , 2 3 3 ; Perity, János, 4 10
showings, 1 9 3 - 4 , 2 1 8; reception, 19 4 , Perón, President Juan Domingo, 3 5 2 - 3
2 1 8 ; EP editing, 200; Oscar nomination, Perry, Kenneth, 264
2 0 3 ; origin of B l i m p , 206; realism, 2 7 7 ; Pertwee, Roland, 14 4 , 14 5 , 14 8 , 195
takings, 292n ; Powell’s treatment of Péteri, Gyorgy (formerly Pressburger, EP’s
Tearle, 294 cousin), 259
O n e R a in y A f t e r n o o n , 1 1 4 Péteri, Margit, 2 5 9 -6 0
O p e r a t io n C r o s s b o w , 3 8 0 - 1 Petófi, Sándor, 34
Ophuls, M ax: D a n n S c h o n L i e b e r Petrie, Hay, 285
L e b e r t r a n , 7 6 - 8 1 ; exile in France, 1 0 1 , Petzet, Wolfgang, 69
10 4 ; opinion of Offenbach, 1 1 5 - 1 6 ; Picasso, Pablo, 25 , 28 1
lightness of touch, 1 1 8 ; cameraman, 1 2 1 ; P ic c a d illy , 16 2 , 25 5
refugee fund beneficiary, 13 0 ; Wilhelm’s Pickford, M ary, 1 1 4 , 2 2 7
writing, 1 3 2 ; Hollywood, 2 5 3 Pickford-Lasky, 1 1 4
Orczy, Baroness, 304 P ic t u r e g o e r , 3 1 7
Orme, Charles, 3 4 5 , 3 5 5 Pidgeon, Walter, 35 3
Orme, Gwynneth M ay Zillah, s e e Piel, Harry, 63
Pressburger, Wendy P ilg r im 's P r o g r e s s , 234
 IND EX
Pinewood studios: wartime requisition,
16 0 ; Rank purchase, 1 9 1 ; M a t t e r o f L i f e
a n d D e a t h , 2 5 4 ; art department, 26 2;
B l a c k N a r c is s u s , 26 6; R e d S h o e s , 2 9 1 ,
2 9 3 ; head of production, 3 5 7
Podehl, Fritz, 5 6 -8 , 7 1 , 93, 10 8 - 9 , 13 0
Podola murder trial, 37 0
Pommer, Erich: C a lig a r i, 6 5 ; Ufa position,
70 ; scripts, 7 1 ; sacked by Ufa, 9 5 ; work
in France, 10 5 , 10 8 ; émigré fund, 13 0
P ort A rth u ry 1 15
Portman, Eric: 4 9 t h P a r a lle l , 1 7 3 , 1 7 4 ,
17 8 , 1 8 1 n, 18 5 ; S q u a d r o n L e a d e r X,
19 6 ; considered for B l i m p y 2 1 9 ;
C a n t e r b u r y T a le , 238
P o r t r a it o f J e n n y y 308
Potter, Sally, 39 7
Powell, Columba (Michael’s son), 36 1
Powell, Dilys, 2 3 9 , 25 8 , 402
Powell, Frankie (Michael’s first wife), 2 4 3,
2 5 2 , 2 6 1 , 3 4 3 , 3 6 1 , 408
Powell, Michael (Mick, Micky):
partnership with EP, xvii-xviii, 1 5 3 - 6 ,
17 0 , 1 9 2 - 4 , 2 1 3 - 1 4 , 2 3 1 - 3 , 2 6 3 -4 ,
2 7 0 -1, 2 9 4 -5 , 3 1 8 - 1 9 , 3*6, 3 3 1 , 333,
3 5 9 - 6 2 , 3 8 2 - 4 , 4 0 2 - 7 , 4 1 3 ; appearance
and dress, 4, 17 4 , 1 4 5 - 6 ,4 0 0 ; T h e S p y in
B la c k y 1 2 2 , 1 4 5 - 6 , 1 5 0 - 3 ; first meets EP,
1 4 0 , 1 4 5 —6; career, 1 4 6 - 7 ; father’s
hotel, 14 6 , 2 3 9 , 3 3 3 ; difficult to work
with, 1 5 5 - 6 , 1 9 2 - 3 , 24 8 , 26 7 , 2 9 3 -4 ,
3 1 8 , 32 6 , 3 3 3 , 36 0 ; T h i e f o f B a g d a d ,
15 7 , 2 4 1 , 2 7 5 ; C o n tra b a n d y 1 6 0 -3 ;
affair with Agi, 16 4 ; Canadian journey,
16 6 —7 1 ; EP deportation threat, 1 7 1 - 2 ;
4 9 t h P a r a l l e l 1 7 3 - 8 1 ; ‘White Cliffs’
project, 1 8 3 - 4 ; setting up The Archers,
1 8 7 - 9 0 ; war propaganda films, 19 2 ­
2 0 3 ; B lim p y 2 0 6 - 2 8 ; religion, 2 3 4 ;
C a n t e r b u r y T a le , 2 3 4 - 4 0 ; A M a t t e r o f
L i f e a n d D e a th y 2 4 1 - 2 ; F if t h C o l u m n ,
2 4 1 ; theatre projects, 2 4 1 , 3 3 3 , 3 3 4 ; /
K n o w W h e r e T m G o in g y 2 4 2 - 9 , 25 0 ; A
M a t t e r o f L i f e a n d D e a th y 2 5 0 - 8 ; US
visit, 2 5 2 - 3 ; ideas for films ( 1 9 4 5 -6 ) ,
2 6 1 - 4 ; Independent Frame, 2 6 2 - 3 , *6 4,
26 6; B la c k N a r c is s u s y 2 6 4 - 7 2 ; R e d
S h o e s , 2 7 3 —87, 290—7 ; Korda contracts,
2 9 8 - 3 0 3 , 3 1 9 , 3 3 2 - 3 , 3 5 8 ; E l u s iv e
P im p e m e ly 3 0 3 - 7 , 3 1 5 - 1 8 ; G o n e to
E a rth y 3 0 8 - 1 5 ; Canadian scheme, 3 1 9 ;
T a le s o f H o f f m a n n y 3 2 0 - 3 1 ; III M e t B y
461
M o o n lig h ty 3 3 2 - 3 , 3 5 1 , 3 5 9 - 6 1 ; inherits
French hotel, 3 3 3 ; ideas for projects,
3 3 3 - 4 ; energy on set, 3 3 6 ; ‘ Bouquet’,
3 4 8 -9 ; ‘Salt of the Earth, 3 4 9 - 5 1 ;
Korda’s attitude to, 3 5 2 ; ‘Taj M ahal’ ,
3 5 2 ; Buenos Aires festival, 3 5 2 - 3 ; B a t tle
o f th e R iv e r P la t e , 3 5 2 - 4 , 3 5 7 - 8 ;
O h .. .R o s a lin d a H y 3 5 4 - 7 ; Rank contract
offer, 3 5 8 - 9 ; end of partnership with EP,
3 5 9 - 6 2 ; ‘ Face Like England’ suggestion,
36 7 ; on K illin g a M o u se y 37 6 ; solo
career, 3 8 1 - 2 ; unbankable, 38 2 , 396 ;
T h e y 'r e a W e ir d M o b y 3 8 1 - 3 ; Frayn
meeting, 3 8 5 ; ‘ Russian Interpreter’,
3 8 5 - 6 ; lends money to EP, 38 9 ; EP’s
return to England, 3 9 0 - 1 ; pariah of
British film industry, 3 9 3 - 4 , 396;
retrospectives, 3 9 6 - 7 ; Scorsese contacts,
39 8 ; Desert Island Discs, 3 9 9 -4 0 0 ; BBC
Arena programme, 400; B A F T A and BFI
fellowships, 4 0 0 -1 , 4 0 3; given main
credit for films, 4 0 2 - 5 ; continuing
attempts at collaboration, 4 0 5 - 7 ; second
marriage, 4 0 8 -9 ; EP’s funeral, 4 1 1 ; EP’s
obituary, 4 1 2 ; memoirs, 4 1 2 ; s e e a ls o
Archers
P o w e r a n d th e G l o r y , T h e y 1 1 4
Pozzo, Giuliana, 1 1 3
P r e c io u s B a n e , 3o8n
Preminger, Otto, 393
Pressburger, Agi (née Donath, EP’s first
wife), 1 3 3 , 1 3 9 - 4 0 , 1 5 3 , 1 6 3 , 1 6 4 - 5 ,
346
Pressburger, Andor (EP’s cousin), 259
Pressburger, Angela Carole (EP’s daughter):
birth, 2 1 2 ; memories of father, 230 , 289,
32 0 ; childhood, 23 9 , 2 8 8 -9 , 3 M , 33 4 ,
3 3 5 ; father’s feeling for, 2 4 5 , 34 8 , 388,
398, 4 1 1 ; sickness, 3 1 4 ; skiing in
Kitzbiihel, 3 3 4 ; twin tea-party, 3 3 5 ;
memories of mother’s admirer, 34 4 ;
parents’ divorce, 3 4 5 - 6 , 3 4 7 ; baby, 38 8 ;
divorce, 390, 398
Pressburger, Arnold, 9 1, 1 1 2
Pressburger, Bandi (EP’s cousin), 30, 3 4 - 5 ,
39, 43 , *59
Pressburger, Benjamin (EP’s grandfather), 7
Pressburger, Emeric (Imre Jôzsef,
Emmerich): partnership with Powell,
xvii-xviii, 1 5 3 - 6 , 17 0 , 1 9 2 - 4 , 2 1 3 - 1 4 ,
* 3 1 —3, * 6 3 - 4 , * 7 0 - 1 , 2 9 4 -5 , 3 1 8 - 1 9 ,
3* 6 , 33 1 » 333» 3 5 9 -6 2 , 3 8 2 - 4 , 4 0 2 - 7 ,
462
4 1 3 ; grandson’ s memories, x viii-xix, 37 ,
3 9 8 - 9 , 4 1 1 ; appearance and dress, xviii,
3, 1 8 , 1 2 3 , 1 4 5 , 1 7 4 , 24 7 , 289, 3 9 5 ;
passion for food, xviii, 1 3 - 1 4 , 22,
1 54—5 , 1 6 3 - 4 , 3 7 5 , 3 9 3 , 399, 4 0 9 - 1 0 ;
screenwriting, 3 - 4 ; Oscar nominations,
3, 2 0 3 ; childhood, 7 —9; love of music,
9—10 , 22 , 32 0 , 38 8 ; violin-playing, 10 ,
1 7 , 29, 40, 4 1 - 2 ; religion, 10 , 4 2 - 3 , 2 3 4 ,
4 1 1 ; school, 9^-15, 1 7 - 1 8 ; stories,
1 2 - 1 3 , 44 “ 5i 5 ° ; love ar|d sex, T3> *°>
2 3 , 3 2 , 38 , 5 0 -5 , 1 1 3 , 1 3 3 , 353, 370- 3 ;
First World W ar, 1 4 - 1 6 ; experience of
anti-Semitism, 16 , 2 8 - 9 , 92, 9 6 - 10 0 ,
19 4 , 3 8 9 -9 0 ; university plans, 1 8 - 2 0 ;
Prague technical college, 2 0 -8 ; football
fan, 22 , 1 2 3 - 4 , 154, 19 2 , 33 *, 345, 393 ;
cinema-going, 2 2 ; translations, 23 , 38 ;
buys projector, 24 ; discovers ‘shepherd’s
syndrome’, 25 , 3 9 7 ; finances, 2 8 -9 , 38,
4 2 - 5 , 4 9, i n - 1 2 , 1 1 3 - 1 4 , 1 1 9 , 12 2 ,
3 7 7 , 3 8 6 - 7 , 3 8 9 , 4 0 1 ; Stuttgart technical
college, 2 8 - 3 3 ; Pressburger Quartet, 29;
radio business venture, 3 4 - 5 ; military
service, 36 ; leaves Romania, 36, 38 ;
surviving in Berlin, 3 8 - 4 5 ; short story
writing, 4 4 - 5 , 50; publication, 4 5 - 8 ;
scriptwriting, 49, 5 5 - 7 ; Traute affair,
5 0 - 5 ; getting started in films, 5 6 -9 ;
A b s c h ie d , 6 6 - 7 2 ; Ufa D r a m a t u r g ie
department post, 7 0 - 8 2 , 90, 92, 12 8 ,
2 1 4 ; cars, 7 2 , 84, 288, 3 3 2 , 39 5 ; life in
Berlin, 8 3—4 ; film industry Jewish purge,
9 2 - 6 ; leaving Germany, 99—10 0;
attitude to Nazis, 10 0, 1 3 4 ,1 8 0 , 2 2 1 - 2 ,
2 2 5 - 6 , 229n, 3 4 1 , 36 7, 37 9 ; life in Paris,
1 0 1 - 1 8 ; work for Productions Arys,
1 0 5 - 7 ; M y H e a r t is C a llin g , 1 1 2 ; film
projects, 1 1 2 - 1 5 ; M o n s ie u r S a n s - G ê n e ,
1 1 4 -, L a V ie P a r is ie n n e , 1 1 5 - 1 8 ; moves
to London, 1 1 8 - 1 9 ; early years in
Britain, 1 2 0 - 4 ; early work in Britain,
1 2 8 - 3 6 ; A S o u r c e o f Ir r it a t io n , 1 3 2 ; T h e
C h a lle n g e , 1 3 4 - 5 ; Hollywood plans,
1 3 6 - 8 ; marriage, 1 3 9 -4 0 ; works for
Korda, 1 4 3 —58 ; first meets Powell, 140,
1 4 5 - 6 ; S p y in B l a c k , 1 4 4 - 5 2 ; writing
habits, 1 5 3 , 2 1 4 , 2 3 0 - 3 ; Central Register
of Aliens with Special Skills, 15 8 ; Central
Registry of Aliens, 1 59; C o n t r a b a n d ,
1 6 0 - 3 ; divorce, 1 6 4 - 5 , 34 6; war
propaganda films, 1 6 5 - 7 1 , 1 8 4 - 5 , 190—
IN D E X
2 0 3; Canadian journey, 1 6 7 - 7 1 ;
deportation threat, 1 7 1 - 2 ; 4 9 t h P a r a lle l,
1 7 2 - 8 2 ; film union membership, 18 4 ;
emigré politics, 1 8 5 ; wartime diaries,
1 8 5 - 7 ; setting up The Archers, 1 8 7 - 9 0 ;
second marriage, 190 , 2 1 0 - 1 2 , 2 6 1 ; O n e
o f O u r A ir c r a ft , 1 9 1 - 5 ; S q u a d r o n
L e a d e r X , 1 9 5 - 6 ; S il v e r F le e t , 2 0 0 - 1 ;
T h e V o lu n t e e r , 2 0 1 - 2 ; Oscar
nominations and award, 2 0 3; contents of
pockets, 20 5; inner life, 2 0 5 - 6 ; C o l o n e l
B l i m p , 2 0 6 - 2 8 ; courtship of Wendy,
2 1 0 - 1 2 ; marriage, 2 1 2 ; birth of daughter
Angela, 2 1 2 ; study of Britain, 229—30;
C a n t e r b u r y T a le , 2 3 3 - 4 0 ; I K n o w W h e r e
I ’m G o i n g , 2 4 2 - 9 ; A M a t t e r o f L i f e a n d
D e a t h , 2 5 0 - 8 ; US visit, 2 5 2 - 3 ; return to
Miskolc, 259 —60; British citizenship,
2 6 1 ; ideas for films ( 1 9 4 5 -6 ) , 2 6 1 - 4 ;
B la c k N a r c is s u s , 2 6 4 - 7 2 ; R e d S h o e s ,
* 7 3 - 8 7 , 2-90-7; Hampstead lifestyle,
2 8 7 - 9 0 ; second daughter’s birth and
death, 290 ; acting career, 2 9 1 ; Korda
contracts, 2 9 8 - 3 0 3 , 3 1 9 , 3 3 2 - 3 , 3 5 8 ;
E l u s iv e P im p e r n e l, 30 3 —7, 3 1 5 —18 ;
G o n e to E a r t h , 3 0 8 - 1 5 ; wife’s illness,
3 1 4 ; T a le s o f H o f f m a n n , 3 2 0 - 3 1 ; III M e t
B y M o o n lig h t , 3 3 2 - 3 , 3 5 1 , 3 5 9 - 6 1 ;
T w i c e U p o n a T im e , 3 3 4 —7, 34 4 ;
directing, 3 3 5 - 6 ; ‘ Golden Years’ project,
3 3 7 - 4 2 , 3 4 5 ; divorce from Wendy,
3 4 4 - 8 ; interest in astrology, 3 4 5 ;
‘ Bouquet’ , 3 4 8 -9 , 3 5 1 ; ‘ Salt of the Earth,
3 4 9 - 5 1 ; ‘Taj M ahal’ , 3 5 2 ; Buenos Aires
festival, 3 5 2 - 3 ; B a t tle o f th e R i v e r P la t e ,
3 5 2 - 4 , 3 5 7 - 8 ; M ai Zetterling affair,
3 5 3 ; O h . . . R o s a l in d a ! !, 3 5 4 - 7 ; flat in
Eaton Square, 3 5 6 - 7 , 38 6 ; Rank
contract offer, 3 5 8 - 9 ; end of partnership
with Powell, 3 5 9 - 6 2 ; crisis of identity,
3 6 5 ; M ir a c le in S o h o , 3 6 5 - 7 ; ‘ Face Like
England’ suggestion, 3 6 7 ; Gandhi
project, 3 6 7 - 7 0 ; new circle of friends,
3 7 2 - 4 ; writing novels, 3 7 4 -8 0 , 38 8 ,
4 0 2; Austrian house, 3 7 7 - 8 , 3 8 6 - 7 ,
3 8 9 -9 0 ; O p e r a t io n C r o s s b o w , 3 8 0 - 1 ;
pseudonym, 3 8 1 ; T h e y 'r e a W e ir d M o b ,
3 8 1 - 3 ; working with Powell again,
1 8 2 - 4 ; Austrian anti-Semitism, 38 9;
moves back to England, 3 9 0 - 1 ;
Shoemaker’s Cottage, Aspall, 3 9 1,
3 9 2 - 3 , 4 1 1 ; retirement lifestyle, 3 9 2 - 5 ;
 IN D EX
retrospectives, 3 9 6 - 7 , 4 0 3 ; Scorsese
contact, 39 8 ; Desert Island Discs, 399­
4 00; BBC Arena programme, 400;
B A F T A and BFI fellowships, 4 0 0 - 1 , 4 0 3 ;
concern over credits, 4 0 2 - 5 ; continuing
attempts at collaboration, 4 0 5 - 7 ;
melancholia, 40 8 ; Powell’s second
marriage, 4 0 8 -9 ; Pig Committee,
4 0 9 - 1 0 ; health in old age, 4 1 0 - 1 1 ; death
and funeral, 4 1 1 - 1 2 ; B A F T A memorial
evening, 4 1 2 ; s e e a ls o Archers
Pressburger, Gizella (née Wichs, EP’s
mother): family background, 5, 10 ;
marriage, 5, 7 ; EP’s education, 10 ; EP’s
film-show, 24 ; sends food parcels to EP,
30 ; husband’s death, 3 3 ; lives with EP,
5 3 - 4 , 57 , 70 ; Berlin flat, 84; returns to
Miskolc, 9 6 - 7 ; EP sends money to, 109,
1 1 3 - 1 4 , 1 3 1 ; EP’s last visit, 97, 13 2 - 3 ;
death, 9 7, 1 3 2 - 3 , 22 6 , 25 9 , 260
Pressburger, Gizella (wife of Andor), 259
Pressburger, Gyôrgy (EP’s cousin), 2 5 9 -6 0
Pressburger, Henrietta, 6
Pressburger, Imre (son of Andor), 259
Pressburger, Janos (EP’s uncle), 29
Pressburger, Jôzsef (EP’s cousin), 29, 259)
Pressburger, Jôszefa (née Fisher, EP’s
grandmother), 7
Pressburger, Kalman (EP’s father), 5, 7 , 1 0 ,
¿ 4,33
Pressburger, Karoly (EP’s uncle), 29, 30,
33- 5, 9 i, ¿59
Pressburger, M arco (EP’s uncle), 29, 259
Pressburger, M argit (EP’s sister), 7, 259
Pressburger, M ariska (father’s sister), 1 1
Pressburger, Mihaly (EP’s uncle), 259
Pressburger, Sally-Sue (EP’s daughter), 290,
344
Pressburger, Wendy (née Orme, then
Green, EP’s second wife, eventually
Newman): influence on EP’s work, 4,
2 4 5 ; appearance, 2 1 0 , 289, 34 4, 3 4 7 ;
EP’s courtship and marriage, 2 1 0 - 1 2 ;
background, 2 1 1 ; daughter’s birth, 2 1 2 ;
Devon holiday, 2 3 9 ; Scottish trip, 2 6 1;
recommends B l a c k N a r c is s u s , 26 5;
Scandinavian trip, 2 6 7 ; lifestyle with EP,
2 8 7 —90, 34 4 , 3 5 7 ; birth and death of
second daughter, 290, 3 4 4 ; American
trips, 290, 2 9 2 ; polio, 3 1 4 ; ski holiday,
3 3 4 ; T w i c e U p o n a T im e , 3 3 5 ; admirers,
3 4 4 ; divorce, 3 4 4 - 8
463
Preszburger, Abraham, 6
‘ Pretty British Affair, A ’, 400
Price, Dennis, 238
Priestley, J.B ., 12 3 , 1 4 3 , 1 8 5
P r iv a te L i f e o f H e n r y V I I I , T h e , 1 2 5 ,1 2 6 ,
1 3 2 , 27 4 , 328n
Productions Arys, 1 0 5 - 6
‘Promotion of the Admiral, The’, 29 5, 299,
,
3 0 3 319
Pun ch , 14 6 , 209, 3 1 5
Putnam, David, 401
P y g m a lio n , 1 6 2 , 1 7 0 , 2 1 7
Q u a i d e s B r u m e s , 68, io5n
Quayle, Anthony, 3 5 5
Q u e e n 's G u a r d s , T h e , 38 2
Quinn, Anthony, 3 7 7
Rabinovitch, Gregor, 9 1, 9 3 , 1 1 2
Rachmaninov, Sergei, 276
R a g in g B u ll, 398
‘ Rain-Makers, The’, 395
Rainer, Luise, 91
Rambert, Marie, 285
Ramon, George, 97, 1 0 9 - 1 0 , 1 1 8 , 12 0 ,
13 9 , 186
R an k,J. Arthur: funds 4 9 t h P a r a lle l, 17 8 ;
background, 1 9 1 ; turns down O n e o f
O u r A ir c r a ft , 1 9 1 , 1 9 6 - 7 ; Archers
negotiations, 19 3 ; Archers agreement,
1 97, 3 3 7 ; Independent Producers,
i 98~9; S ilv e r F le e t , 200; B li m p , 22 3,
226, 2 2 7 ; P ilg r im 's P r o g r e s s project,
2 3 4 ; Independent Frame process, 2 6 2 - 3 ;
hands over to Davis, 29 2 ; attitude to
budgets, 2 9 5 ; Archers discussions, 3 5 1
Rank Organisation: / K n o w W h e r e I 'm
G o i n g profits, 249; United Artists
distribution deal, 2 5 2 ; ‘ rationalization’
programme, 29 2 ; R e d S h o e s , 2 9 5 - 7 ;
Archers split, 297, 298, 3 1 8 , 3 1 9 ;
Archers discuss return, 3 4 2 - 3 , 3 5 1 ;
B a t tle o f th e R iv e r P la te , 3 5 7 ; seven-
picture contract offer, 3 5 8 - 9 ; III M e t B y
M o o n lig h t , 3 5 9 -6 0 ; M ir a c le in S o h o ,
3 6 5 ; EP not bankable, 36 7 ; Children’s
Film Foundation, 394
Rawlings, Joy, 291
Rawnsley, David, 24 7 , 26 2
Ray, Satyajit, 401
Raymond, Ernest, 37 0
R e b e ll, D e r , 134
464 IN D E X

R e d Sh oes, T h e : illusionist cinema, 9; Roswalt, Franz (Francis Rosenwald),

subjective reality, 3 3 , 3 2 4 ; musical 12 8 -30 , 253
technique, 90, 3 2 0 ; setting, 1 1 2 ; Rotha, Paul, 13 4
development, 1 5 6 ; Lermontov, 2 1 9 , Rothenberger, Anneliese, 3 5 5
2 8 5 - 6 , 2 7 8 ; influence, 2 7 3 ; origins, Rotter, Fritz, 1 2 1
2 7 4 - 6 ; writing and re-writing, 2 7 6 -9 ; Rózsa, Miklós, 14 3 , 1 4 7 , 1 6 2 , 2 5 3
creative team, 2 8 0 -7 ; filming, 2 9 0 -4 ; ‘ Russian Interpreter, The’, 38 4 , 38 5
budget, 29 2 , 29 5 , 3 0 2 ; reception, 2 9 6 -7 ,
3 1 5 , 3 3 7 ; theme, 3 2 5 ; book on ballet Sabu, 1 5 7 , 262n, 26 7
sequence, 3 2 5 ; experimentation, 3 3 8 ; Safra, Michel, 1 1 5
Powell on, 3 8 1 ; musical, 400, 4 0 7 ; novel St Cyr, Renée, 1 0 5 , 1 0 6
project, 406 St John, Earl, 3 5 1 , 3 5 7
Redgrave, Michael, 1 5 6 , 26 4, 3 5 5 S t P e t e r ’s U m b r e lla , 33 4
Reed, Carol, 19 6 , 299, 308, 33 6 Sanyi, Vero, 9 8 ,1 0 9
Reimann, Hans, 73 Sargent, Sir Malcolm, 18 3
Reinhardt, M ax, 67, 1 1 5 , 1 5 7 , 1 7 2 Sarris, Andrew, 2 2 7 , 2 7 1 , 39 7
Reisch, Walter, 7 0 , 1 2 8 ‘ Satyr, The’, 1 0 8 , 1 1 4
Reitzer, Ernst, 20, 2 8 - 9 Savile Club, 39 5 , 39 8 ,4 0 0
Rembrandt, 25 S c a r le t P im p e r n e l, T h e , 303
R e m b r a n d t , 22 3 Schanzer, Rudolph, 88
‘ Remember Jan de W it!’, 200 Schary, Doré, 3 3 7
Revesz, Imre, 3 9 - 4 0 , 52 Scheurmann family, 50
Riabouchinska, Tatiana, 276 Schmidt-Gentner, Willy, 4 1 , 91
R ic h a r d I I I , 366 Schneider, M agda, 9 1 , 92
Richardson, M u, 288 Schneider, Romy, 91
Richardson, Ralph: friendship with EP, Schoenberg, Arnold, 1 3 1 , 2 5 5
10 5 , 28 8 , 3 9 5 ; Pageant performance, S c h ö n e A b e n t e u e r , D a s (‘The Beautiful
1 8 5 ; casting hope for O n e o f O u r Adventure’ ), 88, 99
A ir c r a f t , 1 9 1 ; S ilv e r F le e t , 2 0 0 - 1 ; T h e Schoonmaker, Thelma, 398 , 408
V o lu n t e e r , 2 0 1 - 3 , 2 3 4 ; considered for Schopflinn, Julian and Katia, 409, 4 1 1
B l i m p , 2 1 9 ; Weizmann project, 3 5 1 ; Schubert, Franz, 3 2
Savile Club, 395 Schüfftan, Eugen (Eugène Shuftan), 64, 68,
Riefenstahl, Leni, 13 4 8 1, 10 4, 13 0 , 25 3
Rigaud, George, 1 1 6 Schünzel, Reinhold: style, 8 3, 8 6 - 7 ; career,
R in g s o n H e r F in g e r s , 1 7 3 , 2 3 0 8 6 - 7 , 1 3 1, 13 6 ; relationship with EP,
R K O British, 196 8 6 - 7 , 90, 1 8 1 - 2 , 2 5 3 , 290; attacked as
R o b b e r S y m p h o n y , T h e , 27on Nazi collaborator, 1 3 1 , 13 6 ; Hollywood
Robinson, Edward G., 12 8 experiences, 1 3 6 - 8 , 2 5 3 ; D o p p e l t e
Roboz, ZsuZsi, 3 7 2 L o t t c h e n viewing, 3 3 4 ; Kitzbühel, 344
Robson, Flora, 26 7 Scorsese, Martin, 19 8 , 2 7 3 , 3 2 7 , 3 9 7 - 8 ,
Robson, M .M . and E.W ., 229 408, 4 1 1
Roc, Patricia, 26 4, 266 Scott, Sir Walter, 25 2, 4 1 1 - 1 2
Romero, George, 32 7 0 , 39 7 Screenwriters’ Association, 18 4
Rona, M agda, s e e Kabos Seabourne, John, 16 7 , i6 7 n
Ronnie (gardener), 4 10 Seaver, Edwina, 286
R o n n y , 8 8 -9 0 Sehnsucht 1 0 1 (‘Desire 2 0 2 ’ ), 9 1
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 39 Selous, William Boyd, 299
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 186 Selznick, David O.: G o n e w it h th e W in d ,
Roosevelt, Theodore, 13 14 9 ; C o n t r a b a n d offer, 17 0 ; 4 9 t h
R o s e n k a v a lie r , D e r , 32 0 , 3 3 2 , 339 P a r a lle l offer, 17 8 ; S q u a d r o n L e a d e r X
Rosmer, Milton, 13 4 negotiations, 19 6 ; Kim Hunter contract,
Rostov, Dimitri, 276 2 5 3 ; Powell negotiations, 296: Korda co-
 IN D EX
production deal, 30 2, 3 0 7 - 8 ; P im p e r n e l,
3 0 7 ; career decline, 30 8 ; G o n e to E a r t h ,
3 0 9 - 1 5 ; Korda lawsuits, 3 1 3 - 1 4 , 3 1 5
S e v e n t h VeM, T h e , 286
S e v e n t h V ic tim , T h e , 2 5 3
Sewell, Vernon, 200, 2 0 in
Shakespeare, William, 18 3
Sharif, Omar, 3 7 7
Shaw, George Bernard, 1 7 3 , 18 5 , 245
Shearer, M oira, 2 8 3 , 2 8 6 - 7 , 2.9 1-4 , 32.2.,
330
Shepperton Studios, 298, 30 2, 3 1 2 , 32 5
Sherwood, Robert, 1 7 1
Shuftan, s e e Schiifftan
Sidneyan Society, 229
Sieff, Israel, 349
S ig h t a n d S o u n d , 3 56, 3 9 7
S ile n t B a t tle , T h e , 1 5 2
Sillitoe, Percy, 23 9
S il v e r F le e t , T h e : original treatment and
alterations, 2 0 0 - 1 ; Denham production,
2 2 3 ; ‘sympathy for the enemy’, 22 6 ;
Hillier’s camerawork, 2 3 8 ; American
release, 25 0 ; music, 256
Sim, Sheila, 8, 238
Simmons, Jean, 26 7 , 269
S in g in g F o o l , T h e , 49
Siodmak, Curt, 63, 1 1 5 - 1 6 , 1 2 1 , 12 8 , 25 3
Siodmak, Robert: M e n s c h e n a m S o n n t a g ,
xiii, 58, 6 3 - 4 ; background, 6 3;
A b s c h ie d , 66, 68, 69; L a C r is e es t F in ie ,
10 7 ; A b d u l th e D a m n e d , 1 1 5 ; L a V ie
P a r is ie n n e , 1 1 6 , 1 1 8 ; cameraman, 1 2 1 ;
Hollywood, 2 5 3 ; G o n e to E a r t h , 3 1 5 ;
Kitzbiihel, 34 4
Skouras, Spyros, 3 5 3 , 3 5 7
S le e p in g B e a u t y , 3 3 3
S m a ll B a c k R o o m , T h e : Powell’s idea, 26 3,
26 4, 30 0; contract, 299, 30 2 ; story, 299­
300, 3 1 8 ; casting, 30 0; censorship
pressures, 300; filming, 3 0 0 - 1 ;
reception, 3 0 1 ; budget, 3 1 2
10 7
S n o w W h it e ,
Société des Films Franco-Britanniques, 1 5 2
Sokoloff, Vladimir, 67, 69
Solti, Georg, 399
13 2
S o u r c e o f I r r it a t io n , A ,
S o u s les T o it s d e P a r is , 69
‘ Southwest Frontier’, 1 5 3
S p e c t a t o r , 12 8 , 2 5 8 , 258
S p e l l b o u n d , 30 1
Spellman, Cardinal, 2 7 1
465
Spiegel, Sam, 96, 346, 369
Spielberg, Steven, 39 7
S p io n e , 65
S p y in B la c k , T h e : EP’s first film with
Powell, 1 2 2 ; EP transforms screenplay,
1 4 4 - 5 , 1 4 8 -9 ; EP’s contract, 1 4 7 - 8 ;
casting, 14 9 ; filming, 1 5 0 - 2 , 3o8n;
reception, 15 8 ; scripts, 23 0 ; Goring’s
role, 2 5 4 ; King George’s enjoyment of,
257
S q u adron Lea d er X , 1 9 5 - 6 , 22 3
Stapenhorst, Gunther von (Stapi): Ufa
position, 70; E m i l a n d th e D e te c tiv e s ,
7 4 - 5 ; career, 8 5 - 6 ; relationship with EP,
8 6 -7 , h i , 1 2 2 - 3 , *89, 349, 35 4 , 3 7 6 - 7 ,
3 8 7 ; Hitler’s visit, 1 1 0 ; Nazi offer,
1 1 0 - 1 1 ; leaves Germany, 1 1 1 , 13 6 , 22 6 ;
Stoll contract, 12 2 , 1 3 1 ; football fan,
1 2 3 ; Gaumont British contract, 1 3 1 ,
1 3 3 ; G r e a t B a r r ie r , 1 3 1 ; Carlton Films,
1 3 3 ; T h e C h a lle n g e , 13 3 - 5 ; EP’s
wedding, 13 9 ; Korda relationship, 14 3 ;
ballet film project, 2 7 4 - 5 ; D as D o p p e lt e
L o t t c h e n , 3 3 4 ; Kitzbiihel, 34 4 ; EP’s
work for, 35 2 , 384
Stapenhorst, M arga, n o , 1 2 2 , 1 2 4 ,
3 7 9 - 8 0 ,3 8 7 - 8
Stern, G.B., 2 7 4 -5
Stern, Karl, 104
S te r n v o n V a le n c ia s (‘Star of Valencia’ ), 93
Sternberg, Joseph von, 96, i2 7 n , 274
Stewart, Hugh, 1 5 1 , 1 5 2
Stoll, Oswald, 1 2 2 , 1 3 1
Stolz, Robert, 88
S t o r y o f G il b e r t a n d S u lliv a n , T h e , 3 35
Strabolgi, Lady Geraldine, 374
S t r a n d M a g a z in e , 14 6
‘Strasse, Die’, 44
Straus, Oscar, 8 8 , 1 1 5
Strauss, Richard, 320 , 3 3 2 , 3 3 5 , 3 3 7 - 4 1 ,
354
Strausz, Gerard L., 1 1 4
Stravinsky, Igor, 25
Streeter, Sydney: memories of Junge’s
work, 2 5 5 ; P im p e r n e l, 30 4; T a le s o f
H o f f m a n n , 3 2 2 ; memories of Powell’s
hotel, 3 3 3 , 360; T w i c e U p o n a T im e ,
3 3 5—6; comparison of direction methods,
3 3 6 ; Weizmann project 350 ; III M e t B y
M o o n lig h t , 360; M ir a c le in S o h o , 366
‘Strike at Asbestos, The’ , 384
15 0
S tu d e n t v o n P r a g , D e r ,
4 66 IN D EX

Sturges, Preston, 1 14 , 2 3 2 Todd, Ann, 28 6, 299

S u n d a y D isp a tc h , 225 Toeplitz de Gran Ry, Ludovico, 1 3 2 , 15 6
S u n d a y E m p i r e N e w s , 306 Toeplitz Productions, 1 3 2
Sun d a y E xp ress, 316 Toller, Ernest, 10 4, h i
S u n d a y T im e s , 2 7 2 , 3 1 6 ,4 0 2 Tolnay, Akos, 12 8
Sutro,John, 16 6 , 17 4 Tolstoy, Leo, 1 1 5
Sweet, John, 238 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 28 3
Szekely, Fricy, 18 Traute, 5 0 -5
Szell, George, 2 2 Treffer (in Tiergarten), 3 9 ,4 4
Trenker, Luis, 1 3 3 - 5
T a b u , 23 8 Trianon Treaty (1920 ), 16, 346
‘Taj M ahal’, 3 5 2 T r ib u n e , 22 5
T a l e o f T w o C it ie s , A , 308 Trivas, Victor, 1 1 5
T a le s o f H o f f m a n n , T h e : illusionist cinema, T r o o p s h ip , 13 4
9; reception, 2 5 ; musical technique, 90; Twentieth Century Fox, 12 9 , 3 5 3 , 3 5 7
opening sequence, 2 4 8 ; Beecham’s T w i c e U p o n a T im e , 3 3 4 - 7 , 34 4 , 3 5 1
suggestion, 3 2 0 - 1 ; story, 3 2 1 ; Korda’s Twist, Derek, 26 2n
attitude, 3 2 2 , 3 2 9 - 3 0 ; score, 3 2 2 - 3 ; ‘T w o Nuns and an Admiral’, 384
screenplay, 3 2 4 - 5 ; use of colour, 3 2 5 ;
filming, 3 2 5 - 7 ; reception, 3 2 8 - 9 ; Ufa (Universal Film A G ): D e r L e t z t e M a n n ,
Cannes awards, 3 3 1 ; Powell’s Desert 3 3 ; EP’s approaches, 49, 5 5 - 6 ;
Island Discs choice, 400 D r a m a t u r g ic department, 5 5 - 6 , 7 0 - 1 ;
Tarjan, George, 16 3 , 18 5 EP’s first commission, 5 6 - 7 ; A b s c h i e d ,
T a t le r , 226 5 8 - 9 , 6 6 -9 ; history, 6 4 -6 ; EP’s post in
Tavernier, Bernard, 3 9 7 D r a m a t u r g ic department, 6 9 - 7 2 , 90;
Tcherina, Ludmilla, 2 8 5 , 3 5 5 D a s E k e l , 7 2 - 4 ; EP’s training, 7 7 , 89;
‘Tea’, 1 2 2 Stapenhorst’s position, 8 5 - 6 ; Schiinzel’s
Tearle, Godfrey, 190 , 294 position, 8 6 - 7 ; D e r K le in e S e it e n s p r u n g ,
Technicolor: T h i e f o f B a g d a d , 1 5 7 ; B l i m p , 8 7; R o n n y , 8 8 -9 0 ; musical techniques,
2 2 5 ; unavailable in war, 2 4 1 ; M a t t e r o f 89; Cine-Allianz deal, 90; A V e n
L ife a n d D ea th , 2 4 1, 2 5 0 - 1 , 256; G a z e m b e r , 9 1 - 2 ; EP’s dismissal, 9 2;
Cardiff’s training, 2 5 6 ; B la c k N a r c is s u s , Jewish purge, 9 3 - 6 ; von Neusser’s post,
2 6 6 ; R e d S h o e s , 2 7 5 , 2 7 7 ; B o n n ie P r in c e 99; working conditions, 10 5 ; turn down
C h a r lie , 3 0 1 ; G o n e to E a r t h , 3 1 2 ; T a le s ‘The Satyr’, 1 1 4 ; Junge’s career, 2 5 5
o f H o ffm a n n , 3 27 Ulmer, Edgar, 64
T e m p e st, T h e , 3 1 9 U n d e r W estern E y e s , 1 1 5
Teruchelvam, Charmini, 3 7 2 ‘ Unholy Passion, The’ , 3 8 8 -9 , 40 2
T e s s o f th e D ’ U r b e r v i lle s , 308 United Artists: L a V ie P a r is ie n n e , 1 1 8 ;
T h e y 'r e a W e ir d M o b , 3 8 1 - 3 C o n t r a b a n d offer, 17 0 ; model, 18 7 ;
T h i e f o f B a g d a d , T h e , 1 5 7 , 2 4 1 , 26 7 , 27on, B l i m p , 2 2 7 ; Rank deal, 2 5 2 , 292n ; EP-

*75 Powell US visit, 2 5 2 ; Korda sells shares,

T h in g s to C o m e , 32 5
T h i r d M a n , T h e , 308, 3 1 3
Thomas, Dylan, 400
Thorndike, Sybil, 3 1 1
T h r e e p e n n y O p e r a , T h e , 83, 106
T h u n d e r in th e C it y , 128
Thynne, Lord Valentine, 3 7 2
T im e magazine, 198, 3 10 , 35 9 , 39 2
T im e s , T h e , 2 39 , 250 , 32 8 , 35 9 , 3 8 1, 388,
39 *
T im e s L i t e r a r y S u p p le m e n t ,
29 8 ; Weizmann project, 349
Universal Pictures, 13 4 , 292n
‘ Upstart C ro w ’, 18 3 0
Ustinov, Peter, 246
V a lla b ilite D i x J o u r s , 1 1 2 - 1 3
Valois, Ninette de, 28 7
van Thai, Dennis, 4 01
Vansittart, Sir Robert (later Lord
Vansittart), 1 2 5 , 14 7 , 220
376, 380 V a r ie ty , 69, 88, 89, 10 8, 1 1 8 , 1 5 5 , 1 6 1 ,
 IND EX 467

198, 257 , 273, 297, 356, 377 ‘White Cliffs, The’, 18 3

Veidt, Conrad: Hollywood, 6 6 ,1 7 0 ; film
debut, 86; friendship with EP, 10 5 ,
1 6 0 - 1 'y S p y in B l a c k , 1 4 4 , 1 4 5 , 1 4 7 ,
1 4 9 - 5 1 ; T h ie f o f B a g d a d , 15 7 ;
C o n t r a b a n d , 16 0 - 2 , 17 0 ; death, 2 5 3n
Veidt, Lilo, 25 3
V e n G a z e m b e r , A , 9 , 1 3 , 7 2 , 9 1 - 2 , 98,
12 1
Venice Film Festival, 30 7 , 3 1 4
Verne, Jules, 1 3 , 3 2 , 1 5 9
Vicky (cartoonist), 16 3
‘Victorious Defeat’, 1 8 6 , 1 9 5
Vidor, King, 3 1 5
V ie P a r is ie n n e , L a , 1 1 5 - 1 8
V i k t o r u n d V ik t o r ia , 86
V o lu n t e e r , T h e , 2 0 1 - 3 , 2.240, 2-34
V o s s is c h e Z e i t u n g , 44
Wagner, Richard, 3 4 1
‘Waiting Game, The’, 3 4 2 , 36 2
Wakefield, Duggie, 15 6
W albrook, Anton: B l i m p , 3, 2 1 8 , 2 2 3 , 22 4 ;
friendship with EP, 10 5 , 2 9 2 ; language,
1 5 1 , 2 1 8 - 1 9 ; 4 9 t h P a r a lle l , 1 7 2 , 1 7 9 ,
18 2 , 2 1 9 ; career, 2 1 8 - 1 9 ; R e d S h o e s ,
2 1 9 , 27 9 , 2 8 5 - 6 , 2 9 2 ; Hampstead
house, 28 8 ; O h . . . R o s a l in d a ! !, 3 5 5 - 6
Waldenberg, Klara, 10 , 3 5 3
Wallace, Edgar, 3 1 7
Wallburg, Otto, 96
‘Wanted for Murder’ , 1 3 8 , 3 8 2
W a r o f th e N e w t s , 38 4
Warner Brothers, 7 0 , 1 2 9 , 13 0 , 369
Warner UK, 1 5 3 - 4
W a t c h o n th e R h in e , 224
‘White Cockade, The’, 26 1
W ife o f F a th e r C h r is t m a s , T h e , 394
Wilcox, Herbert, 2 18
W i l d H e a r t, T h e , 3 1 5
Wilde, Oscar, 2 5 5 , 284
Wilder, Billy: on M e n s c h e n a m S o n n ta g ,
64; Siodmak split, 66; memories of EP,
7 1 , 2.58—9; E m i l a n d th e D e te c tiv e s , 7 5 ;
on Berlin life, 8 3; Paris émigré life, 10 3 ;
English conversation, 1 2 1 ; émigré fund,
13 0 ; attitude to script alterations, 23 2;
Hollywood, 2 5 3 ; vetting Nazi film­
makers, 258
Wilhelm, Hans, 10 4, 1 2 1 , 12 8 , 13 2 , 15 6
Wilhelm, Wolfgang: moves to London,
1 2 1 ; writing success, 12 8 , 13 2; Kirwan
collaboration, 1 3 4 ; T h e S ile n t B a ttle ,
1 5 2 ; Czarda restaurant émigré group,
16 3 ; EP’s union help, 18 4 ; S q u a d r o n
L e a d e r X , 19 6 ; E n d o f th e R iv e r , 26 2n;
friendship with EP, 288
‘Will Shakespeare’, 18 3
Williams, Edith, 2 18
Williams, Hugh, 3 3 5
Wilson, Sir Arnold, 190
Wilson, Colin, 37 5
Wilson, Harold, 302n, 328
Wimperis, Arthur, 1 1 8
W in n ip e g F r e e P r e s s , 169
Winter, Keith, 2 7 7
Withers, Googie, 1 9 2 - 3
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 3 7 5 , 377
W oolf, C .M ., 19 3
‘Written in the Stars’, 3 6 9 -7 0
W u t h e r in g F le ig h ts , 275

Watkins, A .W ., 19 8 Wyler, William, 3 1 5

W axman, Franz, 10 3
W e , T h e A c c u s e d , 37 0 Young, Freddie, 16 2
Webb, M ary, 3 0 8 -9 Young, Harold, 12 7
Weill, Kurt, 8 3, 1 3 1 Yule, Lady, 19 1
Weisgal, Meyer, 3 4 9 - 5 °
Weisgal, Shirley, 35 0 Zeisler, Alfred, 70, 93
Weiss, Imre, 109 Zemlinsky, Alexander von, 22
Weiss (owner of Czarda restaurant), 2 1 0 Zetterling, Mai, 35 3
Weizmann, Chaim, 3 4 9 - 5 1 Zinnemann, Fred, 64, 3 7 1
Welisch, Ernst, 88 Zoetrope Studios, 398, 401
Welles, Orson, 2 2 7 , 3 5 5 , 35 9 , 384>4QI Zumsteg, Frau, 309
Wellesley, Gordon, 200 Zunz, Frau, 96
Wells, H .G ., 15 9 Z w e i m a l S y lv e s t e r (‘Twice Times New

W e r Z a h l t H e u t e N o c h ! (‘Who Bothers to Year’ ), 1 1 5

Pay N ow adays’ ), 9 1 , 9 1
i. The Pressburger family, c. 1900, at Imre’s aunt Mariska’s wedding in Ba^ka Topola.
All eight of her brothers (*) were present.

Back ro w : Kalman Karoly, Jeno, Mihaly*,

Antal*, Markusz*, Janos*, Engel Beno
(the bridegroom), Kalman (Imre’s
father)*, Karoly*, Feri*, Sandor*. M id d le
r o w : Franciska-Fanny, Bella, Fani, Josefa
Fischer (Imre’s grandmother), Mariska
(the bride), Unknown (Kalman’s first
wife), Ilonka, Adel, Berta. F r o n t r o w :
Jozsi (?), Ilonka, Aranka, Margit (Imre’s
sister), Kornelia, Juliska, Joska.

1 . Magda Rona in 1947. Emeric’s first

love, she rejected him ‘ because he was too
short’ , but the two corresponded all their
lives.
 0 2
Uj ’ 1
-■
H -H

ausgestellt:
j. Emeric’s Ufa pass

4. Writing A b s c h ie d , with Irma von Cube in the South of France.

5. A shy young writer surrounded by celebrities. Writing R o n n y (1931) in Bad Ischl with
Emmerich Kalman, Hans Albers and Reinhold Schiinzel.

6. Front and back of the programme for R o n n y (1931), the most expensive film Emeric
worked on at Ufa.
 7. Exile in Paris. With Pierre Brasseur on the Cham ps Elysees, 19 3 3.

8. ‘ I always turn to the sports page first.’ Emeric outside an English football ground
during the season of 1935-6.
9- Em eric’ s first marriage. Left to right: Stapi, M agda Kun, Emeric, Agi and Elizabeth
Ram on.

io . Em eric with M ichael Powell and red setter outside Denham studios shortly after
completing T h e Spy in Black (1939).
i i . Unused to publicity shots, Emeric looks ill at ease with Laurence Olivier on the set
of 49 th P a ra lle l (1941).

12. With Wendy and Angela in the garden of the house in Hendon, 1943.
13- Alfred Junge, M ichael and Emeric pose on the set of A C a n te r b u r y T a le (1944).

4. Em eric making no concessions to the Highlands, with Wendy and a rugged-looking

M ichael Powell on location for / K n o w W h e r e I ’m G o in g (1944).
1 5 . Em eric pleased as punch with W endy, Roger Livesey and Ursula Jeans at the R oyal
Com m and Performance o f A M atter o f Life and Death (1946).

16. Deborah Kerr, Em eric, R um cr Godden, M ichael and Alfred Junge on the set of
Black Narcissus (1947).
i7 - Behind the magic o f the Him alayas. Part o f the set for Black Narcissus (1947).
18 . Kathleen Byron on the same set in the finished film.
 i9- T h e R ed Shoes (1948). In a scene cut from the finished film, Lerm ontov, the
im presario, (Anton W albrook) guides his creative collaborators (Albert Basserman and
Leonid Massine) without interfering.

20. M ichael and Em eric, the twin impresarios, look on as costume designer Jacques
Fath discusses his designs with M oira Shearer and Anton W albrook.
 2 i . J. Arthur Rank, the man who made Th e Archers possible, presents them with a
Japanese aw ard for T h e R ed Shoes - three years after disagreements over the same film
drove them apart.

zz. Em eric admires Sir Th o m as Beecham during a play-through o f T h e Tales o f

H offm an (1950).
 23. With Angela at a children’s matinee.

24. Directing debut. W ith the twins on the set o f T w ice Upon a Tim e
in Kitzbiihel, 19 5 2 .
z$. Em eric seems to have missed the joke. With Hein H eckroth, C o lum ba, Frankie and
M ichael Powell on the set o f T h e Battle o f the R iver Plate.

2.6. En route for Kashmir. David Lean and his purple Rolls-Royce, 1958.
 Z7- Emeric retreats into Shoem aker’s cottage.

z8. Th e distinguished elder statesmen o f British cinema.

29- A photograph taken by M ichael during the M useum o f M odern A rt retrospective.
 Faber Film

Woody Allen
Pedro Almodovar
Alan Bennett
John Boorman
Joel and Ethan Coen
David Cronenberg
Sergei Eisenstein
Peter Greenaway
Graham Greene
John Grierson
Trevor Griffiths
Christopher Harppton
David Hare
Hal Hartley
Derek Jarman
Neil Jordan
Troy Kennedy Martin
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Hanif Kureishi
Akira Kurosawa
Louis Malle
Harold Pinter
Dennis Potter
Michael Powell
Satyajit Ray
Paul Schrader
Martin Scorsese
Steven Soderbergh
Preston Sturges
Andrey Tarkovsky
Robert Towne
François Truffaut
Andrzej Wajda
Wim Wenders