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Million-dollar Movie
The late director offers a behind-the-scenes look at the film industry, detailing clashes with studio bosses and critics, the destruction of his career, and the greats with whom he worked
628 pages, Paperback
Published October 25, 1993
About the author
Michael Powell
9 books3 followersThe son of Thomas William Powell & Mabel (nee Corbett). Michael Powell was always a self confessed movie addict. He was brought up partly in Canterbury ("The Garden of England") and partly in the South of France (where his parents ran an hotel). Educated at Kings School, Canterbury & Dulwich College he first worked at the National Provincial Bank from 1922 - 1925. In 1925 he joined Rex Ingram making Mare Nostrum (1926). He learnt his craft by working at various jobs in the (then) thriving English studios of Denham & Pinewood, working his way up to producer on a series of "quota quickies" (Short films made to fulfill quota/tariff agreements between Britain & America in between the wars).
Very rarely for the times, Powell had a true "world view" and although in the mould of a classic English Gentleman he was always a citizen of the World. It was therefore very fitting that he should team up with an emigree Hungarian Jew Emeric Pressburger, a foreigner who understood the English better than they did themselves. Between them, under the banner of "The Archers" they shared joint credits for an important series of films through the 1940s & 1950s. Powell went alone to make Peeping Tom (1960) which was so slated by the critics at the time, he couldn't work in England, UK for a very long time. He was "re-discovered" in the late 1960s & after Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese tried to set up joint projects with him. In 1980, he lectured at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. He joined was Senior Director in Residence at Zoetrope studio in 1981. He married Thelma Schoonmaker. He died of cancer back in his beloved England in 1990.
(Steve Crook )
Very rarely for the times, Powell had a true "world view" and although in the mould of a classic English Gentleman he was always a citizen of the World. It was therefore very fitting that he should team up with an emigree Hungarian Jew Emeric Pressburger, a foreigner who understood the English better than they did themselves. Between them, under the banner of "The Archers" they shared joint credits for an important series of films through the 1940s & 1950s. Powell went alone to make Peeping Tom (1960) which was so slated by the critics at the time, he couldn't work in England, UK for a very long time. He was "re-discovered" in the late 1960s & after Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese tried to set up joint projects with him. In 1980, he lectured at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. He joined was Senior Director in Residence at Zoetrope studio in 1981. He married Thelma Schoonmaker. He died of cancer back in his beloved England in 1990.
(Steve Crook )
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 13, 2021
The second volume of Michael Powell's memoirs covers the period from "Peeping Tom" to his Australian film adventures, his wilderness years, rediscovery by film scholars, his academic positions, and friendships with Martin Scorsese, relationship with Thelma Schoonmaker, job with Francis Ford Coppola's American Zeotrope studio, and the final works with and the death of Emeric Pressburger. A moving account of art, cinema and life. - BH.
January 5, 2024
As the film director, and great fan of the author, Martin Scorsese said about film-maker Michael Powell’s autobiography – comprising this second edition, Million Dollar Movie, plus its predecessor, A Life In Movies – the two volumes (running to around 1,000 pages in total) represent essential reading for anyone seriously interested in cinema. As Scorsese recognised – from the early days (1950s) of his movie watching on US TV’s series Million Dollar Movie – nobody (before or since, probably) made films of such artistic quality and originality as Powell and his long-time collaborator and screenwriter, Hungarian-born, Emeric Pressburger (together, The Archers) Their list of films is legend and includes Black Narcissus, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Red Shoes (all covered in the first edition), The Small Back Room, The Tales of Hoffmann and Peeping Tom (the latter a Powell-only production and covered in this second edition). In these books, Powell demonstrates that he was nearly as adept at writing prose as he was in envisaging grand spectacle for the big screen.
There is a confidence (arrogance, even) in the story the man tells – here from around 1950 to his death in 1990 – which is shot-through with self-belief, even if, sadly given the increasing priority given to ‘box office’ rather than any concerns of artistic merit or thoughtfulness, the industry in which he found himself did not allow Powell to fully achieve his career dreams. Million Dollar Movie reads almost as a ‘boy’s own adventure’, so extravagant was the man’s take on life. Mixed in with meetings with other similarly single-minded artists as Dylan Thomas, Stravinsky and Orson Welles, Powell frequently traverses the globe in order to collaborate on proposed projects, including one quite amazing flight (a personal favourite passage) from the UK to the US, taking in Croydon, Prestwick, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, …., eventually arriving in New York and in an ‘ancient’ aeroplane piloted by Hughie Green (he of Opportunity Knocks fame!). There are also particularly memorable sections on the productions of the aforementioned The Small Back Room and The Tales of Hoffmann, plus Gone To Earth (some intriguing moments here with David O Selznick and Jennfier Jones), plus Powell’s ambitious undertaking on The Battle of the River Plate. My only minor disappointment was probably on the relative brevity of the section on the man’s final masterpiece, Peeping Tom. As Scorsese said, though, the two editions of the autobiography really are essential reading for all cineastes.
There is a confidence (arrogance, even) in the story the man tells – here from around 1950 to his death in 1990 – which is shot-through with self-belief, even if, sadly given the increasing priority given to ‘box office’ rather than any concerns of artistic merit or thoughtfulness, the industry in which he found himself did not allow Powell to fully achieve his career dreams. Million Dollar Movie reads almost as a ‘boy’s own adventure’, so extravagant was the man’s take on life. Mixed in with meetings with other similarly single-minded artists as Dylan Thomas, Stravinsky and Orson Welles, Powell frequently traverses the globe in order to collaborate on proposed projects, including one quite amazing flight (a personal favourite passage) from the UK to the US, taking in Croydon, Prestwick, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, …., eventually arriving in New York and in an ‘ancient’ aeroplane piloted by Hughie Green (he of Opportunity Knocks fame!). There are also particularly memorable sections on the productions of the aforementioned The Small Back Room and The Tales of Hoffmann, plus Gone To Earth (some intriguing moments here with David O Selznick and Jennfier Jones), plus Powell’s ambitious undertaking on The Battle of the River Plate. My only minor disappointment was probably on the relative brevity of the section on the man’s final masterpiece, Peeping Tom. As Scorsese said, though, the two editions of the autobiography really are essential reading for all cineastes.
July 28, 2011
The later life and career of Michael Powell. Up to and beyond Peeping Tom and its disastrous aftermath. Read this while researching a dissertation on that film. Difficult to skim - - so I read the whole thing instead.
September 19, 2008
Not as good as the first volume, but OK. Similar, but less organized. Feels more dictated by far, jumbled. More of a ambling oral memoir and less of a document about a filmmaker and his work.
November 1, 2013
Interesting part two of his a/b. A little too much travelogue for my liking. Heartbreaking description of his dog's demise. Some lovely movie-making titbits too. ;-)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews