Film Nitrate

"You laugh at my big belly but you don't know how I got it! You laugh at my mustache but you don't know why I grew it!" The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp   was the first true classic that came out of the fruitful partnership of Michael Powell, who took up directing responsibilities, and Emeric Pressburger who wrote and produced the film. After cutting their teeth on war-films such as   The Spy in Black   (1939) and  46th Parallel   (1941) by 1943 they were keen to take on something more substantial than a typical World War II British propaganda film. Here they managed to fit in two world wars, the Boer War, and along the way called into question the generals whose dated tactics had caused Britain to become embroiled in so much devastation, as well as demonstrate just how outdated and ultimately futile the English gentlemen's code of conduct was. Unsurprisingly, Winston Churchill was furious at the film's barely-concealed message, but looking back on it n...

"We changed our course today." Leo McCarey made two genres of films, and make them very, very well. The first, and the one that he is most know for today, is comedy films. This is due to his most famous film, the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933) being one of the best comedy films of the 1930s. Other comedies, such as Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) also stand up well today, as do the timeless Laurel & Hardy films he directed. But McCarey is also known for his strong moralistic views, reinforced by his Catholicism. In 1937 he made the heartbreaking (and criminally under-rated) Make Way for Tomorrow , and in the 40s he had some of his greatest commercial successes with the dramatic films Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945). After his 1952 anti-Communist film My Son John was a failure at the box-office, McCarey retired from filmmaking for 5 years. He returned in 1957 with An Affair to Remember , at a time when it had been over a decade since hi...