Birth of The Archers
The pair adopted a joint writer-producer-director credit for their next film, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) and made reference to "The Archers" in the credits. In 1943 they incorporated their own production company, Archers Film Productions and adopted a distinctive archery target logo which began each film. The joint credit "Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger" indicates their total joint responsibility for their own work and that they weren't beholden to any studio or other producers.
- We owe allegiance to nobody except the financial interests which provide our money; and, to them, the sole responsibility of ensuring them a profit, not a loss.
- Every single foot in our films is our own responsibility and nobody else's. We refuse to be guided or coerced by any influence but our own judgement.
- When we start work on a new idea we must be a year ahead, not only of our competitors, but also of the times. A real film, from idea to universal release, takes a year. Or more.
- No artist believes in escapism. And we secretly believe that no audience does. We have proved, at any rate, that they will pay to see the truth, for other reasons than her nakedness.
- At any time, and particularly at the present, the self-respect of all collaborators, from star to prop-man, is sustained, or diminished, by the theme and purpose of the film they are working on.
They began to form a group of regular cast and crew members who were to work with them on many films over the next twelve years. Hardly any of these people were ever under contract to The Archers. They were hired film by film. But Powell and Pressburger soon learnt who they could work well with and these people enjoyed working with them. When Raymond Massey was offered the part of the Prosecuting Attorney in A Matter of Life and Death his cabled reply was "For the Archers anytime, this world or the next."
| “ | 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. You are lucky if you meet someone like that once in your life. | ” |
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—Pressburger on Powell, |
| “ | He'd stood the story on its head, he'd turned a man into a woman and a woman into a man, he'd altered the suspense, he'd rewritten the end... I was rejoicing that I was going to be working with someone like this. | ” |
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—Powell on first meeting Pressburger, |
In a letter to Wendy Hiller in 1942, asking her to appear in Colonel Blimp, Pressburger explicitly set out 'The Archers' Manifesto'. Its five points express the pair's intentions:
Powell and Pressburger also co-produced a few films by other directors under the banner of The Archers: The Silver Fleet (1943), written and directed by Vernon Sewell and Gordon Wellesley, based on a story by Emeric Pressburger, and The End of the River (1947) directed by Derek N. Twist to which both Powell and Pressburger contributed un-credited writing. Both Sewell and Twist had worked with Powell & Pressburger previously on other films and were being given their first chance as directors.
The remainder of the war saw them release a series of acclaimed films:
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
- The Volunteer (1943) a short propaganda film
- A Canterbury Tale (1944)
- I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
- A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Read more about this topic: Powell And Pressburger
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