DEATH : ‘Red Shoes’ Director Powell Dies
Michael Powell, director of “The Red Shoes,” “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” and 30 other films, has died, the National Film Archive announced today. He was 84.
Powell became ill in New York two weeks ago and was flown by private jet to his home at Avening in Gloucestershire, the announcement said. He died Monday night.
“Of his generation, he was unquestionably the most innovative and most creatively brilliant filmmaker this country ever boasted,” director Sir Richard Attenborough said.
Teamed with screenwriter Emeric Pressburger, who died in 1988, Powell first made “Spy in Black” in 1938, devised for the German actor Conrad Veidt. Veidt starred in the next Pressburger-Powell film, “Contraband.”
“49th Parallel” followed in 1940 and won an Academy Award in the United States where it was shown under the title “The Original Story of the Invaders.” It was based on a story by Pressburger about a Nazi submarine crew on the run in wartime Canada.
“The Red Shoes” of 1948 was about a ballerina, played by Moira Shearer in her first screen role.
Powell’s last film was “Return to the Edge of the World” in 1979.
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