Director: Michael Powell
Distributor: Columbia Pictures Corporation
Top Billed Actors: Leslie Howard, Laurence Olivier, Raymond Massey
Won 1 Oscar:
Best Original Motion Picture Story - Emeric Pressburger
Nominated for 2 more:
Outstanding Motion Picture - Ortus
Best Screenplay - Rodney Ackland & Emeric Pressburger
Plot: Six little Nazis try to make their way through the vast country of Canada after their submarine is sunk.
Distributor: Columbia Pictures Corporation
Top Billed Actors: Leslie Howard, Laurence Olivier, Raymond Massey
Won 1 Oscar:
Best Original Motion Picture Story - Emeric Pressburger
Nominated for 2 more:
Outstanding Motion Picture - Ortus
Best Screenplay - Rodney Ackland & Emeric Pressburger
Plot: Six little Nazis try to make their way through the vast country of Canada after their submarine is sunk.
49th Parallel (1941), or as it was released in the U.S., The Invaders may be the only Best Picture nominee to be known by two different English titles. Whatever you want to call it, this is also the first film in the Project by the famed duo known as The Archers - Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. However, the Oscar Pressburger won for Best Story represents the only Academy Award won by either filmmaker. In any case, they sought out to show Goebbels a thing or two when it came to propaganda and everyone involved was all in. A star-studded ensemble cast mostly worked for half wages or donated their wages to the war effort. Also, future all-stars were involved such as editor David Lean and director of photography Freddie Young. Even new-to-film but legendary composer Ralph Vaughan Williams chipped in with an endearing and memorable score. The audience reacted making this the most popular film at the British box office for 1941. But the end goal, at least according to Powell, was to sway the hearts and minds of the then-neutral United States. By the time the film was picked up by Columbia and released in the U.S., the country had already sided against Nazi Germany.
The lone Oscar won by The Archers (but only Pressburger specifically) is for Best Story. I really enjoyed the structure of the narrative, which is similar to that of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians in that a group of people get picked off and the party shrinks in size until there is only one left. It made this feel like a road movie as well as a slasher as this group of Nazis travel the Canadian countryside and come across locations that allow Pressburger to highlight the flawed ideology of Nazis while propping up the freedoms of a democracy, which even includes a communal settlement that thoroughly perplexes the protagonists. He also is able to write sympathetic Nazi characters which I don't think I have ever seen. It stands to reason that there were Nazis which may have joined the Party and later discovered the atrocities of their actions but got in too deep. On the whole, I don't want to watch a film that shows Nazis in a sympathetic light but the specific characters presented in this film show that this can be done tactfully. Two other elements that bring you right into the gorgeous Canadian landscape is the lush and regal music by Vaughan Williams and the travelogue cinematography that shows us what these on-the-lam soldiers were up against.
Although I admire the inclusion of top British stars like Laurence Olivier and Leslie Howard, I was a bit underwhelmed by a lot of the performances. Howard is just dandy but Olivier's French-Canadian accent distracts a bit too much. He played a French-Canadian in order to rope in that populace of Canada which were largely neutral or even pro-German at the time. Thankfully, the episodic nature of the film means Olivier doesn't have much screentime so if I ever ran up against a performance I didn't like, I knew the setting would soon change. Speaking of accents, I wish the Nazis would have used a German accent. Why are there British and French accents but not German? This inclusion would have made this a bit more immersive as well as play into the fear that these guys would have been feeling when speaking with a German accent after people started looking for them.
Overall, Powell and Pressburger make a splash in the Project with a successful propaganda piece that clearly shows the follies of Nazi ideals within a Canadian landscape bolstered by the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Olivier's French-Canadian accent didn't work for me nor does the absence of German accents but there are plenty of great performances in the ensemble cast.
My Score: 7/10
The lone Oscar won by The Archers (but only Pressburger specifically) is for Best Story. I really enjoyed the structure of the narrative, which is similar to that of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians in that a group of people get picked off and the party shrinks in size until there is only one left. It made this feel like a road movie as well as a slasher as this group of Nazis travel the Canadian countryside and come across locations that allow Pressburger to highlight the flawed ideology of Nazis while propping up the freedoms of a democracy, which even includes a communal settlement that thoroughly perplexes the protagonists. He also is able to write sympathetic Nazi characters which I don't think I have ever seen. It stands to reason that there were Nazis which may have joined the Party and later discovered the atrocities of their actions but got in too deep. On the whole, I don't want to watch a film that shows Nazis in a sympathetic light but the specific characters presented in this film show that this can be done tactfully. Two other elements that bring you right into the gorgeous Canadian landscape is the lush and regal music by Vaughan Williams and the travelogue cinematography that shows us what these on-the-lam soldiers were up against.
Although I admire the inclusion of top British stars like Laurence Olivier and Leslie Howard, I was a bit underwhelmed by a lot of the performances. Howard is just dandy but Olivier's French-Canadian accent distracts a bit too much. He played a French-Canadian in order to rope in that populace of Canada which were largely neutral or even pro-German at the time. Thankfully, the episodic nature of the film means Olivier doesn't have much screentime so if I ever ran up against a performance I didn't like, I knew the setting would soon change. Speaking of accents, I wish the Nazis would have used a German accent. Why are there British and French accents but not German? This inclusion would have made this a bit more immersive as well as play into the fear that these guys would have been feeling when speaking with a German accent after people started looking for them.
Overall, Powell and Pressburger make a splash in the Project with a successful propaganda piece that clearly shows the follies of Nazi ideals within a Canadian landscape bolstered by the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Olivier's French-Canadian accent didn't work for me nor does the absence of German accents but there are plenty of great performances in the ensemble cast.
My Score: 7/10