Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 293: Sat Oct 21

The Spy in Black (Powell, 1939): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 3.30pm

This 35mm presentation is part of the Powell & Pressburger season at BFI Southbank. The film also screens on October 29th. Details here.

Chicago Reader review:

This offbeat 1939 British B film was the first collaboration of director Michael Powell and writer Emeric Pressburger, whose partnership would continue through the 50s (The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus). Most of the Powell-Pressburger perversity is already in place in this story of a German spy ring at work in England, told entirely from the villains’ point of view. The film is dark and beautifully textured, though not as visually rich as the later, higher-budgeted Powell pictures. With Valerie Hobson and Conrad Veidt, Mabuse-like in a black slicker and slouch hat.

Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.