The Masters  
The Powell & Pressburger Pages

Dedicated to the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and all the other people, both actors and technicians who helped them make those wonderful films.

A lot of the documents have been sent to me or have come from other web sites. The name of the web site is given where known. If I have unintentionally included an image or document that is copyrighted or that I shouldn't have done then please email me and I'll remove it.

I make no money from this site, it's purely for the love of the films.

[Any comments are by me (Steve Crook) and other members of the email list]

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P&P Campaigns
To find the scores of the music in the films


This is the contents of an email I sent to all known "Friends of The Archers" in 2000

Hello everybody,

I'm sending this appeal out to all "Friends of The Archers" to see if anybody has any information that can help us with a very worthwhile idea.

Scott MacQueen, that very nice man at Disney who did the GTE restoration & other good stuff, has a friend {Colonel Betteridge: Good. Not everybody can say that. Continue!} who is trying hard to get a decent LP / CD made of some of the music from the Archer's films.

They are quite respectable people, John Morgan & William Stromberg, who restore and re-record classic film scores for Marco Polo/Naxos records.

They've done wonderful new recordings of Malcolm Arnold's DAVID COPPERFIELD and ROOTS OF HEAVEN, Waxman's MR. SKEFFINGTON and OBJECTIVE BURMA, Steiner's KING KONG, TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, Newman's HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, Friedhoffer's THE LODGER and SEVEN CITIES OF GOLD, Korngold's ANOTHER DAWN....their next two releases will be an album of Adolph Deutsch including MALTESE FALCON and HIGH SIERRA, and Bernard Herrmann's FIVE FINGERS and SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO. See website http://www.naxos.com.

They want to start with the music of Brian Easdale, the thinking being that if it's got TRS on it'll sell enough to pay for a second one with the music of Allan Gray.

They want to concentrate on TRS but hope to get some of the music from BN & possibly BoRP & PT as well. (& maybe even the love theme from Miracle in Soho?)

The best we have so far is probably the (semi-bootleg?) CD from The Soundtrack Factory - but that has the actors talking all over the overture to the ballet so we can't hear it properly.

A lot of the other music has just never been recorded and the pieces that have been recorded were often poorly done or you just get one track on an longer album or CD.

So essentially the request is ... HELP !!

Do the scores exist anywhere?

This is such a great idea it'd be a terrible shame if it didn't happen.

     Steve Crook


Results & suggestions:-

We tried them all (and more) ... But they all came back saying "Good idea, but we don't know where the scores might be or who has the rights".


The British Music Society published an appeal in their newsletter earlier this year (2002).

Brian Easdale

I am trying to track down some information about who owns the rights to the music that Brian Easdale wrote for various films in the 1940's. The main films in question are: Black Narcissus (1947); The Red Shoes (1948) - he won an oscar for this one; The Small Back Room (1949); Gone to Earth (1950); Peeping Tom (1960). We are hoping that it might be possible to find the original scores of some of these works as they seem to have vanished along with the person we believe Brian passed the rights to. Hoping you can help.

Info to Editor rob.barnett@ukgateway.net in first instance please.

Steve Crook

Any other suggestions gratefully received. Just email them to me.


Since this campaign was started I've made contact with Brian Easdale's family and the music from The Red Shoes has been performed, from the original score, with a full orchestra including the Ondes Martenot.
See Brian Easdale at the Proms

Chandos have also organised the recording of a CD of Brian's music
The Film Music of Brian Easdale


Return to Campaigns page.