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]

Sumbitted by David W. Earl

Evening Post (NZ) 9 May 1940

"U-Boat 29"
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King's Theatre Tomorrow

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Michael Powell, who directed Columbia's thrilling drama of submarine warfare, "U-Boat 29," coming to the King's tomorrow, started film work when he was nineteen years of age, as a general run-around for Rex Ingram in Nice, in the South of France. With him was Harry Lachman, the famous director. In 1929 Powell went to France to assist Lachman direct Monty Banks. With Ingram, Powell soon showed a remarkable flair for photography and composition, and he went through every department of film making. In 1930 an old friend Jerry Jackson, who was making quota pictures, offered Powell a director's job, and together they made several remarkable pictures, among them "The Fire Raisers."
    Powell has also turned his hand to acting on occasions. Nearly all of Powell's successful pictures have had outdoor locations. He has filmed nearly every corner of England and has travelled widely further afield.
    When he made "The Edge of the World" in Foula, a small island in the Shetlands, Powell and his unit, which consisted of actors, actresses and technicians, were cut off from the rest of the world for several weeks by severe storms. He spent the days preparing a book describing the hardships experienced during filming. It was published under the title "200,000 Feet on Foula." For "U-Boat 29" Powell went to Scapa Flow, where the plot of the film is laid, and did similar work. The sets built at Denham were made with the assistance of photographs taken by Powell at Scapa Flow.
    Starred in "U-Boat 29" is Conrad Veidt, a famous Continental actor, and with him appears Valerie Hobson, last seen in "Clouds Over Europe," and Sebastian Shaw. Veidt plays the part of a German submarine commander who is sent on a secret mission to a lonely island in the Orkneys, his task there being to sink ten of the largest battleships of the British Home Fleet.
    There are many exciting glimpses of submarine warfare, one of the tensest scenes showing the German U-Boat threading a nerve-racking way through a British minefield.