Black Narcissus. 1947 (grade A)

Director Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Any Awards? Academy Awards for  Best Art Direction & Pest Cinematography
CAST:   Deborah Kerr; Flora Robson;  Jean Simmons;  David Farrar;  Sabu:  Esmond Knight;  Kathleen Byron,  Jenny Laird;  Judith Furse;  May Hallatt;  Eddie Whaley Jr.;  Shaun Nobel;  Nancy Roberts;  Ley On


story summary: nuns are give an ex-brothel/ home of a sultan's harem, high in the mountains to turn into a school and hospital --this snowy mountain happens to be right next to a sultry jungle paradise --so it is not such a great movie when it comes to realism re geography -- the wind never stops blowing and the nuns are moved to plant flowers rather than vegetables..and there is a handsome man that visits a lot -- he is often scantly dressed --and he drives a lest one nun crazy.

sez says: this is a Jack Cardiff film-- he was a masterful cinematographer--and it is worth watching just to see him working with color and light --copying the art of the grand masters. But the story too is pretty interesting.. the repressed sexuality of nuns is the theme --and it gets pretty steamy. It is something between a melodrama and a horror flick woven around repressed sexual desires and set in an exotic landscape... done in brilliant color and fabulously compelling..and were all of Powell and Pressburgerher films.

mjc says: hard to believe this was photographed in a studio-on a sound stage and aback lot --the tracks of a master cinematographer