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Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the film masters whose rich sense of atmosphere and fantasy made The Red Shoes a timeless favorite and made Stairway to Heaven so strangely perverse and original, bring the same hypnotic touch to this haunting, mystical tale. Based on a novel by Rumer Godden, Black Narcissus is set high in the Himalayas, where a group of nuns have transformed an old palace into a school and dispensary for the natives. Conflicts arise, though, as the sisters gradually fall victim to the erotic spell of their surroundings. The title has a double-edged meaning: It refers not only to the fragrant flower but also to the strong perfume worn by a bejeweled and handsomely adorned young prince. Nature's heady opulence and masculine sexuality combine to unsettle the holy women, bringing back forgotten memories, dreams, and desires. Remarkably, the breathtaking and intensely colorful visuals were studio-created rather than shot on location; the result is a world unto itself, bearing more relation to the unleashed imagination than to any reality -- which only heightens the feeling of being inside a living hallucination. Deborah Kerr, brimming with supressed emotions, shines in the lead, and well-deserved Oscars went to art director Alfred Junge and cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Karen Backstein

All Movie Guide

British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger once again deliberately courted controversy and censorship with their 1947 adaptation of Rumer Godden's novel. Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron play the head nuns at an Anglican hospital/school high in the Himalayas. The nuns' well-ordered existence is disturbed by the presence of a handsome British government agent (David Farrar), whose attractiveness gives certain sisters the wrong ideas. Meanwhile, an Indian girl (Jean Simmons) is lured down the road to perdition by a sensuous general (Sabu). While Kerr would seem most susceptible to fall from grace --we are given hints of her earlier love life in a long flashback--she proves to have more stamina than Byron, who delivers one of moviedom's classic interpretations of all-stops-out, sex-starved insanity. The aforementioned flashback was removed from the US release version of Black Narcissus so as not to offend the Catholic Legion of Decency. While the dramatic content of the film hasn't stood the test of time all that well, the individual performances, production values, and especially the Oscar-winning Technicolor photography of Jack Cardiff are still as impressive as ever. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 037429152126
• Source: CRITERION
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1)
• Sound: Dolby Digital, monaural
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Time: 1:41:00
• Sales Rank: 5,049

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