Early films

Powell was already an experienced director, having worked his way up from making silent films to the First World War drama The Spy in Black (1939), his first film for Hungarian émigré producer Alexander Korda. Pressburger, who had come from Hungary in 1935, already worked for Korda, and was asked to do some rewrites for the film.^[1] This collaboration was the first of 19, most over the next 18 years.

After Powell had made two further films for Korda, he reunited with Pressburger in 1940 for Contraband, the first in a run of Powell and Pressburger films set during the Second World War. The second was 49th Parallel (1941), which won Pressburger an Academy Award for Best Story. Both are Hitchcock-like thrillers made as anti-Nazi propaganda. For these three films, Powell is the credited director (also producer on 49th Parallel), while Pressburger is credited with the screenplay:

• The Spy in Black (1939)
• Contraband (1940)
• 49th Parallel (1941)

Birth of The Archers

The pair adopted a joint writer-producer-director credit for their next film, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) and made reference to "The Archers" in the credits. In 1943 they incorporated their own production company, Archers Film Productions, and adopted a distinctive archery target logo which began each film. The joint credit "Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger" indicates their joint responsibility for their own work and that they weren't beholden to any studio or other producers.^[2]

In a letter to Wendy Hiller in 1942, asking her to appear in Colonel Blimp, Pressburger explicitly set out 'The Archers' Manifesto'. Its five points express the pair's intentions:^[3]

1. We owe allegiance to nobody except the financial interests which provide our money; and, to them, the sole responsibility of ensuring them a profit, not a loss.
2. Every single foot in our films is our own responsibility and nobody else's. We refuse to be guided or coerced by any influence but our own judgement.
3. When we start work on a new idea, we must be a year ahead, not only of our competitors, but also of the times. A real film, from idea to universal release, takes a year. Or more.
4. No artist believes in escapism. And we secretly believe that no audience does. We have proved, at any rate, that they will pay to see the truth, for other reasons than her nakedness.
5. At any time, and particularly at the present, the self-respect of all collaborators, from star to propman, is sustained, or diminished, by the theme and purpose of the film they are working on.

They began to form a group of regular cast and crew members who worked with them on many films over the next 12 years. Hardly any of these people were ever under contract to The Archers—they were hired film by film—but Powell and Pressburger soon learnt whom they worked well with and who enjoyed working with them.^[4] When Raymond Massey was offered the part of the Prosecuting Attorney in A Matter of Life and Death his cabled reply was "For The Archers anytime, this world or the next."^[5]

He knows what I am going to say even before I say it—maybe even before I have thought it—and that is very rare. You are lucky if you meet someone like that once in your life.

— Pressburger on Powell, ^[6]

He'd stood the story on its head, he'd turned a man into a woman and a woman into a man, he'd altered the suspense, he'd rewritten the end... I was rejoicing that I was going to be working with someone like this.

— Powell on first meeting Pressburger, ^[1]

Powell and Pressburger also co-produced a few films by other directors under The Archers' banner: The Silver Fleet (1943), written and directed by Vernon Sewell and Gordon Wellesley, based on a story by Pressburger,^[7] and The End of the River (1947), directed by Derek N. Twist, to which both Powell and Pressburger contributed uncredited writing.^[8] Both Sewell and Twist had worked with Powell & Pressburger previously on other films and were being given their first chance as directors.

Over the course of the war and afterwards, they released a series of acclaimed films:

• One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
• The Silver Fleet (1943) (producers only; written and directed by Vernon Sewell and Gordon Wellesley)
• The Volunteer (1944) a short propaganda film
• A Canterbury Tale (1944)
• I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
• A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

The collaboration

Generally, Pressburger created the original story (for all their films from 1940–1946) and wrote the first draft of the script. They then passed the script back and forth a few times—they could never work on it together in the same room. For the dialogue, Pressburger knew what he wanted the characters to say but Powell would often supply some of the actual words.

They both acted as producers, perhaps Pressburger slightly more than Powell, since he could soothe the feathers ruffled by Powell's forthright manner. They became their own producers mainly to stop anyone else from interfering, since they had a considerable degree of freedom, especially under Rank, to make just about any film they wanted.

The direction was nearly all done by Powell, but even so The Archers generally worked as a team, with the cast and crew often making suggestions. Pressburger was always on hand, usually on the studio floor, to make sure that these late changes fit seamlessly into the story.^[9]

Once the filming was finished, Powell usually went off for a walk in the hills of Scotland to clear his head, but Pressburger was often closely involved in the editing, especially in the way the music was used. Pressburger was a musician himself and had played the violin in an orchestra in Hungary.

When the film was finally ready and Powell was back from the Highlands, he was usually "the front man" in any promotional work, such as interviews for the trade papers or fan magazines.

Because collaborative efforts such as Powell and Pressburger's were, and continue to be, unusual in the film industry, and because of the influence of the auteur theory, which elevates the director as a film's primary creator, Pressburger has sometimes been dismissed as "Michael Powell's scriptwriter". Powell himself emphatically rejected this characterization, and was the first to say, in many interviews, that he couldn't have done most of what he did without Pressburger working as a full and equal film-making partner.

Post-war success and decline

• Black Narcissus (1947)
• The End of the River (1947) (producers only; directed by Derek Twist)
• The Red Shoes (1948)
• The Small Back Room (1949)
• The Elusive Pimpernel (1950)
• Gone to Earth (1950). A substantially re-edited version was released in the US as The Wild Heart (1952) by co-producer David O. Selznick, after a court battle with Powell and Pressburger.^[10] The film was fully restored by the British Film Archive in 1985.
• The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)

End of the partnership

In the early 1950s Powell and Pressburger began to produce fewer films, with notably less success. The Archers' productions officially came to an end in 1957, and the pair separated to pursue their individual careers. The separation was amicable, and they remained devoted friends for the rest of their lives.^[6]

• Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955)
• The Battle of the River Plate (1956)
• Ill Met by Moonlight (1957)

Later collaboration

The pair reunited for two films:

• They're a Weird Mob (1966)
• The Boy Who Turned Yellow (1972)

For both these films, Powell was credited as the sole director, and Pressburger as the sole screenwriter (for They're a Weird Mob, Pressburger used the pseudonym "Richard Imrie"). Powell produced They're a Weird Mob, Pressburger produced The Boy Who Turned Yellow.