49th Parallel

A band of stranded Nazi sailors make their way across Canada in Powell and Pressburger’s wartime propaganda feature, which earned Pressburger an Academy Award for Best Screenplay and is now considered “one of the most stirring and entertaining of films made about World War II” (Cinematheque Ontario). A star-studded cast, including Laurence Olivier and Leslie Howard, and some fine location shooting in the Canadian wilds helped give P & P one of their biggest commercial hits. Intended to awaken American audiences to the German threat, it also demonstrated the duo’s ability to create nuanced, humanist art out of propaganda.