Projecting the Archive: The Queen's Guards
A soldier's struggle to come to terms with the death of his brother is heightened by a difficult relationship with his father in one of Michael Powell's last British films.
- 23 Jan 18:20 NFT1 not available online
This military tale, very rarely screened, is a smart about-turn from the provocation of Peeping Tom. In flashbacks from a Trooping the Colour ceremony, a familial drama is enacted as the younger son (Massey junior) tries to live up to the memory of his dead brother as tirelessly recalled by his father (Massey senior). Shot partially on NATO exercises in Libya, the film has the faintest echoes of The Four Feathers, and forms a strangely out-of-time coda to Powell's sequence of soldier yarns.
Introduction by Ian Christie
| Director | Michael Powell |
| Cast | Daniel Massey, Raymond Massey, Robert Stephens, Ursula Jeans. |
| Country | UK |
| Year | 1961 |
| Running time | 110min |
| Certificate | U |
BFI Southbank Programme Update - 22 May (No.32)