Biography

Respected film critic, a position which she held from 1939 right up until her death in 1995.

At press screenings, she usually sat apart from other critics and as near to the screen as possible, so as to maximize her concentration. It was also commonplace for her to see films she had already seen at such screenings several times more with paying audiences, often before writing about them.

In 1960, she wrote an extremely negative review of Michael Powell's film, Peeping Tom (1960), which she called an "essentially vicious film". About a third of a century later, by which time Powell had died and she was herself near death, she said on television that she had changed her mind and now regarded the film as a masterpiece, adding that, if she ever met Michael Powell in another world, she would make a point of apologizing to him.

Aunt to Ivor Powell - producer on Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982) and The Duellists (1977).

Loved the country of Greece and wrote two books about it.

[after seeing "Straw Dogs"] For the first time in my life, I felt concern for the future of the cinema.

[on "Anne Of The Thousand Days"] The film looks magnificent, but uninterestingly magnificent; in spite of all the processions and celebrations, a static, schoolroom-wall picture.

A day comes in the life of a critic when it is not enough for a film to be well-made. "Rosemary's Baby" is conspicuously well-made. But it is insufferably silly.

[on Vivien Leigh's performance in "Gone With The Wind"]: Miss Leigh gave a performance compact of vivacity, coquettishness and rigid egoism, extremely clever and well-trained and almost entirely without interest.

[on "The Seventh Seal"]: Mr. Bergman, I am sure, has a midnight, Arctic-winter sincerity: the violence of my dislike of his film is probably evidence of that. Did I say "The Seventh Seal" was sobering? On me, it has the impact of one of those spiked iron balls chained to a club, so popular in films about goodwill in the Middle Ages.