Analysis:

In 1950, Emeric Pressburger read an extract from 'Ill Met By Moonlight', Stanley Moss's account of his adventures on occupied Crete during the Second World War, and immediately optioned its film rights. Michael Powell set off on a location scouting expedition to Crete, but it was another six years before Ill Met By Moonlight finally went into production.

After leaving the Rank Organisation in 1949, Powell and Pressburger had briefly returned to producer Alexander Korda to make films such as The Small Back Room (1949) and Gone to Earth (1950). They then encountered a period of difficulty in securing financing for the projects they wanted to make, and by the mid-1950s were willing to contemplate a return, albeit a short-term one, to John Davis and the Rank Organisation.

The Battle of The River Plate (1956), was a commercial success and chosen for the Royal Command Performance of that year (an honour that had been bestowed upon A Matter of Life and Death back in 1946). Davis then offered the Archers a seven-picture contract, but wary of committing themselves, they signed for just one picture - Ill Met By Moonlight.

Read the full analysis on Screenonline