Rynox – 1931 | 48 mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Within a week of completing Two Crowded Hours, Michael Powell began shooting on Rynox. Not a quota-quickie production, it was a British feature, financed and distributed by Ideal Films, a respectable British film-maker. Further improvements included a slightly larger budget of £4,500 – and a stronger storyline with a screenplay by Philip Macdonald, Powell and Jackson from Macdonald’s rather convoluted novel. The story is about a business tycoon F.X. Benedik, claiming he has been threatened by mysterious stranger Boswell Marsh, F.X. Benedik is found murdered. Tony Benedik takes over the business and discovers that Marsh never existed but was created by Benedik Senior who intended to commit suicide after learning that he had only a year to live.

Forty years later, Micky Powell hailed Philip Macdonald as ‘the best thriller writer in those days and he still is, as far as I am concerned, one of the best’. Long considered lost, a print of Rynox was discovered in 1990 after 50 years languishing in the vaults at Pinewood Studios, acquired by the National Film Archive and transferred on to safety film the earliest surviving example of Powell’s work as a feature director.