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# “Black Narcissus”, Michael Powell
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-cinema-2754jsp/
- Published: 2005-08-14T23:08:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-17T11:51:42.000Z
- Author: Open democracy
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 19:17, #ImagesUploaded

![sister_ruth_montage.jpg](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3f/80/3f804bea-4b2d-4ddf-9ff0-6ec7d0afa5fa/content/images/2026/04/sister_ruth_montage_gFomn85-1776425895159.jpg)

sister\_ruth\_montage.jpg

Top: Mr Dean (David Ferrar), Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), and Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron) Middle 2 & 3: Sister Ruth completes her transformation while (off camera) Sister Clodagh watches Bottom: Rejected by Mr Dean, a psychotic Sister Ruth returns to the House of St. Faith for revenge. Stills from “Black Narcissus” (1947), the eleventh of twenty-two collaborations between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on the novel by Rumer Godden

Watch *Black Narcissus*, *A Canterbury Tale* and other Michael Powell classics at a special centenary season at the [National Film Theatre](http://www.bfi.org.uk/incinemas/nft/seasons/powell/?ref=opendemocracy.net) and [Edinburgh film festival](http://www.edfilmfest.org.uk/?ref=opendemocracy.net).

For more information on Powell & Pressburger go to the comprehensive Powell & Pressburger Pages, which includes a review of The Life and Death of a Screenwriter (Faber & Faber 1996), a biography of Pressburger by his grandson Kevin Macdonald. See also this feature on the British Film Institute website.