Michael Powell was Britain's best and most successful film director of the 1940s, working with the Hungarian screenwriter Emeric Pressburger as 'The Archers' on a series of classic films including 49th parallel, The life and death of Colonel Blimp, I know where I'm going!, A matter of life and death and The red shoes. Here, for the first time, Powell's entire career is examined and evaluted--from its beginnings as a 'grip' with an MGM film unit and working as a stills photographer for Alred Hitchcock, through an in-depth analysis of the 23 low-budget films directed by Powell in the 1930s, his remarkable partnership with Pressburger and the frustrations he faced in his later solo work--including the once-notorious Peeping Tom--as he found himself virtually excluded from film-making in Britain. Television and theatre productions are also explored, with contemporary material and many exclusive interviews completing a comprehensive assessment of a man whose reputation continues to grow as his outstanding body of work is rediscovered by successive generations of cinema goers.