Powell left, Pressburger right.

1939 was the year Powell and Pressburger first collaborated on a film, The Spy in Black (starring the marvelous Conrad Veidt). The movie was produced by the legendary Alexander Korda, for his production company London Films. So began one of the greatest partnerships in movie history.

Michael Powell's first movie had been released eight years earlier, a short film (43 minutes) called Two Crowded Hours. Born in 1905, Powell spent his childhood in the English countryside. The family moved around a bit. Powell's father, whom he described as a gentleman "tres sportif," began spending more and more time in France, where he ran a hotel. The elder Powell had a lady friend nearby. Powell's parents remained married, but they did not live in the same place, nor share their lives. Powell's exposure to the agrarian beauty of rural England and his trips to many glorious places in France (one being the area of the Riviera around Cap Ferrat and Villefranche, where part of The Red Shoes was to be filmed years later), broadened an already bright youngster's imagination. Powell was an avid reader as a young person, and as the first films started to appear, he was immediately bitten by the bug.

On one visit to see his father, Powell had an opportunity to work for an American film company making a movie in Nice. At the helm was Rex Ingram, a famous silent film director, who had directed Rudolf Valentino in a movie called The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. From that point on, Powell learned and worked at the craft and art of film making.

Emeric Pressburger, born in Hungary, had fled the German storm troopers to England. Emeric was one of Alexander Korda's contract writers at London Films. He already had a great reputation as a screen writer, and he and Powell met at the first script meeting in Korda's office to begin work on The Spy in Black. When Pressburger spoke at the meeting, Powell was "spellbound." He knew he was in the presence of a superlative writer.

Pressburger was an intellectual, witty and creative. When he was young, Emeric had been a runner and a professional violinist. Low-key, he knew what he wanted and stuck by it. Powell and he made a great pair -- they appreciated each others talents -- and they were about to start making great movies together.

Some of their most famous and award-winning films before The Red Shoes were: 49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going, A Matter of Life and Death, and Black Narcissus. Powell and Pressburger worked with some of the great actors of their time: Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Peter Ustinov, Ralph Richardson, David Niven, Richard Attenborough, Marius Goring, David Farrar, Sabu, Deborah Kerr, Wendy Hiller, Kim Hunter, and many more. (For a complete filmography, check Powell's autobiographies A Life in the Movies and Million Dollar Movie, or the IMDb.