Michael Powell, after Alfred Hitchcock, was the finest British film director of the 20th Century. He had a direct influence on US director Martin Scorsese, who became a friend and avid admirer. He was also championed by 'Godfather' director Francis Ford Coppola.  Illustrious disciples for a man who began his film career at the Victorine Studios in Nice.

Michael Powell's father owned La Voile d'Or Hotel on Cap Ferrat (he won it in a card game) and introduced his son to Irish-born director Rex Ingram. Ingram was a fabulous mentor, a Hollywood exile who directed silent films in France and North Africa, many heady with an Islamic atmosphere, free and ahead of their time. The Victorine-based Ingram's films contained many themes, including ideas about dreaming, illusion and magic. His 1926 film 'The Magician' featured a cameo appearance by the celebrated occultist Aleister Crowley. It's easy to see how Ingram influenced much of Powell's work in later years.

Michael Powell did not find success immediately. During the 1930s he made shorts and one notable documentary, The Edge of the World (1937). His career took off when he met the Hungarian screenwriter Emeric Pressburger. Together they formed an iconic production company, 'The Archers' and took advantage of wartime funding for the British film industry, to produce some their most inventive work. Encouraged to produce films that backed the war effort, they humanized the enemy (Germany) by exploring the German character and allowed wartime audiences to find reassurance through plot-lines that appear surreal even today. The results were films as rich and varied as 49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (banned by Churchill), A Canterbury Tale and the incomparable ‘Matter of Life and Death' (1946) starring another former Cap Ferrat resident, David Niven.

After the war, Powell produced Black Narcissus (1947), a visually stunning (studio filmed) tale from Nepal, brimming with the sensual sexuality of Deborah Kerr and a very young Jean Simmons. This was followed by what many consider to be his finest film, ‘The Red Shoes' (1948). ‘The Red Shoes' is a complete work of cinema, a fusion of narrative, dance, vibrant colour and incredible set design. Some of the scenes were shot in Villa Leopolda in Villefranche and also around Monte Carlo. Perhaps another nod to the influence of the French Riviera on Michael Powell's cinematic thinking.

Powell's last major and some think most important work was ‘Peeping Tom (1960), a psychological thriller. The film's title is an English expression for ‘voyeur' and the plot follows a would-be filmmaker, turned killer, who records the last moments of his victims' lives using a portable camera. A futuristic prediction of violence captured on mobile phone cameras? He certainly did not intend that - but many critics believed Powell was turning the spotlight on his audience and their voyeuristic enjoyment of violent death. It's a theme that was later explored by author JG Ballard (Crash, Super Cannes, Cocaine Nights).

The backlash from ‘Peeping Tom' virtually ended Powell's career as a director in the UK. But in later years, his reputation was resurrected by critics and other directors - most notably Martin Scorsese, who became a close friend. Scorsese introduced a screening of the fully restored ‘Red Shoes' at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009.

Michael Powell died in 1990. Alongside his cinematic partner Emeric Pressburger, he produced some of the most memorable films in European cinema history. Powell did not run to Hollywood (unlike Hitchcock), continuing to produce his best work during a time of listlessness in the post-war British Film industry. Many of his films are like dreams from which you don't want to awake. Surreal, often technicolour visions of another age, they set free the imagination. The light and colour of the French Riviera had a great impact on some of the 20th Century's most celebrated artists - perhaps it also fired the ambition of a young would-be British filmmaker.

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