The Red Shoes (1948)

The team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger direct and write one of the great ballet melodramas of all time. Hans Christian Andersen's tragic fairy tale serves as the outline for a film about a backstage love story. The film's core relationship between the impresario and dancer was a take on the one between Diaghilev and Nijinsky. It's the kind of dance film that can appeal to a wide audience not just balletomane devotees.

Originally, Emeric Pressburger's story was commissioned by producer Alexander Korda for his wife-star Merle Oberon (Oscar nominated for "Wuthering Heights" in 1939). One problem was Oberon could not dance. Pressburger then bought the story back and decided to co-direct it with partner Michael Powell with Moira Shearer, a pro dancer who could also act, in the lead. Red-haired Shearer was then a ballerina at Sadler's Wells. In the film, she is joined by such skillful dancers as Léonide Massine, Ludmilla Tchérina, and Robert Helpmann, who also worked on the choreography.

It begins when a talented but impoverished musical composer Julian Craster (Goring) attends a London performance of the Lermontov Ballet Company and recognizes his own score being performed without his authorization. Complaining to ballet impresario Boris Lermontov (Walbrook - who gives the films best performance), things get resolved when the composer is hired to compose the score for his next work -- a ballet version of "The Red Shoes." It's based on Hans Christian Anderson's story about a pair of magical shoes that permit their wearer to magically dance without ever stopping. The impresario also hires a gifted sweet young flaming red-haired dancer, Victoria Page (Moira Shearer, the Sadler's Wells ballerina's debut as an actress), to perform in the ballet.

The centerpiece of the film is a stunning 20 minute ballet sequence, where we see The Red Shoes performed, first on traditional stages, but then on increasingly expressionistic and fanciful sets, until it's clear that the brilliant dance and music have taken the performance away from anything approaching reality, onto a plane of pure art, where such things as the laws of physics and time and space don't seem to apply. It's a heartbreaking and wonderful experience. Leonide Massine, who plays the choreographer and who created the unforgettable character of the Shoemaker within the ballet, is considered to be one of the greatest choreographers in the Western World, creating over 50 ballets. It is he, not Moira Shearer, who makes the ballet sequence so entrancing (and I can't say that I traditionally like ballet). You just can't take your eyes off him. Not bad for someone that his mentor, Sergei Diaghilev, called nothing but a good-looking face and poor legs.

As a result, the ballet is well received and Julian and Victoria fall madly in love. Meanwhile Boris recognizes how talented Victoria is and puts all his energy into making her the perfect dancer and a slave to her art, as The Red Shoes is set to go on tour throughout Europe. Things get dicey when Julian leaves the company and Victoria marries him over the objections of the overbearing and jealous Svengali-like Boris, who believes her art comes before love. Boris uses his power to prevent her from dancing the role that brought her fame. After the music stops the film comes down from its lofty heights to tell its mundane story. The dancer misses performing her magical role and after meeting the impresario by accident after a long

Fmovies: Julian Craster (Marius Goring) is a talented young composer, Vicky Page (Moira Shearer) wants only to dance. Both wish to work with the Ballet Lermontov and Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), who lives only for the ballet, is shrewd enough to hire them both. After shaky starts, they achieve first success when Vicky plays the lead in Craster's 'The Red Shoes' at Monte Carlo. But Lermontov demands total commitment to their art, so when Vicky and Craster fall in love, they must leave the company. They marry. Some time later, Vicky returns to Monte Carlo on holiday. Lermontov relents and she is again to star in 'The Red Shoes'. Unexpectedly, her husband turns up to reclaim her, with tragic consequences.

Who but Powell and Pressburger would have the nerve to present an entire ballet, specially written, within a feature film drama? The "Wanna Dance" sequence in "Singin' in the Rain", is, though magnificent, but a bagatelle compared with the "Red Shoes" ballet. The ballet itself is lavishly staged and is a clever cheat, slipping smoothly in and out of the theatre into a world of pure cinema, seeing with the eyes of the audience at one moment, then looking out into an amphitheatre filled with swirling colours. So, too, the more prosaic moments are perfectly rendered, with the wonderful sense of colour and design and costume that is a badge of The Archers. And the dancers! Robert Helpman and Leonide Massine (also the choreographer) dazzle us with their energy and command. And the puppeteer, or rather the Shoemaker to the the Ballet Lermontov, sits in his Monte Carlo office. To Vicky's Sylphide he is the basilisk gargoyle that sits on the parapet outside his window.

Anton Walbrook delivers a masterly performance as the fanatical, tyrannical, director of the Ballet. He can be ice cold, but then, a faint smile will seem filled with warmth. Every nuance of his performance is perfectly timed and delivered. In his final, passionate, pleading that Vicky abandon love and dedicate herself to dance, he glances momentarily at her dresser, indicating that Vicky is ready to put on her shoes. He calculates and he controls them all. But he has miscalculated, and his subsequent address to the theatre audience is delivered with raw chunks of grief, his voice strained, rasping. Marius Goring, too, is completely convincing as the young musician, his every word and action witnessing his commitment to his art. So, too, the collection of Russian emigres around Lermontov give sympathetic and well-modulated performances. Brian Easdale's music supplies all that is needed credibly to support the claims of the film. But, in the end, even amongst such talent, it is the image of Moira Shearer that endures, dancing her heart out in the ballet, then losing it in the shocking closing scenes.

The resourceful approach that characterizes so many of the Michael Powell/ Emeric Pressburger collaborations makes "The Red Shoes" one of the most creative and interesting of any of the "back stage" movies that show the lives and dreams of creative artists at work. The characters are quite interesting in themselves, and the story brings out some worthwhile aspects of each of their natures while giving a realistic and often fascinating look at their world.

By no means do you have to be a ballet fan to appreciate and enjoy the story or the settings. While fully convincing in themselves, they are also set up so that the most important aspects and conflicts of the plot could easily be applied to those working in other creative fields as well.

Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, and Marius Goring make a nicely balanced and intriguing trio of main characters. The opening scenes work very well in bringing them together while being enjoyable to watch in themselves. From there, the creative tensions are built up steadily as the story itself becomes even more interesting. The script makes use of the best conventions of its genre, while never allowing itself to become formulaic.

There is also a good deal of creativity in many of the individual sequences. The opening scene at the opera is particularly clever in playing off of a viewer's initial expectations. The most spectacular sequence is the "red shoes" ballet segment itself, a very imaginative and enjoyable mini-movie that also parallels some of the main story's most interesting ideas. All in all, "The Red Shoes" well deserves its reputation as a distinctive classic.

The Red Shoes fmovies. `Why do you want to dance?' Anton Walbrook asks of Moira Shearer part way through Powell and Pressburger's inventive ballet film. `Why do you want to live?' is her cool response. Suggested by the Hans Christian Andersen story and a project long in development by P&P, this sumptuous colour production allows Shearer to display her excellent ballet skills alongside Robert Helpmann and Leonide Massine, and all three are excellent.

In fact, the `Red Shoes Ballet' alone is enough to recommend this movie in the strongest terms. Also in the cast is P&P regular Marius Goring, as the composer pushed aside for the lure of the stage. Walbrook, as the emotionless impresario who is only alive within the confines of his art, is superb, and perhaps only his role as Theo in `Colonel Blimp' served him better.

A great film speaks to each of us in a different way. To me this more than a colourful piece of escapist entertainment, this was a glimpse into a world of magnificent color, sumptious settings, French Haute Couture, the theatre, music, luxury hotels, elegant opera houses, chaffeured Rolls Royce cars, travel to the South of France - in short, everything that a child in the near bankrupt England in 1948 had never seen and could barely imagine.

I was fascinated not only by the glimpse of an elitist life, but of the time capsule which the film presented of a time and place that no longer exists as it was at that time. The views of London in 1948, are similar to watching "World War II in Color" on the history channel. When the ballet company travelled, they took the train. Rationing may still have existed back then, and travellers could not take money out of the country, except for a ridiculously inadequate amount; therefore, if you went abroad you had to know someone with whom you could stay. I also found myself wondering how they got the money to make a technicolour film in 1947, when they began filming.

Part of the film takes place in Monte Carlo, only 20 years after the heyday of the famous Ballet Russe. In fact the ballet company in the film is quite obviously based on the Diaghilev Company. Former member Leonid Massine has a major part in the film, and Marie Rambert has a cameo role.

This is also a ballet film for those who do not really care for ballet. The plot is simple - rising young ballerina falls in love with rising young composer and must choose between him and a career possessively controlled by the impressario - and acts as a frame for the ballet. The film is as near perfection as it is possible to get, and watching it in 2004, it does not seem to have dated at all. Everyone, especially Anton Walbrook, is perfectly cast. The script is witty and occasionally humorous. The technicolour photography is superb, especially capturing Moira Shearer's flaming red hair.

The audio commentary on the DVD adds immensely to the enjoyment of the film, which is one that can be watched over and over. o understand how great this film really is, try watching Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge" travesty afterwards.

We saw this film years ago. It was a surprise when it was included as part of a Michael Powell's work at the Walter Reade recently. The film still has a great look as it seems it has been lovingly restored. Mr. Powell, working with his usual collaborator, Emeric Pressburger, created a film about the world of ballet that has proved to be, not only a timeless classic, but a crowd pleaser to those who watch it for the first time.

"The Red Shoes" is basically a fairy tale loosely based on a Hans Christian Andersen story. Mr. Anderson and Mr. Pressburger gave it a vivid look that even today, appears fresh and glamorous. Those glorious colors in the film stays in the mind of the viewer forever.

The ballets shown are magnificently staged. The Red Shoes ballet by Sir Robert Helpmann and The Shoemaker by Leonide Massine, a giant in the world of ballet. The music conducted flawlessly by Sir Thomas Beecham lingers in one's mind long after the movie is over. The glorious Technicolor cinematography by Jack Cardiff is amazing.

The acting by Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring and Moira Shearer serves the story well, although the director got better performances in later films, "Peeping Tom" and "Black Narcisus", to name two. Ms. Shearer with her red hair and peaches and cream skin projects such a refined presence in the film that is hard to forget her features. The actress dressed by Jacques Fath, the famous French designer, shows why she was one of the best things that happened to the picture.

"The Red Shoes" is one of the best films about ballet thanks to the vision of its directors.