Red Shoes

Directed byMichael Powell
Emeric PressburgerProduced byMichael Powell
Emeric PressburgerWritten byMichael Powell
Emeric Pressburger
Keith Winter
(add'l dialogue)Based onThe Red Shoes by
Hans Christian AndersenStarringMoira Shearer
Anton Walbrook
Marius GoringMusic byBrian EasdaleCinematographyJack CardiffEdited byReginald MillsDistributed byGeneral Film Distributors
Eagle-Lion Films
J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors (West Germany)

Release dates

6 September 1948 (UK)
22 October (US)

Running time

133 minutesCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglish
FrenchBudget£505,581[1]Box office$5 million (est. US/ Canada rentals)[2][3]

The Red Shoes (1948) is a British feature film about a ballet dancer, written, directed and produced by the team ofMichael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known collectively as The Archers. The movie employs the story within a storydevice, being about a young ballerina who joins an established ballet company and becomes the lead dancer in a new ballet called The Red Shoes, itself based on the fairy tale "The Red Shoes" by Hans Christian Andersen. The film stars Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook and Marius Goring and features Robert Helpmann, Léonide Massine and Ludmilla Tchérina, renowned dancers from the ballet world, as well as Esmond Knight and Albert Bassermann. It has original music byBrian Easdale and cinematography byJack Cardiff, and is well regarded for its creative use of Technicolor. Filmmakers such as Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese have named it one of their all time favourite films.

Although loosely based on the Andersen story, it was also said[who?] to have been inspired by the real-life meeting of Sergei Diaghilev with the British ballerina Diana Gould. Diaghilev asked her to join his company, but he died before she could do so. Diana Gould later became the second wife ofYehudi Menuhin.[4]

Plot

Victoria 'Vicky' Page (Moira Shearer) is a young, unknown dancer from an aristocratic background. At an after-ballet party, arranged by her aunt as a surreptitious audition, she meets Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), the ruthless but charismatic impresario of the Ballet Lermontov. Lermontov takes her on as a student, where she is taught by, among others, Grisha Ljubov (Léonide Massine), the company's chief choreographer.

After seeing her dance in a matinee performance of Swan Lake,[5] Lermontov realises her potential and invites Vicky to go with the company to Paris andMonte Carlo. When he loses his prima ballerina (Ludmilla Tchérina) to marriage, Lermontov begins to see Vicky as a possible successor. He decides to create a starring role for her in a new ballet, The Red Shoes, the music for which is to be written by Julian Craster (Marius Goring) a brilliant young composer engaged as orchestral coach the same day that Vicky was brought into the company.

As the premiere of the ballet approaches, Vicky and Julian lock horns artistically, and then fall in love. The ballet is a great success, and Lermontov talks with Vicky about her future. Lermontov revitalizes the company's repertoire with Vicky in the lead roles, with Julian composing some of the most successful scores.

The tale turns toward tragedy when Lermontov begins to have personal feelings toward Vicky. Lermontov's suppressed jealousy clouds his aesthetic discrimination: he rejects Julian's latest composition as childish and vulgar, which Julian (and the viewer) knows to be untrue. Lermontov fires Julian, and Vicky decides to leave the company with him. They marry and live in London where Julian works on composing a new opera. Lermontov relents his decision to enforce Vicky's contract, and permits her to dance where and when she pleases. The one exception is The Red Shoes; Lermontov retains the rights to the ballet and ownership of Julian's music, and refuses to mount it again or allow anyone else to produce the ballet.

Some time later, while joining her aunt for a holiday in Monte Carlo, Vicky is visited on the train by Lermontov, who convinces her to return to the company to dance in a revival of The Red Shoes. On opening night, as she is preparing to perform, Julian appears in her dressing room; he has left the premiere of his opera at Covent Garden to take her back with him. Lermontov arrives, and he and Julian contend for Vicky's affections. Torn between her love for Julian and her need to dance, she cannot decide what to do. Julian, realising that he has lost her, leaves for the railway station, and Lermontov consoles her, urging her to dance.

While being escorted to the stage by her dresser, and wearing the red shoes, Vicky is suddenly seized by an irresistible impulse and runs out of the theatre. Julian, on the platform of the train station, sees her and runs helplessly towards her. Vicky jumps from a balcony and falls in front of an approaching train. While lying on a stretcher, bloody and battered, she asks Julian to remove the red shoes, just as in the end of The Red Shoes ballet.

Shaken by Vicky's death and broken in spirit, Lermontov appears before the audience to announce that "Miss Page is unable to dance tonight – nor indeed any other night." As a mark of respect, the company performs The Red Shoeswith a spotlight on the empty space where Vicky would have been.

Plot inconsistency

The film contains a possible inconsistency in the story: At the end of the film, when she jumps off the balcony and is killed, Vicky is wearing the same red shoes she wears in the ballet. We see her wearing them as she is preparing in her dressing room for the opening of the revival of The Red Shoes, before the confrontation between Julian and Lermontov, despite the fact that in the performance her character does not put them on until part way through the ballet. This problem was discussed by Powell and Pressburger themselves[6]and has been much discussed since.[7]Powell decided that it was artistically "right" for Vicky to be wearing the red shoes at that point because if she is not wearing them, it takes away the ambiguity over why she died: did the shoes drive her to it, did she fall or did she jump?[6]
Notes

^ Sarah Street, Transatlantic Crossings: British Feature Films in the USA, Continuum, 2002 p 110^ "All Time Domestic Champs",Variety, 6 January 1960 p 34^ "Noteworthy Films Made In U.K.".The West Australian (Perth: National Library of Australia). 17 January 1953. p. 27. Retrieved 4 August 2012.^ Barnes, Clive (1 January 2003)."Obituary:Diana Gould Menuhin".Dance Magazine.^ The performance takes place at theMercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate, which may not look like much but was one of the major venues for ballet just after World War II. The small non-speaking role of the head of the ballet company for which Vicky dances is played by Marie Rambert, founder ofBallet Rambert.^ ^a b c Powell, Michael (1986). A Life in Movies. Heinemann. pp. 650–651.ISBN 0-434-59945-X.^ Ebert, Roger (1 January 2005). "The Red Shoes (1948)". The Chicago Sun-Times.^ Macaulay, Alastair (31 August 2008). "Love and Dance: Two Obsessions, One Classic Film". The New York Times.^ "The Red Shoes". Picturegoer. 28 August 1948. Retrieved 7 April 2006.^ ^a b c Connelly, Mark (2005). The Red Shoes. TCM British Film Guide. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-84511-071-4.^ "THE STARRY WAY.". The Courier-Mail (Brisbane: National Library of Australia). 8 January 1949. p. 2. Retrieved 11 July 2012.^ At the Bijou Theatre, 209 West 45th Street, New York City^ Wood, Alan (23 February 1952)."The Inside Story of Mr. Rank".Everybody's Weekly. Retrieved 1 January2008.^ Ambler, Maurice (January 1948)."Film Ballet – A New Art Form?". Ballet Today. Retrieved 7 April 2006.^ "Some Opinions on 'The Red Shoes' (Film)". Ballet Magazine 5 (8). August–September 1948. Retrieved7 April 2006.^ "NY Times: The Red Shoes". NY Times. Retrieved 20 December 2008.^ Fordin, Hugh (1996). M-G-M's Greatest Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit. Da Capo Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-306-80730-5.^ Turan, Kenneth (17 May 2009). "LA Times: 'The Red Shoes' shines anew".LA Times. Retrieved 22 June 2009.^ "Festival de Cannes 2009 – The Red Shoes". Retrieved 4 April 2010.^ Calonge, Juan (23 May 2009)."Restored Red Shoes Wows Cannes".blu-ray.com.^ "Amazon.co.uk – The Red Shoes on Blu Ray". Retrieved 4 April 2010.^ "P&P Events & Excursions". Retrieved 4 April 2010.^ "Amazon.com – The Red Shoes (Criterion Collection)". Retrieved21 July 2010.^ "Amazon.com – The Red Shoes on Blu Ray". Retrieved 21 July 2010.^ Cinema.ucla.edu, Dancing to the Music of Time, The Red Shoes Restored, Robert Gitt, Preservation officer, UCLA Film & television archive^ prasadgroup.org, Digital film restoration^ prasadgroup.org, Digital Film Restoration^ Berry, Kevin (4 November 2005)."Diaghilev And The Red Shoes". The Stage.

BibliographyAndersen, Hans Christian. The Red Shoes.In The Shoes of Fortune, and Other Tales. New York: J. Wiley, 1848.In Fairy Tales from Hans Andersen. London: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1908.In Fairy Tales from Hans Andersen. New York: E.P. Dutton & co., 1908.In Tales. Odense (Denmark): Flensted, 1972.Connelly, Mark. The Red Shoes. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005. ISBN 1-84511-071-4.Gibbon, Monk. The Red Shoes Ballet: A Critical Study. London: Saturn Press, 1948. London. 95pp. (illus).Powell, Michael & Pressburger, Emeric. The Red Shoes. London: Avon Books, 1978. ISBN 0-8044-2687-2. (pbk).Powell, Michael & Pressburger, Emeric. The Red Shoes. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. ISBN 0-312-14034-7.Powell, Michael. A Life in Movies: An Autobiography. London: Heinemann, 1986. ISBN 0-434-59945-X.Powell, Michael. Million Dollar Movie. London: Heinemann, 1992. ISBN 0-434-59947-6.Vermilye, Jerry. The Great British Films. Citadel Press, 1978. ISBN 0-8065-0661-X. 112pp.

https://goo.gl/GmvECX