movie review the red shoes 1948

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

About Rotten Tomatoes®
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Prime Video
Most Popular Streaming Movies
Certified Fresh Movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

78% Blink Twice Link to Blink Twice
96% Strange Darling Link to Strange Darling
86% Between the Temples Link to Between the Temples

New TV Tonight

93% Chimp Crazy: Season 1
100% Pachinko: Season 2
-- That '90s Show: Season 3
-- OceanXplorers: Season 1
-- Classified: Season 1
-- Reasonable Doubt: Season 2
-- The Anonymous: Season 1
-- Face to Face With Scott Peterson: Season 1
-- Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War: Season 1

The Red Shoes Reviews

Powell and Pressburger's films stand up because they tap into the human condition while pushing cinematic boundaries, and this is one of their most indelible fables.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 12, 2023

The Red Shoes showed me I could transcend who I was born as and become who I knew I was supposed to be.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 16, 2023

Black Swan wouldn't exist without The Red Shoes, a film about the most primitive human emotions, through the most exquisite forms of art. Powell-Pressburger were absolute masters of their craft. Incredible film. Full review in Spanish

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Apr 8, 2022

Andersen himself achieved a dizzying worldwide success by pouring out his anguish in charming characters and, if we are to believe what we hear, it didn’t free him from his unhappy isolation.

Full Review | Original Score: 10/10 | Mar 23, 2022

Even the most cynical viewer cannot help but find themselves dazzled by the beauty of the production and the haunting nature of the narrative

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 20, 2022

One of the premier films to ever examine the personal sacrifices an individual must make to excel at their art.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 26, 2021

The Red Shoes stands out as a remarkable artistic experience, made even more memorable by the layers of art that went into telling this portrait of artists in pursuit of their passions.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 13, 2021

One of the best films of the twentieth century.

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Oct 26, 2021

The picture's two and a half hours long, contains a full-length ballet, exquisite Technicolor, and superb performances by everyone concerned, including the great dancer Leonide Massine.

Full Review | Jun 29, 2021

It is one of the great films about creating art ... I couldn't bear the thought of never seeing it again.

Full Review | Aug 10, 2020

On the whole, it is a fine motion picture, missing greatness through too many defects. However, the Ballet of the Red Shoes, is one of the finest sequences ever shown on any screen, anywhere.

Full Review | Jun 23, 2020

The Red Shoes (1948, UK) is a beautiful and sensitive post-war film - the 10th collaboration from the masterful and respected British directing/producing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger...

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Sep 29, 2019

With every viewing, it deepens, excites, elicits and emotes.

Full Review | Jun 30, 2019

... a film of dark fantasy, romantic passion and an infectious love of dance, music and cinema. The dance sequences are among the most beautiful put on film... but the drama behind the curtain is even more interesting.

Full Review | Aug 26, 2017

...takes art very seriously-as a matter of life and death, in fact...

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | May 2, 2017

These faults, if faults they be, may well be outweighed by the beauty of the ballet sequences and music, by the skill with which Mr Powell always uses colour, and by Miss Shearer's endearing charm.

Full Review | Mar 9, 2015

To isolate any one element of The Red Shoes is to miss its unique ability to convey a kind of total effect similar to that brought about by dream, or music, or memory.

Incorporating echoes of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale that gives the film its name, Powell and Pressburger include visionary flashes of surrealism and magic realism.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 9, 2015

A lingering, calf-eyed look at backstage ballet's little world of overworked egos and underdone glands.

Moira Shearer has a fragile loveliness and a freshness wholly lacking in almost all the stars of today -- she gives a most appealing performance.

The Red Shoes (1948)

User Reviews

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews

User Ratings
External Reviews
Metacritic Reviews
Full Cast and Crew
Release Dates
Official Sites
Company Credits
Filming & Production
Technical Specs
Plot Summary
Plot Keywords
Parents Guide

Did You Know?

Crazy Credits
Alternate Versions
Connections
Soundtracks

Photo & Video

Photo Gallery
Trailers and Videos

5 things to know about The Red Shoes, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s ravishing film about a dancer

We remember some of the ingredients that make Powell and Pressburger’s glorious dance classic The Red Shoes so special.

1. It’s a spectacular rejection of realism

The Red Shoes (1948) followed a tremendous run of films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger . Between 1943 and 1947, they made 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. For their next trick, they took a decisive step away from the tendency towards realism in postwar cinema, pushing the emotional expressiveness of Technicolor photography yet further, in collaboration with genius cinematographer Jack Cardiff .

Pressburger had originally worked on the idea for the film before the war. Producer Alexander Korda had hired him to write a script that combined the story of the dancer Nijinsky, and his time at Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, with the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale about enchanted shoes that force the wearer to dance on and on until death. He’d also instructed Pressburger to write a role for Merle Oberon, but as that passion cooled, so did the producer’s interest in the film.

Get the latest from the BFI

Powell and Pressburger returned to the idea in 1946, convinced its time had come: “We had all been told for 10 years to go out and die for freedom and democracy,” Powell recalled. “Now the war was over, The Red Shoes told us to go out and die for art.”

The gamble paid off eventually. While the initial release in Britain was very small, as the Rank Organisation resented the fact that it had gone wildly over budget, The Red Shoes played for two years in New York – and was soon acclaimed a triumph.

2. It’s a dance film made by dancers

While some ballet films use stand-ins and cutaways to make it appear that their actors have the right moves, Powell and Pressburger cast dancers instead. Moira Shearer , who plays the heroine, rising star Vicky Page, was a featured dancer at Sadler’s Wells. French prima ballerina Ludmilla Tchérina played one here too – the glamorous Boronskaya. Léonid Massine , former choreographer for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, played Grischa Ljubow, who so brutally coaches Page; while Robert Helpmann played the lead male dancer in the company, Ivan Boleslawsky, and also choreographed the astonishing extended ballet sequence.

Shearer proved an elegant and natural actress on camera – easily able to hold her own with co-stars Anton Walbrook as impresario Lermontov and Marius Goring as young composer Julian Craster. As for the other dancers, if their performances at times veer toward the high-key gestural style of ballet mime, then that all adds to the film’s heady, hyper-real excitement.

3. It’s inspired by one star… and created another

The film’s scenario is said to have been inspired by the moment when Diaghilev saw 14-year-old Diana Gould in the premiere of Frederick Ashton’s ballet Leda and the Swan. He intended to hire her for his own company but died before that could happen. Anna Pavlova was similarly impressed by Gould, saying she was the only English dancer “who had a soul”, but she too died before they could work together.

One of Lermontov and Vicky’s early exchanges sets up both the film’s morbid obsession and its central question: what is life without art? Lermontov asks Vicky: “Why do you want to dance?” Her ingenuous reply is: “Why do you want to live?”

In truth, there was probably more than a little of the Lermontov about director Michael Powell. His film made a star out of Shearer, as much as Lermontov’s ballet launches Vicky to fame. Shearer retired from ballet in 1953, but continued to act, becoming such a popular household name that her wedding to Ludovic Kennedy in 1950 was thronged by wellwishers – and she danced twice more for Powell, in 1951’s The Tales of Hoffman and in 1960’s Peeping Tom .

4. It’s about the agony of artistic expression

Lermontov chides Vicky: “Don’t forget, a great impression of simplicity can only be achieved by great agony of body and spirit.” Few films reveal, either as cruelly or as eloquently as this one, the sacrifices that artists make. We see more bruising rehearsals than standing ovations, and yet, the Ballet Lermontov dances on.

Page’s final, anguished choice between love and art only makes tangible the decision that Lermontov clearly made long ago. Walbrook, who plays him so brilliantly, was gay, as was Diaghilev. Lermontov knows nothing of Page’s “charms” and cares less, he says; his “family” is his company, and he asserts that: “The dancer who relies on the comforts of human love will never be a great dancer. Never!”

As certain critics have noted, there is a striking gay subtext to The Red Shoes, but it is a tragic one – Lermontov is a lonely figure whose obsessive nature demonstrates the danger of living for art rather than love.

5. From Scorsese to La La Land, its influence lives on

The Red Shoes is one of the most widely influential movies of all time. Regularly hailed as a favourite in critics’ polls and by directors including Martin Scorsese (“It’s one of the true miracles of film history”), Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma, it has also been reworked by artists outside the cinema. Kate Bush ’s 1993 album The Red Shoes was inspired by the film, for example. Coming full circle, Matthew Bourne choreographed the film as a ballet at Sadler’s Wells in 2017.

The film also has an afterlife in the classic Hollywood musical. Gene Kelly screened the film multiple times for the producers of An American in Paris (1951), as he persuaded them to let him include a ballet sequence in the film. He did, and in the following year’s Singin’ in the Rain too. The popularity of the ballet sequence as a genre trope was underlined when Damien Chazelle included one in his pastiche La La Land (2016).

There are several, pointed, references to the film in a very different musical, the 1985 Broadway adaptation A Chorus Line. That’s not a direct cinematic influence but rather a testament to the film’s impact on generations of girls. The book for that musical was based on interviews with New York dancers, several of whom confided that The Red Shoes inspired their choice of career.

In a 1970 interview with the New York Times, Shearer expressed a little self-deprecating regret on this score: “I’m a bit embarrassed whenever I hear how many girls were influenced by it. The dancing in it wasn’t terribly good.”

The Red Shoes is back in cinemas from 8 December 2023.

Pamela Hutchinson’s book on The Red Shoes in the BFI Film Classics series is available now.

Stream landmark cinema

Free for 14 days, then £6.99/month or £65/year.

The Criterion Collection

My Collection

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes, the singular fantasia from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is cinema’s quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the most glorious Technicolor feasts ever concocted for the screen. Moira Shearer is a rising star ballerina torn between an idealistic composer and a ruthless impresario intent on perfection. Featuring outstanding performances, blazingly beautiful cinematography by Jack Cardiff, Oscar-winning sets and music, and an unforgettable, hallucinatory central dance sequence, this beloved classic, dazzlingly restored, stands as an enthralling tribute to the life of the artist.

The Red Shoes was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive in association with the BFI, The Film Foundation, ITV Global Entertainment Ltd., and Janus Films. Restoration funding provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, The Film Foundation, and the Louis B. Mayer Foundation.

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
United Kingdom
133 minutes
French, English

4K UHD + Blu-ray Special Edition Features

4K digital master from the 2009 restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
Restoration demonstration featuring filmmaker Martin Scorsese
Audio commentary from 1994 by film scholar Ian Christie, featuring interviews with actors Marius Goring and Moira Shearer, cinematographer Jack Cardiff, composer Brian Easdale, and Scorsese
A Profile of “The Red Shoes,” a 2000 documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with members of the production team
Interview with director Michael Powell’s widow, editor Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, from the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
Audio recordings of actor Jeremy Irons reading excerpts from Powell and screenwriter Emeric Pressburger’s novelization of The Red Shoes and the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Red Shoes”
Publicity stills and behind-the- scenes photos
Gallery of memorabilia from Scorsese’s collection
The “Red Shoes” Sketches, a 1948 animated film of Hein Heckroth’s painted storyboards, with the Red Shoes ballet as an alternate angle
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by critic David Ehrenstein and notes on the restoration by film preservationist Robert Gitt

Cover by F. Ron Miller

Purchase Options

Collector's sets.

Collector's Set

Blu-ray Box Set

Related Films

Trailer for The Red Shoes

Three Reasons: The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes: Dancing for Your Life

By David Ehrenstein

By Ian Christie

Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s Top 10

The director of Party Girl celebrates two favorite dance films; a classic noir by her favorite director, Billy Wilder; and a pair of comedies written by Edwin Justus Mayer, her grandfather.

Ari Aster’s Top 10

The director of Hereditary writes on the filmmakers who get him excited about making movies.

Sloane Crosley’s Top 10

Sloane Crosley is the author of the New York Times best-selling essay collections I Was Told There’d Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number, and the novel The Clasp.

Dark Passages

Is The Red Shoes a Film Noir?

While considered to lie outside the highly policed boundaries of film noir, films like Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind and Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes nevertheless share many of noir’s stylistic and thematic tropes.

By Imogen Sara Smith

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Writer, Producer, Director

Though The Red Shoes is possibly the most popular and visually entrancing dance film of all time, the producing, directing, and writing team of the British Michael Powell and the Hungarian Emeric Pressburger created numerous other odes to the power of art and the imagination, always going against the realist strain of British cinema. Known by the name of their production company, the Archers, Powell and Pressburger forged a working alliance that lasted from the late thirties to the early seventies, and from the anti-Nazi propaganda of 49th Parallel and the astoundingly designed and edited epic The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp to the erotic, magical excesses of A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I’m Going!, Black Narcissus , and The Tales of Hoffmann . The duo were never as successful on their own as with each other, though Powell’s controversial Peeping Tom remains one of the most subversive and disturbing films ever made.

More Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger View All

You have no items in your shopping cart

COMING SOON
OUT NOW - US
COMING SOON - US

COMPETITIONS

Eye For Film >> Movies >> The Red Shoes (1948) Film Review

The red shoes.

Reviewed by: Jennie Kermode

Some stories are made to be told and retold, each version offering something new yet echoing something ancient. Hans Christian Andersen knew how to craft such a story, creating The Red Shoes, a fairytale about a dancer possessed by her footwear and forced to dance to her death. In 1948, Emeric Pressburger updated it to produce one of the most important and powerful films of the era, and now that film has been digitally remastered for a new audience. It's as compelling as it ever was.

Moira Shearer is Vicky, the ambitious young ballerina determined to make a name for herself. Anton Walbrook is Boris Lermentov, owner of a famous ballet company, the man who offers to make her a star. Marius Goring is Julian Craster, the composer whom he commissions to update a ballet version of the Hans Christian Andersen tale, and the man with whom Vicky falls in love. Naturally Lermentov, despite his cynical personality, has by this point also become obsessed with her, so a bitter love triangle develops. But the real thing tearing at Vicky is the sense that she must choose between human happiness and her own obsessive commitment to her art.

It is this focus on Vicky's character that lifts the script above its peers. Vicky is no typical distraught heroine waiting for a man to take pity on her. She has a forceful personality of her own - it is initially this, rather than her dancing, that impresses Lermontov - and it is this that ultimately drives her toward self destruction. Lermontov's plight is framed by a motto he explains to Craster early on when another composer has pilfered parts of the young man's work - that it is far more heart-rending to need to steal than to be stolen from - and Walbrook's nuanced performance means that we can feel for him even at his cruellest, when the very strength of his feelings seems to make it impossible for him to express them directly. Meanwhile the charming young composer is given depth by a cruel and demanding streak of his own. Supporting characters have their own complex relationships and rivalries (gay subtexts barely concealed) and there's an astute understanding of what it's like to work in a creative team full of people at the top of their fields. There ought to be, because the cast and crew of this film were alike at the top of theirs.

The other stand-out feature of The Red Shoes is its sheer beauty. Exquisitely framed and shot in dazzling colour, with the shoes themselves standing out vividly in landscapes of blues and greys, it features fabulously innovative set design and montage work. The dance sequences are brilliantly performed and well worth watching the film for in their own right, but non fans will still find them easily accessible - they enhance, rather than delay, the larger drama. The costumes are stunning and help to make the transitions between actors playing characters and actors playing characters who are playing characters seamless, even as we see Vicky apparently subsumed by the tragic character she plays.

Obviously, given this film's age, some sequences now come across as old fashioned and quaint, and factors like Vicky's upper class background fit more awkwardly into the story than would originally have been the case, but it's surprising how well the central story still works today, probably because it draws on aspects of human nature too fundamental to change. It remains highly watchable and audiences seeing it for the first time can reasonably expect to find themselves in awe.

Director: Michael Powell , Emeric Pressburger

Writer: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger and Keith Winter, based on the book by Hans Christian Andersen.

Starring: Marius Goring, Jean Short, Gordon Littmann, Julia Lang, Bill Shine, Léonide Massine, Anton Walbrook, Austin Trevor, Esmond Knight, Eric Berry, Irene Browne

Runtime: 134 minutes

Country: UK

Search database:

News & Features

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors, dance, ballerina, dance pirouette in rhythm with your aching heart.

Now streaming on:

The film is voluptuous in its beauty and passionate in its storytelling. You don't watch it, you bathe in it. Yes, the ending is a shocker, but you see it coming and there's no way around it; the movie tells us a fairy tale and then repeats it as real life. It's the Hans Christian Andersen fable about a young girl who puts on a pair of red slippers that will not allow her to stop dancing; she must dance and dance, in a grotesque mockery of happiness, until she is dead. This is a dire subject for a ballet, you will agree; the movie surrounds it with the hard-boiled business of running a ballet company.

"The Red Shoes" was made in 1948 by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, British filmmakers as respected as Hitchcock, Reed or Lean. Powell was the director and Pressburger, a Hungarian immigrant, was the writer, but they always took a double credit as writer-directors, and were known as The Archers; their logo was an arrow hitting its target, announcing such masterpieces as " The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp ," "Black Narcissus," " Peeping Tom ," " The Thief of Bagdad ," and "A Matter of Life and Death," the David Niven classic that played in America as "Stairway to Heaven."

Pressburger had written a draft of a ballet film in the 1930s, and after the war, after their enormous success with "Black Narcissus" (1947), which made a star of Deborah Kerr and won Oscars for cinematography and art direction, they had another look at it. Powell had grown up on the French Riviera; his British father ran a hotel on Cap Ferrat, and he often saw the Russian impresario Diaghilev, whose Ballets Russes wintered nearby in Monte Carlo. The Archers used Powell's notions about Diaghilev and the earlier script to create the story of a proud, cold, distant impresario who meets his match with a fiery ballerina. Pressburger may have been inspired by a famous scandal in 1913 when Diaghilev's great but tortured star, Vaslav Nijinsky , married the Hungarian ballerina Romola de Pulszky. He fired them both.

Casting is everything when the characters must move between realism and fantasy, and "The Red Shoes" might have failed without Moira Shearer and Anton Walbrook as the stars. Shearer and Walbrook have distinctive, even idiosyncratic personalities, and they bring an emotional realism to characters who are really, after all, only stereotypes. Walbrook plays Boris Lermontov, the imperious manager of the Ballet Lermontov, a company ruled by his iron will. He is arrogant, curt, unbending, able to charm, able to chill. Shearer plays the dancer Victoria Page, whose friend Julian Craster (Marius Goring) bursts into Lermontov's office to complain that his composition has been stolen by the company's conductor. Julian is hired by Lermontov, Vicky wins an audition, and when the company's leading dancer resigns to get married, they are told "we have three weeks to create a ballet -- out of nothing."

Moira Shearer, let it be said, is a great beauty: "Her cloud of red hair, as natural and beautiful as any animal's, flamed and glittered like an autumn bonfire," Powell wrote in his autobiography, the best ever written by a filmmaker. "She had a magnificent body. She wasn't slim, she just didn't have one ounce of superfluous flesh." Of Walbrook he wrote: "Anton conceals his humility and his warm heart behind perfect manners that shield him like suit of armor. He responds to clothing like the chameleon that changes shape and color out of sympathy with its surroundings."

Quite so. In "Colonel Blimp," Walbrook makes a German aristocrat sympathetic. In Max Ophuls' great "La Ronde" (1950), he is our urbane and charming guide to a decadent society. In "The Red Shoes," he creates a deliberate enigma, a man who does not want to be understood, who imposes his will but conceals his feelings.

Vicky Page is his opposite: Joyous and open to life. Shearer, who was 21 when she was cast, was at the time with the Sadlers' Wells Company, dancing in the shadow of the young Margot Fonteyn . She didn't take movies seriously, waited a year before agreeing to star in "The Red Shoes," went back to the ballet, and possibly never knew how good she was in the movie, how powerfully she related to the camera. "I never knew what a natural was before," Powell told the studio owner J. Arthur Rank. "But now I do. It's Moira Shearer."

The movie tells parallel stories leading up to its 17-minute ballet sequence. While Vicky and Julian are falling in love, Lermontov and his company are creating the new ballet. There is a key scene where Lermontov and all his colleagues meet in his villa to hear Julian play the new ballet for the first time. "I was determined to shoot it in one big master shot," Powell wrote, and it is a masterpiece of composition, of entrances, exits, approaches to the camera, background action, and the vibrating sense of a creative team at work. "There are lots of clever scenes in 'The Red Shoes'," he wrote, "but this is the heart of the picture."

The other key scenes are the ballet itself, and the sequence leading up to the ending. No film had ever interrupted its story for an extended ballet before "The Red Shoes," although its success made that a fashion, and " An American in Paris " and " Singin' in the Rain ," among others, have extended fantasy ballet sequences. None ever looked as fantastical as the one in the "The Red Shoes," where the little shoemaker puts the fatal slippers on the girl. The physical stage is seamlessly transformed into a surreal space, where Shearer glides and flies, enters unreal landscapes and even does a pas de deux with a newspaper that takes the form of a dancer, turns into the dancer, and then into a newspaper again. The cinematographer Jack Cardiff wrote about how he manipulated camera speed to make the dancers seem to linger at the tops of their jumps; the art direction won an Oscar, mostly because of this scene (there was also an Oscar for the music, and nominations for best picture, editing and screenplay).

After Vicky and Julian are married and Lermontov fires them, he persuades her to dance "The Red Shoes" one more time. Julian walks out of the premiere of his new symphony in London to fly to Monte Carlo and accuse her of abandoning him. What will she choose? The dance, or her husband? She puts on the red slippers, and in a brilliant closeup the slippers force her to turn around, and seem to lead her as she runs from the theater and throws herself in front of a train. Discussing the script, Pressburger argued that Vicky couldn't be wearing the red shoes when she runs away, because the ballet had not yet started. Powell writes: "I was a director, a storyteller, and I knew that she must. I didn't try to explain it. I just did it."

That brings us back to the tension we began with. Why does Lermontov object so violently to the marriage of these two young people? Is it sexual jealousy? Does he desire Vicky, or, for that matter, Julian? Lermontov is a bachelor with the elegant wardrobe and mannered detachment that played as gay in the 1940s, but there is not a moment when he displays any sexual feelings. He would rather die than appear vulnerable. My notion is that Lermontov is Mephistopheles. He has made a bargain with Vicky: "I will make you the greatest dancer the world has ever known." But he warns her: "A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love will never be a great dancer -- never." Like the Satan of classical legend, he is enraged when he wins her soul only to lose it again. He demands obedience above all else.

That leaves us with Vicky's choice. She can return to London with Julian, or leave him and continue her career. Why does she abandon these choices at the height of her youth and beauty, and kill herself? The answer of course is that she is powerless, once she puts on the red shoes.

Reviews of "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" and "Peeping Tom" are in the Great Movies collection at rogerebert.com.

"The Red Shoes" was made in 1948 by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger , British filmmakers as respected as Hitchcock, Reed or Lean. Powell was the director and Pressburger, a Hungarian immigrant, was the writer, but they always took a double credit as writer-directors, and were known as The Archers; their logo was an arrow hitting its target, announcing such masterpieces as "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp," "Black Narcissus," "Peeping Tom," "The Thief of Bagdad," and "A Matter of Life and Death," the David Niven classic that played in America as "Stairway to Heaven."

Pressburger had written a draft of a ballet film in the 1930s, and after the war, after their enormous success with "Black Narcissus" (1947), which made a star of Deborah Kerr and won Oscars for cinematography and art direction, they had another look at it. Powell had grown up on the French Riviera; his British father ran a hotel on Cap Ferrat, and he often saw the Russian impresario Diaghilev, whose Ballets Russes wintered nearby in Monte Carlo. The Archers used Powell's notions about Diaghilev and the earlier script to create the story of a proud, cold, distant impresario who meets his match with a fiery ballerina. Pressburger may have been inspired by a famous scandal in 1913 when Diaghilev's great but tortured star, Vaslav Nijinsky, married the Hungarian ballerina Romola de Pulszky. He fired them both.

Casting is everything when the characters must move between realism and fantasy, and "The Red Shoes" might have failed without Moira Shearer and Anton Walbrook as the stars. Shearer and Walbrook have distinctive, even idiosyncratic personalities, and they bring an emotional realism to characters who are really, after all, only stereotypes. Walbrook plays Boris Walbrook, the imperious manager of the Ballet Lermontov, a company ruled by his iron will. He is arrogant, curt, unbending, able to charm, able to chill. Shearer plays the dancer Victoria Page, whose friend Julian Craster (Marius Goring) bursts into Lermontov's office to complain that his composition has been stolen by the company's conductor. Julian is hired by Lermontov, Vicky wins an audition, and when the company's leading dancer resigns to get married, they are told "we have three weeks to create a ballet -- out of nothing."

Vicky Page is his opposite: Joyous and open to life. Shearer, who was 21 when she was cast, was at the time with the Sadlers' Wells Company, dancing in the shadow of the young Margot Fonteyn. She didn't take movies seriously, waited a year before agreeing to star in "The Red Shoes," went back to the ballet, and possibly never knew how good she was in the movie, how powerfully she related to the camera. "I never knew what a natural was before," Powell told the studio owner J. Arthur Rank. "But now I do. It's Moira Shearer."

The other key scenes are the ballet itself, and the sequence leading up to the ending. No film had ever interrupted its story for an extended ballet before "The Red Shoes," although its success made that a fashion, and "An American in Paris" and "Singin' in the Rain," among others, have extended fantasy ballet sequences. None ever looked as fantastical as the one in the "The Red Shoes," where the little shoemaker puts the fatal slippers on the girl. The physical stage is seamlessly transformed into a surreal space, where Shearer glides and flies, enters unreal landscapes and even does a pas de deux with a newspaper that takes the form of a dancer, turns into the dancer, and then into a newspaper again. The cinematographer Jack Cardiff wrote about how he manipulated camera speed to make the dancers seem to linger at the tops of their jumps; the art direction won an Oscar, mostly because of this scene (there was also an Oscar for the music, and nominations for best picture, editing and screenplay).

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Now playing

Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam

Brian tallerico.

Rebel Moon: Director's Cuts

Simon abrams.

Running on Empty

Monica castillo.

Mothers' Instinct

My Spy The Eternal City

Christy lemire.

Blink Twice

Peyton robinson, film credits.

The Red Shoes (1948)

133 minutes

Latest blog posts

13 Films Illuminate Locarno Film Festival's Columbia Pictures Retrospective

Apple TV+'s Pachinko Expands Its Narrative Palate For An Emotional Season Two

Tina Mabry and Edward Kelsey Moore on the Joy and Uplift of The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

The Adams Family Gets Goopy in Hell Hole

Rick's Cafe Texan

Everybody Comes to Rick's

Monday, November 11, 2019

The red shoes (1948): a review (review #1300).

No comments:

The Red Shoes

4K UHD Blu-ray/Blu-ray edition reviewed by Chris Galloway
December 21 2021

See more details, packaging, or compare

Picture 9/10

The Criterion Collection releases yet another edition for Michael Powell’s and Emeric Pressburger’s classic The Red Shoes , this time in 4K on a triple-layer UHD disc. Making use of the same 2009 restoration that was also the source for Criterion’s previous high-definition version (and sourced from the original 3-strip Technicolor negatives) the film is delivered here in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1 with a 2160p/24hz ultra high-definition encode in Dolby Vision. The release also comes with a standard Blu-ray disc presenting the film in 1080p/24hz high-definition. It appears to be the exact same disc used for their 2010 Blu-ray release .

Of the titles Criterion listed in their initial 4K announcement The Red Shoes , the lone Technicolor film in that list, was the one I was most curious about. Criterion’s Blu-ray already looked pretty damn good for the time—and I’d dare say it still does—so would the 4K format offer any sort of boost?

I’d answer that with a resounding yes ! The presentation looks unbelievably good, glorious even, and it really comes down to how the presentation ends up rendering the film’s deep shadows and the general Technicolor look. A lot of this appears to come down to the implementation of Dolby Vision and HDR as I didn’t find the SDR presentation came as close to capturing the same look, so the SDR screen grabs supplied here don’t really do it the same justice. What surprised me was just how much cleaner and crisper things manage to be with this new presentation. The old Blu-ray’s image looks sharp, there’s no doubt on that, but going back to it after watching this things can look a bit too bright there, maybe even blown out at times, and you can, on occasion, make out those slight “seams” around the layering for Technicolor. Not a big deal, but it’s there. That said, the 4K manages to do a substantially better job with these sequences, with those brighter scenes (like in the opening party) being brought down a bit. This ends up pushing the Technicolor look to have a more stable and cleaner rendering, those “seams” no longer as obvious (at least most of the time), the colours looking to blend a bit better, and all without any loss of detail. In fact, those finer details are even richer now.

It’s astonishing already how better this presentation looks based on how much cleaner the Technicolor aspect of the presentation is, but we haven’t even gotten into the shadows yet. I haven’t seen the film in a few years admittedly, and I had forgotten, outside of the central “Red Shoes” dance sequence, how dark the film actually is and how heavy the shadows can be. Part of the reason for that may be related to the fact the Blu-ray has to pump things up a little bit, as to not lose any of those details in the shadows. The blacks and shadows are still there on the Blu-ray, and they look impressive, but the 4K presentation shows how much better things can be. Various shots in the numerous theater settings, or even Anton Walbrook’s office, are laced with shadows and deep blacks, but the fine details and the range in them is very wide, so despite the darkness, everything, from important characters to subtle details, still comes through clearly. In comparison to the Blu-ray’s high-def presentation I will stress this one does look darker overall, but you can still make out the details in the darker areas, and everything lit in the forefront still pops, so nothing is lost. The central dance sequence is really something else, and the range, even in the colours (especially those reds!), is just incredible.

Daytime sequences look lovely, too, without coming off overly bright. Criterion is again applying a deft hand when it comes to how bright things get, a few lamps sticking out, though in a tame manner. The wider range also helps in some of the smaller details, including how clear a drop of rain appears on a poster.

The base presentation is still solid itself, with film grain again being rendered beautifully, which aids in delivering those sharp details. The restoration itself is still incredible, the film coming off about as clean as possible, the only “issues” (if one can even call them that) being around some of the film’s optical effects, which would be inherent to the source materials anyways. All said and done, this upgrade really is an absolute knock-out, an incredible upgrade over Criterion’s previous Blu-ray and the best the film has ever looked.

I can’t say I noticed a difference between the monaural PCM soundtrack here and the one found on the Blu-ray, though I wouldn’t have expected to. Despite the film’s age I’m still pleased with how clean and sharp the audio is. Dialogue is clear, showing some modest range, but it’s the musical numbers within the film that really show off, reaching some decent highs without ever coming off harsh or edgy. There can be some subtle background noise but outside of that there is no significant damage. It still sounds great.

Extras 8/10

As they have been doing with their 4K UHD editions so far, Criterion only includes the alternate audio track supplements on the UHD disc, which can be played along with the main feature. The remaining video features are found on the included standard Blu-ray disc, which also presents a 1080p version of the film, and appears to be the same disc used for Criterion’s 2010 edition . From that edition:

First [up] is the audio commentary [originally] put together by film historian Ian Christie [for Criterion’s 1994 LaserDisc edition], which includes excerpts from interviews with Martin Scorsese, stars Marius Goring and Moria Shearer, cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and composer Brian Easdale. This is a great track, with Christie acting as a sort of moderator I guess you could say. He provides general information about the film and production [along with] some analysis, then cutting to recordings from the various individuals mentioned to support his comments. Scorsese looks at how the film inspired him and other directors, recalling how the dance sequences helped him when choreographing the fight scenes in Raging Bull , while the other subjects talk about the production in more detail. Cardiff mentions his initial reluctance in doing a ballet picture and then talks about working out the look of the film, while Easdale covers the music. Goring and Shearer offer their own reflections, Shearer mentioning her initial reluctance that stemmed from many factors, including the fact she thought the script was terrible. Christie gets into detail about the production history, how it was a project originally created for Alexander Korda and how Powell and Pressburger ended up getting it away from him. He then covers its initial reception and how its popularity grew over the years. It’s an incredibly packed track, filled with great information that covers every aspect of the film and its production. If you haven’t heard it before (it was originally recorded for the Criterion laserdisc in 1994) it’s certainly worth listening to. [ Audio exceprts featuring] actor Jeremy Irons reading the Powell and Pressburger’s collaborative novelization of the film [is then found on an] alternate track that plays over the film. Irons only provides excerpts but despite some obvious jumps in narrative he’s able to hide some of the gaps rather well. The novel appears to stay very close to the film, though there are a few additions here and there, such as more focus on Victoria during the dinner party where she’s to perform for Lermontov, the latter of whom managing to come off a little more detestable in the novel. Iron’s reading is good, his voice being one of those that can keep one’s attention no matter what he’s saying, even if he’s slurring his lines as he does in something like Dungeons and Dragons , though I’m not sure if some may find a couple of his characterizations offensive. I wouldn’t say it’s something that’s necessary to listen to, but it offers some intriguing additions to the film, including in some of the inner monologues that are now present (like Victoria’s during the Red Shoes [dance] sequence). The remaining supplements are found under the supplements section [on the standard Blu-ray]. First is a presentation about the restoration demonstration , which consists of an interview with Martin Scorsese. This quick 4-minute feature breaks down the restoration and describes all the hard and painstaking work that went into it. Examples are given, and there are plenty of before-and-afters. I’ve always liked these, and I found this one particularly interesting because it gets heavier into the technical details. It’s also interesting just how bad the original materials looked, and it makes the finished product that much more impressive. [The release yet again presents a] 25-minute documentary around the film made in 2000 and called Profile of “The Red Shoes,” featuring interviews with Pressburger’s grandsons Kevin and Andrew Macdonald, historian Ian Christie, cinematographer Jack Cardiff, cameraman Chris Challis, production designer Hein Heckroth’s grandson Christian Routh, and dancer Darcey Bussell. The documentary manages to cover a lot of the same material found in the commentary, particularly the project’s origins, the 17-minute ballet sequence, Shearer’s reservations about starring in the film, and Cardiff’s original feelings that ballet was nothing but a bunch of “sissies prancing about.” But it offers more information on the film’s special effects—which were done in-camera—the producer’s original reaction to the film, more information on Walbrook, and a decent collection of photos. This material, along with the fact the documentary is short and swift, makes it worth viewing. Also new is an interview with Michael Powell’s widow Thelma Schoonmaker Powell , which was taken at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival where the new restoration premiered and lasts 15-minutes. She talks a bit about her husband and the film, but focuses mainly on the restoration, the raising of the money, and the help of all of those involved, including Martin Scorsese. She then talks a bit about working with Scorsese in the editing room on his films (apparently with a TV in the background tuned to TCM) and talks a bit about what would have been the [then] upcoming Shutter Island , even pointing out a direct homage to The Red Shoes that appears in that film. She also talks a bit about art and the current state of films, and then mentions that money was being raised for restorations for other films, singling out The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp [which would finally receive a new Blu-ray release from Criterion in 2013 using that restoration]. It’s a great interview and I’m glad Criterion included it, even if a lot of the material didn’t relate to The Red Shoes directly. Criterion includes a stills gallery presenting various production and publicity photos along with a couple of shots from deleted scenes, all of which have been carried over from [their original] DVD. Criterion has added some new [photos] as well, presenting plenty of designs, sketches, and paintings made in designing the film. Martin Scorsese’s Red Shoes memorabilia is presented again in a gallery, though unfortunately not everything has been carried over [from the original 1999 DVD edition]. There are posters and lobby cards, along with some sketches, though close-ups of the sketches are missing, and for whatever reason a couple of books haven’t been included. The original DVD presented a “Red Shoes Ballet Book” and pages and pages of photos of the content, but for some reason this is all missing here. We do get some new material, though. It appears Scorsese was given the original red shoes used in the film (signed by the cast) and he also has what looks to be the shooting script for the film with an inscription by Powell. There are also storyboards present. It’s a little disappointing everything hasn’t been ported over, but the added material is rather good. Like the original DVD this section is navigable using the arrows on your remote. Red Shoes Sketches is similar to the multi-angle/multi-audio feature found on the original DVD. As mentioned in the commentary and in more detail in the documentary, a short film was put together using the paintings by Hein Heckroth representing the Red Shoes ballet sequence with the music and this is supposed to be it. Running 16-minutes it’s basically a slideshow presentation of the paintings to Easdale’s score. One improvement [over the original DVD] is the short film has been restored, removing a lot of the scratches and damage, while also improving colours. There is also a multi-angle feature allowing you to switch to a split screen comparing the actual ballet sequence in the film (using the newly restored film for the comparison) on the right to the paintings on the left. The presentation also stretches the split screen out to fill your widescreen television (the original DVD’s was made for a 4:3 television). There is also an alternate audio option presenting Jeremy Irons reading the original Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Red Shoes”. The disc then concludes with the same theatrical trailer found on the original DVD, though slightly restored and with no macro-blocking (the reds in the trailer on the DVD were horrendously blocky). Missing here, which was found on the original DVD, is a filmography for Powell and Pressburger, but considering we live in the age of IMDB it’s not a huge loss. The booklet comes with a great essay by David Ehrenstein on the film and its production history, followed by more notes on the film’s extensive restoration. Missing is Ian Christie’s essay found in the insert of the original DVD edition.

Again, it’s disappointing some material didn’t make it over from Criterion’s original DVD edition, but it’s still an impressive set of material.

The presentation is a knock-out, the 4K upgrade with Dolby Vision appearing to do a better job in rendering the film's Technicolor look and the rich shadows found in the photography. I think it’s a hell of an upgrade.

You Might Like

The Red Shoes (Blu-ray)

The Red Shoes (DVD)

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Blu-ray)

Suggestions

4k uhd review: powell and pressburger’s the red shoes on the criterion collection.

It took a dozen years, but we finally get a transfer that does full justice to the glory of this most sumptuous of all Technicolor films.

Of course, Sontag was calling for a new style of rhapsodic criticism, and in its own way, that’s what The Red Shoes provides. A study of what draws inspired youths to the arts (is it just the potential for expression, or is it also the possibility of recognition and adulation?), the 1948 film, not unlike Powell and Pressburger’s earlier A Canterbury Tale , follows a lyrical rather than linear plot structure. The emphasis is quite rightly placed on the development of character, and so we see young Julian Craster (Marius Goring), aspiring composer and a victim of plagiarism at the hands of his beloved professor, get his first break composing for a distinguished ballet company and how he matures, deepens, and develops his art.

Of course, there’s also Victoria Page (Moira Shearer), a society girl at first dismissed by ballet impresario Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) but who shares his passion for art and life. When he asks her why she wants to dance, she replies, “Why do you want to live?” Powell and Pressburger are careful to show us the collaborative nature of ballet—its behind-the-scenes craftspeople, who, though unsung, deserve as much credit as those on the marquee—and it’s not hard to imagine that The Red Shoes is their democratic statement on cinema as well.

The choice between living life and contributing art—more the observation of life—becomes Victoria’s pivotal fault line, as she falls in love with Julian against Lermontov’s wishes. Andersen’s original wisp of a story is a pedagogical warning to children about vanity in its telling of a young woman who skips out of church and forgets to tend to her sickly mother, instead putting on a pair of red shoes to dance at a party. The red shoes, bewitched, have a life of their own and compel her to dance forever without stopping, until she manages to have an executioner chop off her feet. Andersen’s stories mix sexuality and spirituality in a way that can unsettle contemporary audiences, but Powell and Pressburger take away the more gruesome elements of Andersen’s original tale, and as a result The Red Shoes becomes a mise en abyme , with the true drama occurring backstage yet reflecting the themes of the show that Lermontov’s ballet company is mounting (shades of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge ).

It’s hard to overstate what a breakthrough the actual “Ballet of the Red Shoes” scene is in this film. After years of musical numbers that consisted of little more than pointing the camera at a dancer in static long shot, and subtly reframing only when necessary, Powell and Pressburger completely subjectivized dance with the titular ballet. It’s in the way they open up the space of the stage, allowing for Shearer to flit and prance her way beyond the parameters of the proscenium, but cut in to close-ups (as of her feet when she first magically jumps into her shoes) and point-of-view shots from Victoria’s perspective. Though Victoria’s real-life struggle between romantic love and artistic expression is more earthbound, it’s no less heartbreaking. A tragedy, not so much of circumstances, but of her own dual nature, Victoria becomes a symbol for so much of modern womanhood, caught as she is between her dreams and passions.

The first time I saw The Red Shoes , I absurdly classified it as one of Powell and Pressburger’s more “conventional” films—for not having the daring episodic structure of A Canterbury Tale , the sexual hysteria of Black Narcissus , the dreamlike ambiguity of A Matter of Life and Death , and the rhapsodic romanticism of I Know Where I’m Going! My initial opinion of this great masterpiece of modern art must surely have been, to quote Sontag again, “the revenge of [my] intellect upon art.” Like John Ford, Walt Disney, and Steven Spielberg, Powell and Pressburger understood that artistry and mainstream popularity need not be mutually exclusive. Rather, within the conventions that I had formerly dismissed, that of the backstage romance, the neophyte composer hoping to “make it,” the rising star torn between conflicting desires, they, like the great classical artists, found their most sublime form of expression.

Image/Sound

The 2009 restoration of the The Red Shoes from the original negative, which was partially funded by the much-derided Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has been a benchmark for how utterly gleaming and vital older movies can look given the time, attention, and (not insignificantly) money necessary to get there. Criterion previously released this restoration on Blu-ray not long after it was completed, and at the time it blew away the distributor’s prior DVD of this most sumptuous of all Technicolor films. With home video parameters finally having caught up to this restoration’s inherent potential, though, the leap is once again night and day. But place extra emphasis on night, since the 4K format’s most palpable improvement is in its capacity to convey the richness to be found in darkness and shadows.

The negative space throughout the film’s series of theater auditoriums is beautifully encroaching, and the emptiness of Lermontov’s proscenium-like apartment (with those floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains) once Victoria unceremoniously chooses love over art is devastating. Of course, the subtler improvements only serve to underline just how tricked-out cinematographer Jack Cardiff’s dizzying flourishes are elsewhere. As presented here, the film’s centerpiece ballet sequence clears every last inch of space around itself as the apotheosis of Technicolor cinema, a confluence of color and light in a perfectly choreographed dance.

The sound is identical to the uncompressed soundtrack from the earlier Blu-ray. But even if there’s nothing new to report on that front, the dialogue is crystal clear, and composer Brian Easdale’s still-underrated score sounds rich and full even in dated monaural form.

While this release is a do-over when it comes to bonus features, who could complain? The set already represented peak Criterion. Martin Scorsese, Archers obsessive that he is, introduces the film with a summary of the Film Foundation’s restoration project. (We also get a slide show of The Red Shoes memorabilia that he’s collected over the years.) His longtime collaborator and editor Thelma Schoonmaker (the widow of Michael Powell) also contributes an interview about the influence of The Red Shoes on her life and on Scorsese’s. She mentions that Marty paid tribute to the film’s great shot of Moira Shearer’s feet as she runs down a staircase in Shutter Island with a shot of Leonardo DiCaprio’s feet as he runs up a staircase. Scorsese is also on hand for the audio commentary featuring British film historian Ian Christie (author of an essential BFI monograph on Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death ) and interviews with Cardiff and actors Marius Goring and Moira Shearer.

Less interesting is “Profile of The Red Shoes ,” a very-standard making-of documentary featuring interviews with members of the production team. Best of all is a highly stylized painted storyboard representation of “The Ballet of the Red Shoes” with Jeremy Irons reading Hans Christian Andersen’s original story on the soundtrack. (Irons is also on hand to read excerpts from Powell and Pressburger’s 1978 novelization of the film.) Rounding things out, the included booklet features a perceptive essay from David Ehrenstein, one of the film critic world’s most unapologetic proponents of the life-giving importance of art.

Criterion’s 4K Citizen Kane was the scene-setting overture for the label’s leap into HDR, and there’s an argument to be made that their upgrade of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s fearless masterpiece The Red Shoes is the showpiece.

You might be interested in

Interview: Thelma Schoonmaker and David Hinton on ‘Made in England’ and the Archers’ Legacy

‘Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger’ Review: To the Archers, with Love

4K UHD Blu-ray Review: Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom on the Criterion Collection

Christian Blauvelt

Christian Blauvelt is executive managing editor at IndieWire .

Eric Henderson

Eric Henderson is the web content manager for WCCO-TV. His writing has also appeared in City Pages .

Review: John Woo’s 1993 Actioner Hard Target on KL Studio Classics Blu-ray

Review: Albert and Allen Hughes’s Menace II Society on Criterion 4K UHD

The Red Shoes (1948)

Directed by emeric pressburger / michael powell.

AllMovie Rating 6
User Ratings ( 0 )
Your Rating
Overview ↓
User Reviews ↓
Cast & Crew ↓
Awards ↓
Streams ↓
Related ↓

Description by Wikipedia

The Red Shoes is a 1948 British film about a ballet dancer, written, directed and produced by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known collectively as The Archers. The film employs the story within a story device, 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 by Brian Easdale and cinematography by Jack 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.

Official Site

Part of collection, related movies.

Alternate Titles

Share full article

Supported by

THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; 'The Red Shoes,' a British Film About the Ballet, Stars Moira Shearer at Bijou

By Bosley Crowther

Oct. 23, 1948

Over the years, there have been several movies in which attempts have been made to capture the spirit and the beauty, the romance and the enchantment of the ballet. And, inevitably, in these pictures, ballets have been performed, a few times with charm and sincerity but more often—and unfortunately—without. However, there has never been a picture in which the ballet and its special, magic world have been so beautifully and dreamily presented as the new British film, "The Red Shoes."Here, in this unrestricted romance, which opened at the Bijou yesterday, is a visual and emotional comprehension of all the grace and rhythm and power of the ballet. Here is the color and the excitement, the strange intoxication of the dancer's life. And here is the rapture and the heartbreak which only the passionate and the devoted can know.In certain respects the whole picture which Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made seems to have the construction and the flow of a romantic dance. For not only is the story a frankly sentimental affair, true to the stanchest conventions of triumphal love and bitter tears, but it is played by a splendid cast of actors who have the grace and the pace of dancers themselves. Indeed, many of them are dancers, as is natural, and they frequently perform, so that the rhythm and movement of their dancing transmits easily into the dramatic scenes.And, for that matter, the story—it being about an English girl who devotes herself to a famous ballet company, becomes its star and then falls in love—is a symbolic realization of the theme of the principal ballet, which is based on Hans Christian Andersen's fable of the little girl who is bewitched by her red dancing shoes.If there is one objection to the picture, it is that the story plays too long, with much involvement and redundance in a comparatively simple plot. There is no need to have the impresario, even though he is a charming martinet, reiterate with such monotony that dancing and love don't mix. And despite the beauties of the settings and the fascinations of the theatre, it is wearying to see so much Monte Carlo and so much of the ebb-and-flow backstage.However, the story is still beguiling, having been written with eloquence and taste, and the performance of Anton Walbrook as the impresario is winning, none the less. He gives such a wonderful picture of a forceful, inspired, creative man with a beautiful flair for the dramatic that his over-frequent presence can be borne.And, at least, the length of the picture—a good bit over two hours, not counting an intermission—permits an abundance of dance, which is the particular glory and excitement in this film. Numerous bits and pieces of famous and popular ballets are handsomely and tactfully intruded. And the main ballet, "The Red Shoes," is given a full-length performance, playing for about twenty minutes on the screen.The cinema staging of this ballet, conceived in cinematic terms, is a thrilling blend of movement, color, music and imagery. For it quickly evolves from the confines of the limited settings of the stage into sudden and fanciful regions conceived in the dancer's mind. And here some spectacular décor and some fresh choreography, arranged by Robert Helpmann, spark impressions that are vivid and intense.As the leading ballerina and the romantic heroine of the film, Moira Shearer is amazingly accomplished and full of a warm and radiant charm. Leonide Massine is wonderfully comic in a completely fantastic style as her dancing partner and ballet master, and his dancing (of his own creation) is superb. Mr. Helpmann and Ludmilla Tcherina dance and act remarkably well, too, and Esmond Knight, Albert Basserman and Eric Berry are good in minor roles. Only Marius Goring, as the young composer who steals the heroine's heart, vaguely distressed this observer. Too flamboyant and insincere.Much could be said of the whole décor, which is set off to brilliant effect by properly used Technicolor, and the music of the ballet. Much could be said on the direction of Mr. Powell and Mr. Pressburger. But right now we must be contented with repeating that "The Red Shoes" is one you must see.

THE RED SHOES: Written, directed and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger for J. Arthur Rank; from an original screen play by Mr. Pressburger, with additional dialogue by Keith Winter; musical score by Brian Easdale and choreography by Robert Helpmann; a Powell-Pressburger Production released here by Eagle-Lion. At the Bijou.Boris Lermontov . . . . . Anton WalbrookJulian Craster . . . . . Marius GoringVictoria Page . . . . . Moira ShearerIvan Boleslawsky . . . . . Robert HelpmannLjuboy . . . . . Leonide MassineRatov . . . . . Albert BassermanBoronskaja . . . . . Ludmilla TcherinaLivy . . . . . Esmond KnightTerry . . . . . Jean ShortIke . . . . . Gordon LittmanProfessor Palmer . . . . . Austin TrevorDimitri . . . . . Eric BerryLady Neston . . . . . Irene Browne

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

Want all of The Times? Subscribe .

About / FAQ
Submit News
Upcoming Horror
Marketing Macabre

Horror News | HNN Official Site | Horror Movies,Trailers, Reviews

Film review: the red shoes (1948).

Nigel Honeybone 03/10/2014 Uncategorized

REVIEW: Fantasy is a term that is often associated with childhood, and it may strike some readers as paradoxical that so many of the fantasies discussed on Horror News were made for adults only. Of course, even children’s fantasies traditionally have a dark side, and many libraries have attempted to ban the fairy-tales of the Brothers Grimm and others as ‘unsuitable for children’ even though they were specifically written for them. However, even during the science fiction horror boom of the fifties, the major studios in the United Kingdom and the United States refused to abandon family-friendly fantasies, and it’s definitely worth looking at some of the key moments in this line of development.

The Red Shoes (1948)

Tags Anton Walbrook Emeric Pressburger Hans Christian Andersen Marius Goring Michael Powell Moira Shearer Red Shoes Robert Helpmann

Film Review: Patrick (1978)

Film Review: Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)

Film Review: The Thief Of Bagdad (1940)

More From Decider

New Shows & Movies To Watch This Weekend: 'Pachinko' on Apple TV+ and...

'Unfinished Beef': Netflix Reveals Hosts For Labor Day Hot Dog Showdown...

Andy Cohen Asks Brandi Glanville To Watch Him And Kate Chastain Have Sex...

Peacock Has Removed Raygun and the Entire Olympics Breaking Competition...

'WWHL': Bowen Yang Says One Terrible 'SNL' Host Once Made "Multiple Cast...

Peacock's Gary Coleman Doc Questions The Late Child Actor's "Suspicious"...

11 Best New Movies on Netflix: August 2024's Freshest Films to Watch

'Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles' Star Josh Flagg Gives Update On His...

‘The Red Shoes’ Remains A Haunting Masterpiece about the Pains of Female Ambition

Collage of Vicki Lester in The Red Shoes

Where to Stream:

The Red Shoes

The best movie I’ve watched all summer long was made in 1948. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes is a hypnotic dead drop into the psyche of an ambitious ballerina who is ultimately confronted with a stark choice: either devote herself 100% to dance or keep her beloved husband content. While The Red Shoes uses heightened visuals and a fairy tale ballet to ratchet up the psychological tension, it still speaks to one of the issues that has dogged women for the past century. Can women have “it all?” Is it possible to attain greatness in an art or industry while also fulfilling the needs in your personal life?

The film’s tragic message feels particularly urgent once again in 2020, a time when many women are feeling pressure like never before to choose between their career and home life. While a facile reading of The Red Shoes might lead viewers to believe that women can’t have it all, the truth may be even more disturbing. The story of The Red Shoes suggests that a work/life balance can be achieved…as long as the jealousy of the men is sated. It’s not that women are incapable of having it all, but that the men in their life might not let them.

The Red Shoes stars dancer and actress Moira Shearer as Vicky Page, a London society girl with big dreams of being a ballet star. The ambitious girl has to work hard, though, to impress Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) of her worth. After he catches her dancing perfectly to a sped up musical accompaniment of Swan Lake at a local theatre, he decides to give her a spot in his illustrious company. At the same time, Lermontov has taken the young composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) under his wing after learning that his latest ballet was plagiarized by the upstart. In Europe, Lermontov asks Craster to rewrite a ballet based on the fairy tale of “The Red Shoes” for Vicky to star in.

The original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, “The Red Shoes,” is a rebuke of vanity. In the tale, an adopted peasant girl gets her foster mother to purchase her decadently beautiful red shoes to replace her ratty old ones. Wearing the shoes not only bars her from entering church, where only black shoes were allowed, but invites a curse. Once she starts dancing in the shoes, she is doomed to never stop. It separates her from everyone she knows and marks her as a cautionary tale.

In the film, the story is transformed into a metaphor for Vicky’s ambition as a ballerina. Indeed, it seems to represents all ambition. Throughout the film, Lermentov makes it clear that he wants full control over his ballerinas. When the last prima donna leaves to get married, he makes a snide comment about her life choice in full earshot of Vicky. However, early in the film, Vicky is so single-focused on her career, she has no problems embracing the rigors of The Ballet of the Red Shoes or any of the pieces Lermentov tosses her way.

All that changes when it’s revealed that while Lermentov’s company has been touring Europe, Vicky has fallen in love with the composer Julian. After this, Lermentov flies into a rage and Vicky is forced with a decision: the ballet or Julian. She actually retires, to wed the rising star composer. But all the while, Julian’s best work, The Ballet of the Red Shoes , goes unperformed by Vicky or anyone else. Finally, Lermentov lures Vicky back to Europe to dance the role, but Julian is incensed with rage over what he sees is a betrayal. There’s a huge fight and Vicky chooses her art this time.

In the final moments of the film, Vicky is about to go on stage when she drifts into a fugue. She flutters out onto a balcony and swan dives onto the path of an oncoming train. In her dying moments, she begs Julian — who was en route to the station — to take off the red shoes at last.

Again, the easy interpretation is that The Red Shoes , like Andersen’s fairy tale, thinks its heroine deserves to be punished for overreaching. Vicky’s artistic ambition can be seen as a type of vanity, after all. However, The Red Shoes also makes a point of turning Lermentov into an even more ghoulish manipulator in the final act. At times he even resembles the demonic spirit in the ballet who pulls Vicky’s character into the trap of the red shoes. Furthermore, as soon as Vicky expresses a desire to return to dance, Julian shifts from supportive partner to possessive lover.

The Red Shoes acknowledges the stress that stalks women trying to wholeheartedly pursue their dreams while also staying true to the ones they love by turning it into a technicolor tragedy. As one of the films in HBO Max’s Criterion Collection sampling, The Red Shoes has been restored to vivid glory. Every shot is a jaw-dropping explosion of saturated colors, stark shadows, and heightened fantasy. Naturally, its story leans hard into its fairy tale themes, drawing Vicky’s inner conflict to totally tragic ends.

But The Red Shoes also uses this dreamlike atmosphere to starkly paint the two men in Vicky’s life as fairy tale monsters tearing her in two. Before Lermontov learns of Vicky and Julian’s affair, the company enjoys its greatest triumphs. This proves that Vicky could balance her art and her love life. After the romance is discovered, Lermontov starts to transform into a controlling sorcerer. Later, Julian’s envy turns him into a corrupted Prince Charming. It is the men in Vicky’s life and the impossible choices they give her that arguably contribute to her downfall.

Criterion Collection

The Razzies: Mean-Spirited Mischief Makers or A Necessary Counterweight To The Stuffy, Self-Serious Oscars?

'the underground railroad', barry jenkins' acclaimed miniseries, coming to criterion collection in june, james gray's films continually wrestle with his "fraught and complicated" relationship to the myth of his hometown, new york city, barnes and noble criterion sale 2023: save 50% on martin scorsese blu-rays.

The Red Shoes is one of the most visually astounding films ever made. It is an celebration of artistic obsession and a cautionary tale about knowing how to balance your priorities. Although at first glance, it seems to shut down feminine ambitions, the film is far more complicated. Really, Vicky isn’t torn asunder by trying to balance her love of dance and her love of her husband. She’s destroyed by the jealousy of the men in her life who need her to devote all of herself, or nothing.

Given the current climate — one in which there is an ever-increasing crunch on mothers and wives working from home to make tough, impossible choices for their lives — The Red Shoes takes on chilling new urgency. The film makes it clear that the work/life balance can be achieved, but only under supportive conditions. It is not a single woman’s job to pull off this magic balancing act, but the responsibility of the community around her to buoy her up in times of crisis.

In fact, The Red Shoes argues that it is when people try to force a woman to choose between ambition and family, that is the moment it all falls down.

Where to stream The Red Shoes

'Inside Out 2' Comes to Digital, But When Will 'Inside Out 2' Be Streaming on Disney+?

Is The First 'Monday Night Football' Game On Tonight? How To Watch NFL Games On Monday Nights This Season

Jenna Bush Hager Pauses 'Today' Broadcast After Finding Out She Wasn't Invited To Hoda Kotb's BBQ: "When Did You Have A Barbecue?"

'The Bachelorette' Season 21, Episode 7 Recap: Who Went Home After Hometown Dates?

What Time Is 'The Bachelorette' On Tonight? How To Watch Season 21, Episode 7 (Hometown Week) Live On ABC And Hulu

Mark Consuelos Recalls Being Served A "Massive" Soft Serve After Being Recognized From 'Riverdale' On 'Live': "I Used To Ask For A Small"

by the Ballet Lermontov

young composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) was hired by Lermontov to be an orchestra coach and deputy conductor with the Covent Garden Opera House at the same time Vicky was successfully auditioning to be a ballet dancer
Vicky performed with the Ballet Rambert in a Saturday matinee performance of Tchaïkovski's Swan Lake ("Lac des Cygnes") at the Mercury Theatre
Lermontov described (to Craster) the work required on an upcoming project - the rewrite of the musical score for The Red Shoes , an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale - he described the plot about a young girl overtaken by her obsession to dance in red shoes: "'Tis the story of a girl who's devoured by an ambition to attend a dance in a pair of red shoes. She gets the shoes, goes to the dance -- At first, all goes well and she's very happy. At the end of the evening, she gets tired and wants to go home. But the red shoes are not tired. In fact, the red shoes are never tired . They dance her out into the streets. They dance her over the mountains and valleys through fields and forests, through night and day. Time rushes by. Love rushes by. Life rushes by. But the red shoes dance on....Oh, in the end, she dies"
there was continuing jealousy between Boris Lermontov about the romance that was developing between Vicky and Craster - her young composer and lover/future husband; Lermontov continually pressured the struggling Vicky to make a painful choice between career or art (ballet) and heart-felt love (as Lermontov explained: "You cannot have it both ways. The dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love will never be a great dancer. Never")
in Monte Carlo, Lermontov was grooming Vicky to be the prima ballerina in his new project - The Red Shoes ballet; she was wearing a crown and a flowing, elaborate light-blue party or ball gown as she climbed a long series of steep stone stairs (overgrown with weeds) of a country estate-villa to speak to Lermontov about her starring role

just before the opening night's performance, Lermontov tried to calm Vicky's jittery nerves - by reminding her of how the music would guide her memory, and he further encouraged her to dance with "ecstasy": ("The music is all that matters and nothing but the music. If I had any doubts about you at all, I should be nervous...I believed in you from the very beginning. But now everybody does. I want you to dance tonight with the same ecstasy I've seen in you only once before")
the film's magical highlight was the visually-exciting, 15-minute stylized "The Ballet of the Red Shoes" with young, red-headed prima ballerina Vicky's performance as a dancer who died because of her obsessive need to dance with her shoes; at one point in the ballet, the audience became a roaring ocean coastline behind the conductor-composer Craster; in the ballet's finale, her shoes were removed by the Church Minister as she died of exhaustion; a spotlight was directed onto the deadly pair of shoes; the Church Minister carried the Girl's limp body up the front steps, as the Shoemaker grabbed the shoes and returned them to his shop, to be enticing for his next victim; the curtain closed on a close-up of the shoes in the Shoemaker's hands

Vicky and Julian began an intense romance during The Red Shoes project, and then, instead of attending Lermontov's birthday dinner, Julian and Vicky were escorted in a moonlight horse-carriage ride by the shimmering ocean and coastline, obviously in love and hugging and kissing each other
the jealous Lermontov confronted Caster - complaining about how Vicky's love affair was detracting from her art: ("She's not, however, a great dancer yet. Nor is she likely to become one if she allows herself to be sidetracked by idiotic flirtations"); the impresario fired Julian; and Vicky left with him - to marry and live in London with him: ("I thought once, Mr. Lermontov, that there would be no room in my life for anything but dancing....But if Julian goes, I shaIl go too.... I shall dance somewhere else")
later, Lermontov enticingly requested that Vicky return and perform in a one-time revival of The Red Shoes : "Nobody else has ever danced The Red Shoes since you left. Nobody else ever shall. Put on the red shoes, Vicky, and dance for us again"
just before an encore concert presentation of The Red Shoes ballet - both Craster and Vicky met with Lermontov in her dressing room; Julian feared that Vicky would leave him forever, and the two men contended for Vicky's affection and commitment; Lermontov threatened the very-distressed Vicky: "If you go with him now, I wiIl never take you back. Never!"; Vicky contended that her true desire was to dance and she chose to stay and dance and not leave with Julian; the victorious Lermontov gloated to Vicky: "...from now onwards, you will dance like nobody ever before!"
just before her appearance, the broken-hearted and conflicted Vicky approached the stage from her dressing room in the theatre; her red shoes began to glow and she was compelled to move backwards; she was pulled down numerous sets of stairs to a terrace balcony overlook (of the Monte Carlo hotel) above the railway station - her controlling red ballet slippers had willfully directed her there, and forcefully pulled her off to her death (into the path of an oncoming train on the tracks below)
she tragically died (was it an accident or suicide?), as did the girl in the ballet - paralleling real life with the ballet's plot; the melodramatic tragic death scene was a real-life recreation of the role she had played in the 'Red Shoes' ballet

a white-faced and shaken Lermontov (with a halting voice) delivered a solemn announcement in front of the red curtain, amidst gasps and murmuring: "Ladies and Gentlemen. I am sorry to tell you that Miss Page is unable to dance tonight, nor indeed... any other night. Nevertheless, we've decided to present The Red Shoes . It is the ballet that made her name, whose name she made. We present it because we think she would have wished it"
the film's final images were of the ballet being performed as planned but without her (with a spotlight shining on the floor where she would have been dancing)
the film's final words back at Vicky's death location included a closeup of her bloody legs (and tights) and feet wearing the shoes; she was on a stretcher and requested that Julian remove her red ballet shoes before she expired: "Julian?" "Yes, my darling?" "Take off the red shoes"
the last two striking images were of the 'red shoes' on stage, highlighted in a spotlight at the conclusion of the ballet, and a solitary Lermontov viewing the production from his opera box

| |
| |

Filmsite Home
About & Contact
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use

New Releases
Weekend Classics: Animal Kingdom
Essential Coppola
Made in England: Powell and Pressburger x6
Weekend Classics
Music City Mondays
Midnight Movies
Staff Picks
Film Trivia Night Fundraiser
Screening in 35mm Film
Film Seminars | Discussions | Intros
Rental Events
About the Program
Strong Leads Fall 2024
High School Film Club
Donation Requests
Accessibility
Belcourt Affiliations
The Belcourt Stories Project
Belcourt Membership
Member FAQs
Annual Support
Reel Society
Hillsboro Society
Planned Giving
Donor-Advised Funds (DAF)
Qualified Charitable Donation (QCD)
Matching Gifts
Stock Transfers
Arts Advocacy
Annual Report 2023
History/Mission
Belcourt Values
Belcourt FAQs
Directions and Map
Parking Info
Belcourt Policies
Renting the Belcourt
Press/Media
Employment Opportunities
Board of Directors

THE RED SHOES

Dirs. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Assistive Listening
Hearing Loop

Part of Made In England: Powell and Pressburger x6 and Music City Mondays

Cinema’s quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the most glorious Technicolor feasts ever concocted for the screen. Moira Shearer is a rising star ballerina torn between an idealistic composer and a ruthless impresario intent on perfection. Featuring outstanding performances, blazingly beautiful cinematography by Jack Cardiff, Oscar-winning sets and music, and an unforgettable, hallucinatory central dance sequence, this beloved classic, dazzlingly restored, stands as an enthralling tribute to the life of the artist. ( Synopsis courtesy of Criterion Collection)

Saturday Oct 5

Monday oct 7.

Buy Tickets
Ticket Prices & Box Office Hours
Email Sign-up
Account Sign-in

Saturday, Aug 24

Sunday, aug 25, monday, aug 26.

* Introduction from Lutz Koepnick, Vanderbilt University

Tuesday, Aug 27

* Post-screening discussion with ROWDY GIRL'S Renee King and dir. Jason Goldman

Wednesday, Aug 28

Thursday, aug 29, friday, aug 30.

Education and Engagement

2102 Belcourt Avenue Nashville TN 37212 Main Office: (615) 846-3150 [email protected]

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

Please add me to the mailing list!

Three movies that defined Michael Powell as Britain’s most potent filmmaker

Although he’ll forever be inextricably linked with Emeric Pressburger for their many seminal contributions to celluloid, Michael Powell was more than capable of thriving whenever he flew solo.

Obviously, it’s completely fair for the duo to be remembered best as a cohesive unit when they were responsible for 24 films made between 1939 and 1972, which saw them forge a unique working relationship that no other duo has been able to replicate, never mind duplicate.

Pressburger was the story-minded of the two, but they’d share screenwriting duties after bouncing ideas back and forth. Powell assumed the lion’s share of directorial duties while Pressburger served in a more producorial capacity during shooting, and he was more heavily involved in post-production than his counterpart.

However, they’d share credit, which was fair enough when they were effectively a hive mind. Their idiosyncratic methodology wouldn’t have amounted to much if they weren’t capable of delivering the goods once their movies hit screens, but a back catalogue of all-time greats makes it patently clear there are innumerable very good reasons why Powell and Pressburger are revered the way they are.

Not to downplay Pressburger’s involvement at any level, but as the more visually driven of the two who assumed command of the directing, Powell was largely the brains behind the sumptuous shot composition, arresting frames, and jaw-dropping vistas that populated many of their best works.

An argument can be made that each of them failed to recapture their unified magic when they went their separate ways, even if there is one notable exception in Powell’s case. Nonetheless, he was one of the most important and potent voices to ever grace British cinema, with the following three films offering the definitive assessment of everything he was as an artist.

Three movies that define Michael Powell:

The life and death of colonel blimp (1943).

Gone with the Wind might be the epitome of Hollywood grandeur, but that didn’t mean Britain wasn’t capable of delivering staggering romantic war epics of its own, with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp combining sweeping storytelling with innovative filmmaking to lay down a new marker for the moving image.

Walking a tonal tightrope by interweaving melodrama, romance, warfare, and satire, the movie ruffled feathers at the very top of the food chain . Winston Churchill blocked its release in the United States after The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp dared suggest that fighting with honour may not always be the best way to emerge on the winning side.

Tracing the life of Roger Livesey’s officer Clive Candy, the narrative is powered by his relationships with Anton Walbrook’s former enemy and newfound friend Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff and Deborah Kerr’s nurse Barbara Wynn, with the trio’s trials and tribulations intersecting at various point in time.

A societal snapshot of British life at the height of World War II in one respect, but on a much grander scale, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp sought to cast its eye over the very essence of what it means to be alive in any location during such fractious times; war, love, friendship, family, society, and politics are all placed under a spotlight, one that doesn’t have any issues placing the decision-makers under its satirical glare.

That universality wasn’t lost on Powell, either, who described it as “a 100% British film, but it’s photographed by a Frenchman, it’s written by a Hungarian, the musical score is by a German Jew, the director was English, the man who did the costumes was a Czech; in other words, it was the kind of film that I’ve always worked on with a mixed crew of every nationality, no frontiers of any kind.”

With all of its Technicolor bombast and accomplished performances, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was a maelstrom of moving parts that managed to achieve more than most films of its ilk. It was a feast for the eyes that entertained and engaged, all while critiquing the socio-political landscape to such an extent that the corridors of power were left enraged.

It goes without saying it’s not the easiest balancing act to pull off, but Powell made it look effortless, with the end result a watershed moment for not just British cinema’s grandiosity, but the resonant thematic undercurrents it can carry even in its most populist guise.

The Red Shoes (1948)

When Martin Scorsese celebrates a movie that’s affected him so deeply, he can’t imagine his life without it and still manages to find new complexities no matter how many times he revisits the story, it goes without saying that film is a masterpiece.

He’s hardly alone in espousing the merits of The Red Shoes , either, with everyone from Steven Spielberg to Greta Gerwig falling over themselves to sing the praises of a fantasy drama that took everything everybody loved about Powell and Pressburger and ramped it up to new and even more staggering heights.

There isn’t a single frame in the 134-minute running time that isn’t a work of art unto itself, with The Red Shoes the director’s most ambitious feature by far, but executed with such style, grace, and poise that it comes across as being the easiest thing in the world for Powell to put together from behind the camera.

The recurring motif of the titular footwear embodies the passion and sacrifice of Moira Shearer’s Victoria Page, who finds herself wrestling with a choice that’s archetypal in nature. Obviously, there’s nothing formulaic about The Red Shoes , which takes one of the simplest stories to tell and refits it into one of the most beautiful motion pictures ever made.

Victoria is torn between chasing the dream she’d dedicated her life to achieving or following the chance to be loved in the way she’d always desired. There are going to be consequences either way, with magical realism and hallucinatory imagery evoking the mindset of a protagonist who wants two things but remains completely aware they’re never going to get them both.

The production design, choreography, camerawork, and score all work in perfect harmony to concoct a kaleidoscopic exploration of what it means to be alive and what it could cost to live it that navigates its way through drama, romance, dance, and even lashings of horror to yield a timeless tale like no other.

Peeping Tom (1960)

The initial backlash to Peeping Tom was so vociferous and overwhelming that it ended up doing irreparable damage to Powell’s career, only for the passage of time to gradually place the hybrid of psychological thriller and horror on its deserved pedestal.

The boundary-pushing dive into the seedier side of obsession was reprimanded in Italy for its lurid content and remained banned in Finland until 1981, with British audiences left clutching their pearls at what had become of a director best known for their more classical and palatable works.

While there was more than hint of hyperbole to be found in the reactions, it was cruelly ironic that for the first time in a long time Powell had chosen to use his cinematic voice to test the waters of how far the medium was willing to bend, only to discover that it was so far his reputation ended up in tatters.

It seemed grossly unfair that at around the same time Alfred Hitchcock was being celebrated for Psycho , Powell was fed to the wolves for Peeping Tom when they dealt in many of the same themes and served equal importance in pioneering what would eventually become known as the slasher subgenre.

Carl Boehm’s Mark Lewis is a socially awkward loner who spends his evenings taking voyeuristic photos of scantily-clad women, not to mention his depraved habit of recording the dying reactions of his murder victims for the perverse pleasure of his own snuff film library. Quaint by modern standards, but too shocking for most back then.

A treasure trove for Freudian scholars everywhere, Peeping Tom gained headlines for its graphic nature, but the way Powell incorporates complex reflections on mental fragility, the depths of desire, and the inherent – and innovative – subversion of treating the audience as voyeurs in a movie about voyeurism were swept under the rug in favour of the outrage.

IMAGES

Film Review: The Red Shoes (1948)
Movie Review
The Red Shoes ***** (1948, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer
The Red Shoes (1948)
The Red Shoes (1948)
Film Review: The Red Shoes (1948)

COMMENTS

The Red Shoes movie review & film summary (1948)
In "The Red Shoes," he creates a deliberate enigma, a man who does not want to be understood, who imposes his will but conceals his feelings. Vicky Page is his opposite: Joyous and open to life. Shearer, who was 21 when she was cast, was at the time with the Sadlers' Wells Company, dancing in the shadow of the young Margot Fonteyn.
The Red Shoes
In this classic drama, Vicky Page (Moira Shearer) is an aspiring ballerina torn between her dedication to dance and her desire to love. While her imperious instructor, Boris Lermontov (Anton ...
The Red Shoes (1948 film)
The Red Shoes is a 1948 British drama film written, directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. [4] It follows Victoria Page (Moira Shearer), an aspiring ballerina who joins the world-renowned Ballet Lermontov, owned and operated by Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), who tests her dedication to the ballet by making her choose between her career and her romance with composer ...
The Red Shoes (1948)
The Red Shoes: Directed by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger. With Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann. A young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.
The Red Shoes
The Red Shoes (1948, UK) is a beautiful and sensitive post-war film - the 10th collaboration from the masterful and respected British directing/producing team of Michael Powell and Emeric ...
The Red Shoes (1948)
The Red Shoes (1948) was co-written and co-directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It's based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. (I've read the fairy tale, and the plot of the movie does follow it, more or less.) Anton Walbrook stars as Boris Lermontov, the director of a world-famous dance company.
The Red Shoes at 70
By Pamela Hutchinson. Features. 1. It's a spectacular rejection of realism. The Red Shoes (1948) followed a tremendous run of films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Between 1943 and 1947, they made 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.
The Red Shoes (1948)
The "Red Shoes" Sketches, a 1948 animated film of Hein Heckroth's painted storyboards, with the Red Shoes ballet as an alternate angle. Trailer. English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. PLUS: An essay by critic David Ehrenstein and notes on the restoration by film preservationist Robert Gitt. Cover by F. Ron Miller.
The Red Shoes: original 1948 Telegraph film review
The Red Shoes (1948). Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and starring Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring and Moira Shearer. Credit: Photo: Granada International / Rex Features
The Red Shoes (1948) Movie Review from Eye for Film
In 1948, Emeric Pressburger updated it to produce one of the most important and powerful films of the era, and now that film has been digitally remastered for a new audience. It's as compelling as it ever was. Moira Shearer is Vicky, the ambitious young ballerina determined to make a name for herself. Anton Walbrook is Boris Lermentov, owner of ...
The Red Shoes (1948)
The Red Shoes, the singular fantasia from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Black Narcissus, The Small Back Room), is cinema's quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the most ...
The Red Shoes (1948)
Review by Bruce Eder. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 film The Red Shoes was, for nearly four decades, the most successful British movie ever released in America. Movies had used ballet as a subject before -- including a pair of Hollywood bombs, Spectre of the Rose, which had the virtue of being bizarre and humorous, and The ...
The Red Shoes movie review & film summary (1948)
"The Red Shoes" was made in 1948 by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, British filmmakers as respected as Hitchcock, Reed or Lean. Powell was the director and Pressburger, a Hungarian immigrant, was the writer, but they always took a double credit as writer-directors, and were known as The Archers; their logo was an arrow ...
Rick's Cafe Texan: The Red Shoes (1948): A Review (Review #1300)
The Red Shoes (1948): A Review (Review #1300) Few fantasy films have been as admired and respected as The Red Shoes. Based on reputation alone I opted to buy the Blu-ray sight unseen. The Red Shoes simply blew me away, a visually overwhelming spectacle that is also an allegory on the struggle between the personal and professional lives.
The Red Shoes Review :: Criterion Forum
Picture 9/10. The Criterion Collection releases yet another edition for Michael Powell's and Emeric Pressburger's classic The Red Shoes, this time in 4K on a triple-layer UHD disc.Making use of the same 2009 restoration that was also the source for Criterion's previous high-definition version (and sourced from the original 3-strip Technicolor negatives) the film is delivered here in its ...
'The Red Shoes' 4K UHD Review: The Criterion Collection
The Red Shoes is one such film. To look at it today is to marvel at the full potential of the three-strip Technicolor process. In the hands of directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and cinematographer Jack Cardiff, this adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's story pops with reds, blues, and greens more vivid than life itself.
The Red Shoes (1948)
Find trailers, reviews, synopsis, awards and cast information for The Red Shoes (1948) ... The Red Shoes is a 1948 British film about a ballet dancer, written, directed and produced by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known collectively as The Archers. The film employs the story within a story device, being about a young ...
THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; 'The Red Shoes,' a British Film About the Ballet
See the article in its original context from October 23, 1948, Page 0 Buy Reprints. ... THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; 'The Red Shoes,' a British Film About the Ballet, Stars Moira Shearer at Bijou.
The Red Shoes (1948)
The Red Shoes (1948) The Red Shoes (1948, UK) is a beautiful and sensitive post-war film - the 10th collaboration from the masterful and respected British directing/producing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (who also scripted the original screenplay), who called themselves The Archers. The creative team had made other films in the ...
Film Review: The Red Shoes (1948)
The film's highlight is the fourteen-minute ballet of The Red Shoes choreographed by Australian Ballet Company director Sir Robert Helpmann, who also dances in The Red Shoes - Helpmann appeared in a couple of dozen films, including the original version of Patrick (1978), and in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) as the sinister Child Catcher ...
'The Red Shoes' Remains A Haunting Masterpiece about the ...
The best movie I've watched all summer long was made in 1948. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes is a hypnotic dead drop into the psyche of an ambitious ballerina who is ...
The Red Shoes (1948)
In this classic drama, Vicky Page is an aspiring ballerina torn between her dedication to dance and her desire to love. While her imperious instructor, Boris Lermontov, urges to her to forget anything but ballet, Vicky begins to fall for the charming young composer Julian Craster. Eventually Vicky, under great emotional stress, must choose to pursue either her art or her romance, a decision ...
The Red Shoes (1948)
Screenshots. The Red Shoes (1948, UK) In Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's sensitive, surrealistic fairytale masterpiece - the best ballet film ever made - with magnificent and beautiful Technicolor cinematography - was taken from Hans Christian Andersen's tragic fairy tale of the same name, about a ballerina who wore an enchanted pair of ...
THE RED SHOES
Part of Made In England: Powell and Pressburger x6 and Music City Mondays Cinema's quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the most glorious Technicolor feasts ever concocted for the screen. Moira Shearer is a rising star ballerina torn between an idealistic composer and a ruthless impresario intent on perfection. Featuring outstanding performances, blazingly […]
Three movies that defined Michael Powell
The Red Shoes (1948) When Martin Scorsese celebrates a movie that's affected him so deeply, he can't imagine his life without it and still manages to find new complexities no matter how many times he revisits the story, it goes without saying that film is a masterpiece.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

The Red Shoes Reviews

The Red Shoes (1948)

Did You Know?

Photo & Video

Related Items

Recently Viewed

5 things to know about The Red Shoes, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s ravishing film about a dancer

1. It’s a spectacular rejection of realism

Get the latest from the BFI

2. It’s a dance film made by dancers

3. It’s inspired by one star… and created another

4. It’s about the agony of artistic expression

5. From Scorsese to La La Land, its influence lives on

Stream landmark cinema

The Red Shoes

4K UHD + Blu-ray Special Edition Features

Purchase Options

Related Films

Three Reasons: The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes: Dancing for Your Life

Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s Top 10

Ari Aster’s Top 10

Sloane Crosley’s Top 10

Is The Red Shoes a Film Noir?

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

More Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger View All

Eye For Film >> Movies >> The Red Shoes (1948) Film Review

Movie Reviews

Roger Ebert

Now playing

Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam

Rebel Moon: Director's Cuts

Running on Empty

Mothers' Instinct

My Spy The Eternal City

Blink Twice

The Red Shoes (1948)

Latest blog posts

13 Films Illuminate Locarno Film Festival's Columbia Pictures Retrospective

Apple TV+'s Pachinko Expands Its Narrative Palate For An Emotional Season Two

Tina Mabry and Edward Kelsey Moore on the Joy and Uplift of The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

The Adams Family Gets Goopy in Hell Hole

Rick's Cafe Texan

Monday, November 11, 2019

No comments:

The Red Shoes

Picture 9/10

Extras 8/10

You Might Like

The Red Shoes (Blu-ray)

The Red Shoes (DVD)

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Blu-ray)

Suggestions

Image/Sound

You might be interested in

Interview: Thelma Schoonmaker and David Hinton on ‘Made in England’ and the Archers’ Legacy

‘Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger’ Review: To the Archers, with Love

4K UHD Blu-ray Review: Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom on the Criterion Collection

Christian Blauvelt

Eric Henderson

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Review: John Woo’s 1993 Actioner Hard Target on KL Studio Classics Blu-ray

Review: Albert and Allen Hughes’s Menace II Society on Criterion 4K UHD

The Red Shoes (1948)

Description by Wikipedia

Official Site

Alternate Titles

THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; 'The Red Shoes,' a British Film About the Ballet, Stars Moira Shearer at Bijou

Horror News | HNN Official Site | Horror Movies,Trailers, Reviews

Related Articles

Film Review: Patrick (1978)

Film Review: Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)

Film Review: The Thief Of Bagdad (1940)

More From Decider

New Shows & Movies To Watch This Weekend: 'Pachinko' on Apple TV+ and...

'Unfinished Beef': Netflix Reveals Hosts For Labor Day Hot Dog Showdown...

Andy Cohen Asks Brandi Glanville To Watch Him And Kate Chastain Have Sex...