The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes 1948

• Director: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
• Based on the tale by Hans Christian Andersen
• Cast: Moira Shearer, Marius Goring, Anton Walbrook
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in: none of them
• Why?  A classic
• Seen:  2 August 2019

 The great Lermantov (Walbrook) takes on prodigies Victoria Page (Shearer), a dancer, and Julian Cranston (Goring), a composer, and offers them The Red Shoes, a ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of the girl who loved dancing until she donned the red shoes and was force to keep dancing until she died.

Glamour is blended with backstage sweaty hard work, romance with professional devotion and youthful enthusiasm.

Some of the scenes are stunning and the Red Shoes ballet is dramatic and colourful. The story is rather banal – though tragic in its counterparts in real life. Love or career. Can’t be both. Art or love. Can’t be both. However, the conflict in the persons of Page, Cranstan and Lermatov is moving at times.

A lot of it is boring though and the ending doesn’t sit well with me. It didn’t the first time either. As beautiful and admirable as this film is, I don’t really like it.

3 * of 5 (Hal gives it 4, maybe 5)