Stars: Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Robert Helpmann, Leonide Massine, Albert Bassermann, Esmond Knight, Ludmilla Tcherina

Director: Michael Powell

Summary: Hans Andersen's famous tale of the girl whose shoes danced away with her and would not stop. A landmark film which combines drama with interpretative dance. Includes a documentary.

This seminal dance film, created Powell and Pressburger, in which an impresario takes a ballerina under his wing, deftly combines interpretive dance with drama. This acclaimed adaption of a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale results in a marked triumph of artistic collaboration and modernity. More than any other film, THE RED SHOES deals with the dangerous, magical process by which art is distilled from preparation and effort.

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Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's most celebrated Technicolor fairy-tale, The Red Shoesis both metaphor and melodrama of unparalleled boldness. So extravagantly theatrical a movie was regarded as simply unreleasable by the Rank Organisation back in 1948, but in spite of their attempted suppression it has long since been acknowledged as one of British cinema's landmark achievements. Not only were Powell and Pressburger unorthodox enough to populate the cast with real ballet dancers (including the radiant Moira Shearer in the pivotal role), they built the whole film around an extraordinarily daring 17-minute ballet sequence in which the camera moves from outside the proscenium arch into a subjective whirl of impressionistic images inspired and informed by Brian Easdale's marvellous score. Only after seeing this, so the story goes, was Gene Kelly able to see how he could make An American in Paris.

The melodramatic plot, metaphorically acted out in the "Red Shoes Ballet" then re-enacted for real by the main characters, presents Great Art as something worth dying for, and, in the person of Anton Walbrook's Lermontov, gives us a portrait of the artist as a man for whom anything and everything is worth sacrificing in its pursuit. Loosely based on Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, Walbrook's magnetic central performance is of sufficient stature to conceal the rather trite predicament of his ballerina protégée, and the film's contrived, over-the-top tragic ending.

On the DVD:Sadly for a film in which music is such a central element, the advertised digital remastering doesn't seem to have extended to the mono soundtrack, which shows its age quite badly. The colour print, however, looks very vibrant. This special edition also includes a new 25-minute "making-of" feature with a few comments from crew members (or their relatives) and admirers of the film, including ballerina Darcey Bussell. "The Ballet of the Red Shoes" can be seen on its own in a separate featurette, and there are text biographies and a trailer.--Mark Walker

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Anniversary Special Edition, Profile of THE RED SHOES, The Ballet of THE RED SHOES , Cannes Film Festival 2009: Introduction by Martin Scorsese and Interview with Thelma Schoonmaker, Theatrical Trailer, Photo Galleries: Behind the scenes Gallery and Production
Year:	1948
Release Date:	July 6, 2009
Runtime:	128 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	3711531983
Keywords:	Plus, Shoes, Red, General, Documentary, Drama
Genre:	Drama