The Red Shoes — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Plot

London music student Julian Craster attends a performance of the ballet Heart of Fire, performed by the eminent travelling ballet company Ballet Lermontov and scored by his professor. Also present are young dancer Victoria 'Vicky' Page and her aunt Lady Neston. Julian furiously walks out after recognising that the professor has plagiarised his compositions.

Lady Neston hosts an after-party in honour of the Ballet Lermontov's impresario, Boris Lermontov. After Vicky tells Boris that dancing is the most important thing in her life, Boris invites her to spend time with his ballet before it leaves for Paris. He hires Vicky full-time after watching her dance the lead in Swan Lake with Ballet Rambert at the Mercury Theatre.

Julian angrily writes a letter to Boris exposing his professor's misconduct. He has a change of heart and visits Boris to take the letter back, but Boris has already read it and is sympathetic. Boris hires Julian as a répétiteur and assistant to the company's conductor. He soon grows impressed with Julian's artistic ambition.

In Paris, Ballet Lermontov's principal dancer Irina Boronskaya is required to leave the company upon getting married, per company policy. Although Boris's official rationale is that love distracts from artistic excellence, the film also reveals that he takes his coworkers' emotional lives (which he lacks) as a personal slight, due to his jealousy of their happiness.

The company proceeds to Monaco. In Irina's absence, Boris casts Vicky as the lead in a new ballet, The Ballet of the Red Shoes (based on the Andersen fairytale), and hires Julian to score it. In the ballet, a dancer acquires a pair of red ballet shoes which enable her to dance with superhuman skill, but at a price: she can never stop dancing until she dies. During rehearsals, Julian and Vicky's ambition and pride lead them to clash at first—to Boris's glee. However, they develop respect for each other as artists.

The Ballet of the Red Shoes is a resounding success. Boris revitalises the company's repertoire with Vicky as the prima ballerina and Julian as the star composer. In the meantime, Vicky and Julian fall in love. Although Boris is not romantically attracted to Vicky, he is emotionally possessive of his new star. He tries to break up the relationship by telling them that their work is getting worse, but it is implied that he is projecting his own insecurities onto the relationship, as Boris's choreographer is full of praise for Julian. Boris gives Julian an ultimatum to break up with Vicky or leave the company. Julian and Vicky move back to London together and get married. Boris breaks his no-marriage rule to rehire Irina, but cannot mentally let go of Vicky.

In London, Vicky and Julian's careers go in different directions. Julian writes an opera that is set to open in Covent Garden, while Vicky's ballet career stalls. Vicky goes on holiday to Cannes without Julian, who is focused on his work. Boris meets her there. He reminds Vicky that she is the one making all the sacrifices in her marriage, and persuades her to "put on the red shoes again".

Coincidentally, the opening night of Julian's opera in London falls on the same date as Vicky's comeback performance in Monaco. Although Julian is supposed to conduct on opening night, he abruptly leaves for Monaco as a grand gesture for Vicky. In return, he insists that Vicky cancel her performance and leave Monaco and Boris immediately. After Julian and Boris have a heated argument about the value of art versus love, an anguished Vicky chooses to stay with Ballet Lermontov.

An attendant escorts Vicky to the stage. She is wearing the red shoes, and looks faint. She suddenly runs off and jumps in front of an oncoming train, paralleling her ill-fated character in the ballet. Julian tries to save her, but cannot. As Vicky dies, she asks Julian to remove the red shoes.

A shaken Boris announces to the audience that "Miss Page is unable to dance tonight—nor indeed any other night". The company performs The Ballet of the Red Shoes with a spotlight on the empty space where Vicky would have been.

Screenplay

Producer Alexander Korda had conceived a ballet-themed film in 1934, which he intended to be a biopic about Vaslav Nijinsky. The project never came to fruition, but in 1937, Korda found himself again inspired to write a ballet-themed film as a vehicle for Merle Oberon, his future wife. Korda, along with filmmaker Michael Powell, fashioned a film based on Oberon's looks, but, because she was not a skilled dancer, Korda knew he would need to use a double for any dance sequences. Korda eventually abandoned the project, instead shifting his focus to The Thief of Bagdad (1940).

In 1946, Powell and his filmmaking partner Emeric Pressburger bought the rights to the screenplay Powell had co-written with Korda for £9,000. According to Powell, the original screenplay contained significantly more dialogue and less story.

The character of Boris Lermontov was inspired in part by Sergei Diaghilev, the impresario who founded the Ballets Russes, although there are also aspects about him drawn from the personalities of producer J. Arthur Rank and even director Powell himself. The particular episode in Diaghilev's life that is said to have inspired the characterisation is his seeing the 14-year-old Diana Gould partnering Frederick Ashton in the première of his first ballet, Leda and the Swan. On the basis of this, Diaghilev invited her to join his company, but he died before that plan could come about.

The Hans Christian Andersen story tells how the orphan Karen's colour blind guardian buys her an inappropriate pair of red shoes for her church confirmation ceremony, but, when the mistake is discovered, forbids her to wear them. She disobeys. A crippled "old soldier" at the church door tells Karen they are dancing shoes. Later, she wears them to a ball, and cannot stop dancing. She dances day and night until an executioner, at her request, amputates her feet; the shoes dance away with them. She lives with a parson's family after that, and she dies with a vision of finally being able to join the Sunday congregation. In this story, the shoes represent "her sin", the vanity and worldly pleasures which distracted her from a life of generosity, piety, and community.

The ballet has three characters: the Girl, the Boy and the Shoemaker. The Boy, danced by Robert Helpmann, is at first the girl's boyfriend; as she dances, he turns into a sketch on transparent cellophane. Later he appears as the living counterpart of the Press, with "Le Jour" written on his forehead ("The Daily") and an alter ego made of folded newspapers, then as the prince in a triumphant Pas de deux/six. Finally, the Boy appears as the village parson; when he unties the red shoes, the girl dies in his arms. The Shoemaker, danced by Léonide Massine, is a diabolical figure far beyond the scope of the "old soldier". Always dancing, he tempts the girl with the shoes, installs them by "movie magic" on her feet, partners her briefly, and generally gloats over her confusion and despair. At one point he leads a mob of "primitive" monsters who surround her, but they elevate her high in a triumphant ballerina pose. At the end, the shoemaker picks up the discarded shoes and offers them to the audience. In the context of the movie, the shoes represent the choice offered by Lermontov to become a great dancer, at the expense of normal human relationships.

Casting

Powell and Pressburger decided early on that they had to use dancers who could act rather than actors who could dance. To create a realistic feeling of a ballet company at work, and to be able to include a fifteen-minute ballet as the high point of the film, they created their own ballet company using many dancers from The Royal Ballet.

In casting the lead role of Victoria Page, Powell and Pressburger sought an experienced dancer who could also act. Scottish ballerina Moira Shearer was recommended by Robert Helpmann, who had been cast in the film as Ivan Boleslawsky, and was also appointed the choreographer of the central ballet sequence; Helpmann had worked with Shearer prior in a production of his ballet Miracle in the Gorbals. At the time, Shearer was beginning to ascend in her career with the Sadler's Wells Dance Company, dancing under Ninette de Valois. Upon reading the screenplay, Shearer declined the offer, as she felt taking a film role would negatively impact her dancing career. She also felt that the screenplay presented a ballet company that was unrealistic, "utterly unlike any ballet company that there had ever been anywhere." She recalled: "Red Shoes was the last thing I wanted to do. I fought for a year to get away from that film, and I couldn't shake the director off."

After Shearer's refusal of the role, American ballerinas Nana Gollner and Edwina Seaver tested for the part, but their acting abilities proved unsatisfactory to Powell and Pressburger. Non-dancers Hazel Court and Ann Todd were briefly considered before Shearer changed her mind, and decided to accept the role with de Valois's blessing. Shearer claimed that de Valois, exasperated by the ordeal, finally advised her to take the role. Powell alternatively recounted that de Valois was "more manipulative" in the process, and would vacillate in regard to whether or not Shearer would have a place in the company to return to once filming was completed, accounting for Shearer's alleged protracted contemplation of whether to take the part.

For the role of Julian Craster, the musician with whom Victoria falls in love, Marius Goring was cast. While Goring—at the time in his mid-30s—was slightly too old to play the role, Powell and Pressburger were impressed by his "tact and unselfish approach to his craft." They cast Anton Walbrook in the part of Victoria's domineering ballet director, Boris Lermontov, for similar reasons, as they felt he was a "well-mannered and sensitive actor" who could support Shearer through their emotional scenes together.

The other principal dancers cast in the film included Léonide Massine (who also served as a choreographer for his role as the shoemaker in The Ballet of the Red Shoes), portraying dancer Grischa Ljubov, and Ludmilla Tchérina as dancer Irina Boronskaya; the latter was cast by Powell, who was captivated by her unconventional beauty.

Critical response

Film scholar Mark Connelly notes that interpreting the contemporaneous critical response to The Red Shoes is a "complicated task, as there are no simple divisions between those who liked the film and those who did not." Connelly concludes that the reaction was notably "complex and mixed." Adrienne McLean similarly states that the film received "only mixed" reviews from both cinema and ballet critics. Upon its release in the United Kingdom, the film received some criticism from the national press, particularly aimed at Powell and Pressburger for the perception that the feature was "undisciplined and downright un-British." Film historian Jerry Vermilye summarised the film's reception in its home country as "indifferent".

While the film had its detractors in Britain, it was lauded by some national critics, such as Dilys Powell, who deemed it an "extreme pleasure" and "brilliantly experimental." Writing for The Monthly Film Bulletin, Marion Eames praised the performances of Shearer and Goring, as well as the score. The Daily Film Renter published a divisive review, noting that Powell and Pressburger "have fumbled over a fine idea, and their opulent work trembles between the heights and the depths". Despite this, it was voted the third-best film of the year in a readers' poll by the Daily Mail, behind Spring in Park Lane and Oliver Twist.

Initial reception proved more favourable in the United States, where the film went on to garner mainstream attention after it began screening in the US arthouse circuit. The film was also well-received in Japan. Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times lauded the film, writing that Powell and Pressburger take a "skeletal frame and clothe it in glowing flesh; then accouter this in shining garments. When they have finished one sees much more than the figure of a ballerina; one is gazing upon the whole milieu, an unfolding world of the ballet—onstage, offstage, backstage". Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the performances of Shearer, Helpmann, and Massine, and summarized: "There has never been a picture in which the ballet and its special, magic world have been so beautifully and dreamily presented". Herbert L. Larson of The Oregonian praised the film's accessibility to audiences unfamiliar with the art and technical aspects of ballet, writing that the filmmakers and performers "have woven much of human nature into this brilliant film".

A main point of contention amongst both British and American critics was a perceived lack of realism concerning the ballet sequences. The focus of this criticism was the film's central 17-minute ballet performance of The Ballet of the Red Shoes: Many dance critics felt the sequence's impressionistic touches—which include abstract hallucinations and visual manifestations of Vicky's mental state—detracted from the physical aspects of the ballet. British ballet critic Kathrine Sorley Walker also dismissed the sequence, commenting that it marked "a departure from the illusion of stage ballet to the limitless and lush spaces reflecting the ballerina's thought." Eames made similar criticism, condemning the subjective elements of the sequence as "corrupting the integrity of the ballet," as well as the choreography. Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times, however, praised the presentation of ballet in the film, deeming it "the most ambitious—and probably the most dazzlingly successful—use of traditional-type ballet in any motion picture to date."

Works inspired by the film

The 1952 film The Firebird, directed by Hasse Ekman, is largely an homage to The Red Shoes.

In the 1975 Broadway musical A Chorus Line and its 1985 film adaptation, several of the characters speak of The Red Shoes inspiring their decision to become dancers.

Kate Bush's 1993 album The Red Shoes and its title track were inspired by the film. The music was subsequently used in The Line, the Cross and the Curve (1993) a film referencing The Red Shoes written and directed by Bush. It stars Miranda Richardson and Lindsay Kemp.

The film was adapted by Jule Styne (music) and Marsha Norman (book and lyrics) into a Broadway musical, which was directed by Stanley Donen. The Red Shoes opened on 16 December 1993 at the Gershwin Theatre, with Steve Barton playing Boris Lermontov, Margaret Illmann playing Victoria Page, and Hugh Panaro playing Julian Craster. The choreography by Lar Lubovitch received the TDF's Astaire Award, but the musical closed after 51 previews and only five performances.

In 1996, St Martin's Press published The Red Shoes, a novel written by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

In 2005, Ballet Ireland produced Diaghilev and the Red Shoes, a tribute to Sergei Diaghilev, the ballet impresario who founded Ballets Russes. consisting of excerpts from works made famous by that seminal company. An excerpt from The Red Shoes ballet was included, since Diaghilev was one inspiration for the character of Lermontov.

In 2013, Korean singer-songwriter IU released the album Modern Times, which featured the lead single "The Red Shoes", whose lyrics were inspired by the fairy tale, and whose music video was adapted from the film.

The film was adapted as a ballet choreographed by Matthew Bourne and premiered in December 2016 in London. The production used music adapted from film scores by Bernard Herrmann, including themes from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) and Vertigo (1958), in place of Brian Easdale's Oscar-winning score from the 1948 film.

In 2022, the award-winning short film Òran na h-Eala vividly explored Moira Shearer's heart and mind just before and after she agreed to star in The Red Shoes, a decision that would change her life forever. The film unfolds as a string of dreamlike sequences while Moira sits at a dressing room mirror, reflecting on her career choices.

The Red Shoes

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