The Red Shoes

Starring: Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, et al.

A ballerina with magical, cursed shoes loves a composer but dances for an impresario. Directed by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger.

• Format: Blu-ray
• Language: English
• UPC: 715515059312
• Release Date: March 2010
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Publisher: Criterion Collection
• Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
• Starring: Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Robert Helpmann, Leonide Massine, Albert Basserman, Ludmilla Tcherina, Esmond Knight
• Runtime: 2 hours, 13 minutes
• Number of Disks: 1
• Other Video Info: blu_ray
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.4" x 7.5" x 0.7"

Customer Reviews

A perfect red.

The Russian ballet has come to town, and due to circumstances, a student, Julian Craster (Marius Goring), becomes a brilliant composer. An orphan, Victoria Page (Moira Shearer), protected by a patron of the arts, has an opportunity to become a great dancer. Neither the composer nor the dancer wants anything more. Together under the direction of the company owner Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), they create the perfect ballet “The Red Shoes”. The story of the ballet is based on a story by Hans Christian Anderson. It is about a girl infatuated with a pair of red dancing shoes. She places them on her feet. Moreover, begins dancing. When she tries to stop, the shoes insist on dancing forever and do so through time until her demise. You will find that there is more depth to the story than just a real-life reflection of Anderson’s story. The only requirement of the company owner is that everyone focuses on their career and does not fall in love. When the ballerina and the composer do just that, it raises the ire of the company owner. He forms a scheme to what end? This film is an Archer film and holds to the quality and entertainment value. I suggest you watch the Criterion version. There is a 1994 voice-over commentary by film historian Ian Christie with interviews with Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Cardiff, Brian Teasdale, and Martin Scorsese. There is also a voice-over of the reading of the Powell and Pressburger novelization of “The Red Shoes”. The Criterion version did not clean up all the film scratches. If this hits Blu-ray, I hope they will leave in all the Criterion extras but clean up the scratches.