Revisiting The Red Shoes

Moira Shearer as Vicky Page.

Black Narcissus is my favorite Michael Powell-Emeric Pressberger film--and I also think it's their masterpiece. But most critics and fans confer that "masterpiece" title on the duo's The Red Shoes (1948). I watched it many years ago, but, honestly, it didn't leave a significant impression. However, after recently viewing Made in England, an excellent documentary about Powell and Pressberger--and listening to Martin Scorsese gush about The Red Shoes' influence--I decided to give it another try.

For those who have not seen it, the plot revolves around three characters: ballet company impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), ballerina Vicky Page (Moira Shearer), and composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring). Each is dedicated to the musical arts, but to varying degrees. 

Anton Walbrook as Lermontov.

Lermontov lives for his ballet company--its employees are his family. When his star ballerina joyously announces her engagement to the company, Lermontov disappears into the wings of the theater. He is already deciding who will replace her. His preference for the ballet company over the people that comprise it earns him disdain at times. One colleague refers to him as a "gifted, cruel monster."

Julian is dedicated to his music. He wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about it and rushes to the piano to transcribe it. However, Julian can balance his profession and his personal life, especially after he falls in love with Vicky.

Vicky is torn between her need to dance and her love for Julian. Like Lermontov, she is obsessed with ballet and cannot live without it. Yet, she loves Julian passionately and cannot envision a life without him. When circumstances prevent her from dancing for Lermontov's company and being with Julian, Vicky confronts an existence that's burning from both ends.

While the characters portray the conflict between art and "real life," director Michael Powell visualizes it for the audience. The centerpiece of The Red Shoes is an audacious original ballet that literally pulls the viewer from the audience into an imaginary world. Powell opens the scene showing the curtains drawing back to reveal a solitary dancer, a shoe cobbler holding red ballet slippers, on the stage. Then, he cuts to a shot of the village that crops out the framing of the stage. The viewer is now on the stage with the performers and immersed into their world. 

Vicky dancing with a newspaper man.

Over the next fifteen minutes, the ballet is presented as an almost surrealistic film, recounting Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of The Red Shoes. It's a colorful, energetic, sometimes visually frightening display of artistry, with Moira Shearer gliding past sheets of gel, floating through the air, and dancing with a man made of newspapers. The ballet ends with the protagonist's death and the shoe cobbler with the red slippers on the stage alone as the curtains draw to a close.

The controlling ballet shoes.

Powell and Pressberger merge their "real" and fantasy worlds in the climax to The Red Shoes. When Vicky appears to choose her career over love, Julian storms out of her dressing room. As Vicky walks toward the stage, her red ballet shoes seemingly take on a life of their own--forcing her to run out of the theater and toward a moving train. (It's no surprise that a train features prominently in this sequence, since Powell foreshadows its importance by integrating it into numerous scenes earlier in the film.)

Anton Walbrook is the standout among the cast. In his third Powell-Pressberger film, Walbrook gets a chance to portray a complex character that straddles the line between supportive and manipulative. Lermontov is an unforgiving taskmaster, but he recognizes artistic brilliance and supports it. When Vicky wants to leave the ballet company to be with Julian, Lermontov releases her from her contract. But when given a chance to see her again, he pressures her to come back into the fold. He wants to be gracious, but ultimately he must do what he feels is right for the ballet company.

Do I now rank The Red Shoes over Black Narcissus? No, the latter is still my favorite Powell & Pressberger film. But I am glad I watched The Red Shoes again. I have grown to admire its dazzling  colorful imagery, Powell's bold directing, and the film's exploration of the thin line between real world and the fantasy world created through visual and aural artistry.

Powell and Pressberger's One of Our Aircraft Is Missing

I suspect that The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, and Black Narcissus are the films that spring to mind when most movie buffs think of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger. However, the filmmaking duo explored the theme of war more than any other. It's present--either directly or indirectly--in 49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Contraband, and A Canterbury Tale. However, their most prominent war film was One of Our Aircraft is Missing.

It was produced in 1942 under the auspices of Great Britain's Ministry of Information, with the goal of boosting the country's morale during World War II. It also marked the fourth collaboration for Powell and Pressberger and, notably, their first one in which their producing, directing, and writing credits were billed collectively as The Archers.

One of Our Aircraft Is Missing begins with an empty airplane plunging into power lines and then backtracks to 15 hours before the crash. In almost documentary-like fashion, we're introduced to the plane's crew as it prepares for its next--apparently routine--mission. Personally, I struggled with differentiating the characters during these early scenes since I was unfamiliar with many of the British actors. As a result, the first 26 minutes were a bit of a slog.

However, the film takes off once the crew parachutes from its damaged plane into occupied Dutch territory. To their surprise, the British fliers are discovered by children that lead them to a resistance group willing to smuggle the entire crew out of Nazi-occupied Netherlands. The escape comprises the rest of the 139-minute running time, with suspenseful sequences alternating with pithy conversations among the Brits, the Dutch Resistance, and the Nazis.

Googie Withers as a spy.

Powell and Pressberger specialized in creating strong parts for their leading ladies, as evidenced by Black Narcissus, I Know Where I'm Going, The Red Shoes, and others. You can add One of Our Aircraft Is Missing to that list. Pamela Brown shines as a member of the Dutch Resistance, especially in her first scene where she subtly interrogates the Brits to ensure they are not Germans in disguise. Later in the film, the crew is aided by an entrepreneur (Googie Withers) who plays a dangerous game: She conducts routine business with the Nazis while she hides the British fliers in her quarters and plans the final phase of their escape. These tough, dedicated women are the true heroes of One of Our Aircraft Is Missing.

Geoffrey Tearle is probably the best-remembered of the male leads, having portrayed a villain in Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935). He later appeared in Mandy (1952), a critically-acclaimed film about a young deaf girl, and the Ealing comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953). Of course, the most famous actor in One of Our Aircraft Is Missing has only a small supporting part. That would be Peter Ustinov, who looks so young as to almost be unrecognizable as a priest.

Powell uses lighting to simulate shells
exploding in mid-air outside the plane.

The crisp black-and-white photography suits the film--which is saying a lot since Michael Powell later revolutionized the use of color in Black Narcissus. The film opens with a pre-title sequence, which was unusual for the 1940s. It also contains no music, emphasizing natural sound to great effect.

One of Our Aircraft Is Missing earned Academy Award nominations for special effects and the screenplay by Powell and Pressberger. Amazingly, it was Michael Powell's only Oscar nomination. Emeric Pressberger won an Oscar for his 49th Parallel screenplay and received another writing nomination for The Red Shoes in 1948.

The man who edited One of Our Aircraft Is Missing didn't receive any recognition for his work. Still, he had a pretty good career in the cinema. His name was David Lean.

I Know Where I’m Going! (1945)

The Archers, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, collaborated on eighteen films over a thirty year period (1939-72).  While their first true “Archer” production (where they share writing, directing and producing credit) didn’t come until 1943 with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, they had previously worked on four films together.  Usually, it was Powell who did the bulk of the directing and Pressburger who came up with the story ideas and handled most of the production chores (especially when it came to editing and music incorporation). Some of their endeavors are quite memorable, like Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948), while others are easily forgotten, such as The Battle of the River Plate (1956) and Ill Met By Moonlight (1957).  Somewhere in-between their masterpieces and their flops is located I Know Where I’m Going! (1945), which stars Wendy Hiller as a young woman who’d rather marry for money than love.

Manchesterian Joan Webster (Hiller) is supposed to marry wealthy industrialist Sir Robert Bellinger (Norman Shelley’s voice—he’s never seen) on the Isle of Kiloran, but the weather (or fate) in the Scottish Hebrides has other plans.  For some reason I’ve never really liked Hiller. I don’t know exactly why, but I think it’s her voice—it just rubs me the wrong way. Still, she was a decent actress who was nominated for three Oscars (she won one for Separate Tables [1958]) and she worked in the industry for nearly sixty years.  In I Know Where I’m Going! she does a nice job of portraying her character’s steely determination to not be sabotaged by love (and an island full of eccentric Scots).  However, I like her much more in the beginning of the film when she is calling her bank managing father “Darling” (George Carney) than I do when she is risking poor Kenny’s (Murdo Morrison) life to get across to Kiloran.

Roger Livesey (an Archer veteran) gives his usual steady performance as Torquil MacNeil (what a name!). A kilt-wearing naval officer, Torquil is the broke Laird of Kiloran (FYI a laird is one step below a baron) and the owner of the Isle of Kiloran.  He sees in Joan a woman he would like to tame, but unlike Petruchio, he attempts to do it with kindness and patience. Too bad his childhood friend Catriona (Pamela Brown) is married, because she is much prettier and, more importantly, way more interesting than Joan.  It just grates on my nerves when the supporting actress is more enjoyable than the lead actress (see Kristen Scott Thomas and Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral [1994]).  In addition to Livesey and Brown’s nice acting turns, Captain C.W.R. Knight is a hoot as Colonel Barnstaple, a falconer with a delightful sense of style.

What I think sets this movie apart from a number of others during this period is it’s cinematography. This was most probably cinematographer Erwin Hillier’s best work over his thirty year career.  It is said the he didn’t use a light meter at all, which must have made his task more difficult than usual, especially when you consider the weather conditions.  There are many long distance shots that capture the overall majesty of the Scottish shoreline.  As someone who has spent time in the Scottish towns of Carnoustie and Killin it was a reminder of just how beautiful the land of Scots can be.  Hillier also used a hand-held camera to capture some of the close-up shots—most notably the ones of the boat struggling against the Corryvreckan whirlpool.  Interestingly enough, what most people don’t know is that Livesey never once set foot in Scotland for any of the location shots because he was doing a play in London at the time they were shot. 

Overall, I Know Where I’m Going! is a somewhat enjoyable light romantic comedy.  Other than some very fine photography, there is not much else that stands out.  Still, it was nice to learn a little bit about Scottish customs, and the bagpipes weren’t played so much that I  wanted to hit mute too often, either.